While President Donald Trump has subjected us all to no small number of outrages and embarrassments, few people will ever forget his shambolic and stooge-like performance on July 16, 2018 in Helsinki, Finland. It was there that a sheepish and uncertain Trump seemed to almost literally bow before Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
When asked whether Trump accepted the judgment of the American intelligence community that Russia had interfered in the 2016 presidential election or Putin’s protests that it had not, Trump picked Putin. It was a national embarrassment. To this day, I can still remember the palpable sense that I could not believe what I was seeing.
I wasn’t alone. 2018 was only seven years ago, but judging by the amount of Republican criticism leveled at Trump after Helsinki, it seems like another time and place.
Former House Speaker Paul Ryan said, “There is no moral equivalence between the United States and Russia, which remains hostile to our most basic values and ideals,” adding that there was “no question” Russia had interfered in the 2016 election.
In a statement, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said, “No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant.” Even the ultimate Trump sycophant, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), was quoted as saying it was a “missed opportunity… to firmly hold Russia accountable for 2016 meddling.” At the time, I was not sure I had ever seen a more embarrassing act of foreign diplomacy than Trump in Helsinki.
Until this past Friday. As I watched video footage of the Oval Office meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a gaggle of the least serious people you could possibly imagine, I found myself at a loss to describe the emotions I felt.
The word “rage” only begins to scratch the surface. It was an absolute abomination. Apparently, Trump felt it was time to reprise his Helsinki performance, but this time without Putin and on our own shores. However, you can be sure Putin was watching from Moscow with glee.
Back when I was on Twitter, I vividly remember opening the app on Feb. 25, 2022 and seeing Zelenskyy and the senior members of the Ukrainian government standing in the center of Kyiv on the first night of the Russian invasion. Many wondered if Zelenskyy and his cabinet would flee the country.
Zelenskyy went around the circle, identified each individual and reassured the Ukrainian people that each of them was still there. It was one of the bravest things I had ever seen, and it gave me the chills. What also gave me the chills was the thought that followed watching the video, which was, “This guy is probably going to be dead by the end of this week.”
Three years later, President Zelenskyy is not only not dead, but he and his countrymen and women have improbably battled Russia to a standstill. It has come at a stunning cost. While accurately assessing the loss of life is difficult, The Wall Street Journal has reported that the Ukrainians estimate their casualties at 80,000 killed and 400,000 wounded. That’s just the troops.
In addition, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights estimates that an additional 12,605 civilians have died. To add insult to injury, Ukraine estimates that 19,000 of its children have been illegally taken to Russia. It was against this backdrop that President Zelenskyy had to suffer the indignity of being humiliated by Trump and Vice President JD Vance (and even Marjorie Taylor Greene’s boyfriend).
While both Helsinki 1 and Helsinki 2 (as I have unaffectionately captioned this past Friday) are both national embarrassments, what strikes me are the massively different strategic implications.
Helsinki 1 did not involve any meaningful evolution in U.S. foreign policy. If anything, it just reflected Trump’s personal unwillingness to concede he had had any help winning in 2016, an unwillingness that extended even to siding with Putin over the FBI. Other than needlessly elevating Putin’s status (and likely emboldening him to invade Ukraine in 2022), the Russians were granted no meaningful concessions.
Helsinki 2 is much more serious. In abandoning a democratic ally in favor of an autocracy and trying to force the Ukrainians to make peace on Russia’s terms, Trump has signaled the end of the post-World War II world order that legendary diplomats like Gen. George C. Marshall, George F. Kennan and W. Averell Harriman worked so hard to create.
And while Ukraine isn’t a member, Americans and Europeans alike can fairly question whether the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has continued vitality after this betrayal of a Western democratic nation.
Indeed, Germany’s next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, called for Germany (and Europe) to increase its independence from the U.S. Merz said, “It is clear that the Americans are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.” That statement was made before the embarrassment of Helsinki 2.
My grandfather, Roelf Munneke, was a member of the Dutch Resistance during World War II. My Aunt Ginny, born in 1942, can still recall that he had to be away for most of the war so as not to endanger them. When he did visit, she had to pretend that he was her uncle, lest the Nazis catch on to his real identity.
When I took my own daughters to visit Normandy so that they could understand the enormity of German aggression, I heard an insightful take on the rise of Trump and his ilk. This person said, “Is it any surprise that just as the last of our troops to hit the beach at Normandy are dying at the age of 100 that fascism is again on the rise? It doesn’t matter how much is written in history books. History is emotional knowledge.”
Underneath my shame and outrage at the way our country treated a hero like Volodymyr Zelenskyy is my genuine concern about what comes next.
Stephen Hackney is a candidate for Evanston’s 1st Ward. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.
