Reagan, Biden, Harris … and Trump
THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY
By Orest Deychakiwsky
As incongruous as it may seem, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have more in common with Ronald Reagan – one of the most prominent conservatives in American history – than does Donald Trump.
Although on politically opposite sides of the ideological fence, former President Ronald Reagan and Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden share the same fundamental values: integrity, decency and a moral code.
They all, apart from Mr. Trump, share a common understanding and commitment to the post-World War II American-led rules-based international order. Like Reagan did, Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris value freedom, democracy, human rights and human dignity – ideals that for Mr. Trump are abstruse concepts. They share the belief that, despite our occasional blunders and missteps, America has been a major force for good in the world. And as did Reagan, Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden recognize the importance of Ukraine’s freedom. Mr. Trump is the outlier here.
Ms. Harris, like Reagan and most presidents and vice presidents throughout our history (including Mr. Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence), has a reverence for the Constitution. Mr. Trump demonstrably does not. He’s the aberration.
None other than former Vice President Dick Cheney, one of the central figures in the Republican party for the last 50 years, has said that he would be voting for Ms. Harris. Five years ago, many would have thought that hell would freeze over before Mr. Cheney, or, for that matter, his daughter, former conservative U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, would ever vote for a Democrat. Their policy differences on many issues are stark. Yet the Cheney family, like other principled Republicans, understand that character and integrity often matter more than policy.
In his statement explaining why he would be casting his vote for Ms. Harris, Dick Cheney wrote bluntly: “In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He cannot be trusted with power again. … As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution.”
Ms. Cheney recently said that there is “absolutely no chance” that former President Reagan would support Mr. Trump if he were alive. I strongly agree, in part based on my own experiences.
I was working at the Republican National Committee in 1980 when Reagan was first elected. And throughout all but the first 10 months of his presidency, I worked for the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (the Helsinki Commission), where we witnessed and participated in the Reagan Administration’s efforts to combat the Soviet Union’s egregious violations of human rights and other international commitments.
Reagan, like Ms. Harris, was optimistic, hopeful, and had a positive vision for America’s future, even if there would have been honest policy disagreements as to what that future looked like. Reagan, like Ms. Harris, looked forward and not backward. He was not about grievance and negativity. Like Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden, he was a patriot who put country above party. Reagan, whether one agreed with his policies or not, was essentially a man of character and principle – the opposite of the crude, morally bankrupt narcissist Trump.
Could you imagine Ronald Reagan (or Kamala Harris or Joe Biden, for that matter) endlessly proclaiming that elections he might have lost were stolen, despite all evidence to the contrary, including from numerous Republican election officials? Could you ever imagine Reagan disparaging our military and Gold-Star families, or mocking people with disabilities, as Mr. Trump has done? Could you ever imagine Reagan repeatedly denigrating war heroes, as Mr. Trump did with the late Republican war hero Sen. John McCain? Lest we forget, Mr. McCain was one of America’s foremost supporters of Ukraine – it’s no accident that a street in Kyiv was named after him. Or stoking a mob to take over the Capitol? (This one hit close to home, having worked on Capitol Hill for 35 years). The list could go on … and on … and on. Mr. Trump, through countless words and actions, has displayed little regard for democratic principles or for elementary human decency.
On foreign policy, too, Reagan shares a lot more with Ms. Harris than with Mr. Trump. Reagan was a firm internationalist. Our 40th president understood the need for robust American global leadership and the principle of helping friends and allies to defend themselves (not for nothing that principle is called “the Reagan Doctrine”). His policies, such as peace through strength and standing up for freedom, contributed significantly to the fall of the Soviet empire. A staunch anti-Communist, he called the Soviet Union “the evil empire” and stood for freedom for Ukraine and the other captive nations. This was at a time when Ukraine, unlike today, was largely unknown among the American public and even academia and the foreign policy establishment, despite the efforts of the Ukrainian American community and some members of Congress.
A small but telling example of Reagan’s support for liberty: I remember attending a Rose Garden ceremony in July 1988 commemorating Captive Nations Week where Reagan eloquently spoke and noted the presence of Petro Ruban, a Ukrainian Helsinki Monitor who had recently been released from a notorious Soviet Gulag camp. He had been sent there in part for the “crime” of having fashioned a wooden replica of the Statue of Liberty as a gift to America for our bicentennial. The year before, Reagan had mentioned Mr. Ruban’s imprisonment at a Captive Nations ceremony I attended held at the Ukrainian Catholic National Shrine of the Holy Family in Washington, D.C.
Fast forward to Mr. Trump three decades later. He repeatedly demeans Ukrainians. Don’t take my word for it. Just look at former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton’s 2020 memoir: “The Room Where It Happened.” In chapter 14, readers will get a sense of Mr. Trump’s irrational hostility towards Ukraine and Ukrainians. In one conversation, Mr. Trump unjustifiably rants and raves about Ukraine and Ukrainians, using the “F” word no fewer than half a dozen times.
Of far greater damage, however, was Mr. Trump’s egregious withholding in 2019 of nearly $400 million in security aid to Ukraine that had been approved by Congress. There was no good reason whatsoever to halt this aid. To add insult to injury, Mr. Trump did so to allegedly blackmail Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into giving him non-existent dirt on his political opponent, Mr. Biden. Thankfully, the effort failed due to a bipartisan outcry.
