Democracy dies first as farce, then as tragedy. I know this because I grew up in a dictatorship.
What unfolded in the Oval Office yesterday wasn’t just a diplomatic failure—it was a moral collapse, broadcasted live. I write these words with an acute awareness that we were witnessing, in real-time, the dismantling of the post-war international order, and with it, the implicit permission for authoritarian violence to reassert itself across the globe
Susan Sontag once described certain images as "political pornography"—scenes designed not to inform but to degrade. Yesterday we watched one of these images. President Zelensky, a leader fighting for his country’s survival, was placed in the spotlight not to be heard, but to be abased. Cameras rolled, capturing the mechanics of dominance. A pre-press conference was arranged, not to engage but to dismiss.
The footage reminded me, strangely, of those photographs from Abu Ghraib that so disturbed me two decades ago—not in content but in function. Both sets of images serve as documents of American ethical failure, though yesterday's were produced not by rogue soldiers but from the highest office.
When Trump told Zelensky he could return “when he is ready for peace,” we were not witnessing diplomacy. We were witnessing language being weaponised. In this script, “peace” means surrender. “Self-defense” is recast as aggression. Orwell would have nodded grimly.
The demand for gratitude—"Have you even said 'thank you' once?"— was power in its pettiest form, insisting not only on submission but on performative gratitude for crumbs. This is not an alliance; it is feudal patronage.
Foucault would call this a disciplinary technique. The powerful require not merely compliance but performative appreciation from those they dominate. The ritual humiliation is the point. It serves a dual purpose: it degrades Ukraine while elevating America's sense of its own benevolence.
The alignment of Republican lawmakers around this "America First" doctrine reveals something deeper than isolationism—it’s a regression in political consciousness. True patriotism requires moral clarity, not the ethical relativism displayed in Secretary Rubio's refusal "to fall into this trap of who is bad and who's evil."
But perhaps the most unsettling part is America’s collective historical amnesia. Trump's embrace of Putin—a dictator actively reconstructing Russian imperial power—contradicts America's post-World War II commitment to preventing territorial conquest in Europe. This forgetfulness is not accidental; empires in decline often rewrite history to justify their moral exhaustion.
I write these words with the awareness that they won’t change anything. But silence is its own form of complicity. If we cannot halt this retreat, we can at least name it for what it is.
This is not strategic realism but an ethical failure.
This is not peace-seeking but power worship.
Not America First but humanity last.
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Music: Sweaty Linen - Surf Ninja 3 (YouTube Audio Library)
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