More on Mr. Trump’s hostile words and actions with respect to Ukraine during and after his presidency will be available in my next column, but let me close with the following excerpt from a March Wall Street Journal op-ed by distinguished former Reagan Navy Secretary John Lehman titled “Reagan would never vote for Trump”:
“The most fundamental difference between Reagan and [Mr.] Trump is that Reagan knew America’s friends from its enemies. He would be horrified by the Republican Party’s abandonment of Ukraine at Mr. Trump’s behest. He would recognize Russia’s invasion for what it is: a brutal attempt to reassert its old Soviet dominance on a free people, no matter how many innocents die. Reagan would recognize that supporting Ukraine is both morally correct and good realpolitik, a chance to bog an adversary down. He would find Mr. Trump’s naked admiration of our enemies incomprehensible and dangerous.”
Liz Cheney makes case for Harris in Wisconsin
Thursday, October 3 was a unique moment in modern political history as a member of an iconic Republican political family - the Cheneys - spoke in support of the Democratic candidate for president, Kamala Harris. Liz Cheney's remarks were an articulate reminder of what is at stake during this election - literally the future of our American democracy. She feels that Trump is such a threat, and deciding to put country over party, she traveled to Ripon, Wisconsin, the birthplace of the Republican Party, to publicly endorse Harris at a Harris campaign rally.
Excerpts from Cheney’s speech can be seen in the clip below. However, the entire video which includes Harris’ remarks is worth listening to. Harris’ comments about her support for Ukraine are particularly interesting. She begins to speak about America's foreign commitments at about 37:10 and about Ukraine soon thereafter.
Opinion: We're Republicans, and we're voting for Kamala Harris to back Ukraine
A vote for Trump and Vance is a vote for Russia's aggression, while Harris and Walz offer unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and NATO’s defense of Eastern Europe.
KYIV INDEPENDENT
By James Greenwood, Gregory P. Wilson
A vote for Trump and Vance is a vote for Russia's aggression, while Harris and Walz offer unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and NATO’s defense of Eastern Europe.
In the past week, both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Polish President Andrzej Duda made stops in Pennsylvania. Zelensky toured an ammunition factory in Scranton, while Duda attended the unveiling of a statue at the Czestochowa cemetery commemorating the Polish Solidarity movement and its fight for independence against the Soviet-backed communist regime.
Both leaders were en route to the United Nations General Assembly and share deep concerns about whether the United States will continue to lead NATO’s defense of Eastern Europe against the threat posed by Russia’s Vladimir Putin. The outcome of the upcoming presidential election will likely determine Washington’s role, making it crucial for Pennsylvania’s 750,000 Polish residents and 122,000 Ukrainians to engage in the electoral process.
During the presidential debate on Sept. 12, Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump declined to say whether he wants Ukraine to win the war. He has never criticized Putin for his invasion and the brutal bombing campaigns that have killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. Instead, Trump blames Zelensky for the war and has threatened to cut off aid to Ukraine. His chosen running mate, J.D. Vance, has suggested that Ukraine must concede territory to negotiate with Russia.
By ignoring Russia's ongoing aggression in Ukraine and its implications for U.S. national interests and the security of European allies, Trump has aligned himself more closely with strongman Putin than with longstanding U.S. commitments to peace, democracy, and fundamental freedoms.
As president, Trump did little to materially assist Ukraine and even attempted to extort the country to bolster his 2020 re-election campaign. His 2020 Republican campaign was notably silent on both Russia and Ukraine, enabling him to promote a more isolationist and ill-conceived "America First" vision.
Vance is a staunch opponent of military and economic aid to Ukraine. Earlier this year, he publicly opposed legislation aimed at seizing Russian sovereign assets in the U.S. to aid Ukraine and shield American taxpayers from the immense damage caused by Russia.
As a former U.S. Treasury Department official during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, and as a Republican congressman who represented Pennsylvania for 12 years, we believe that seizing Russian overseas assets to help Ukraine would have been a priority for both former Republican presidents. Vance, however, thinks otherwise.
Historically, Trump has opposed the continued existence of NATO, the cornerstone of U.S. and European security since the Cold War. On the same day that NATO convened in Washington this year, a Russian cruise missile destroyed the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv, prompting Trump to reiterate that he would not necessarily defend a NATO ally under Russian attack.
His authoritarian stance has effectively given Putin the green light to act with impunity in Europe against NATO members. While U.S. President Joe Biden recently met with Zelensky, Trump welcomed Hungary’s authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to Mar-a-Lago.
In stark contrast to Trump’s policies, the Biden-Harris administration acted swiftly to mobilize NATO to support Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Vice President Kamala Harris met with Zelensky five days beforehand to warn him of the impending threat. After the invasion, the White House imposed strong economic sanctions against Russia, including freezing Russian assets held abroad. In April, Biden signed legislation that Vance opposed, which aimed to seize those assets to assist Ukraine and protect American taxpayers.
During the presidential debate, Harris pledged her unwavering support for Ukraine's "righteous defense," while Trump repeatedly dodged direct questions from ABC’s David Muir regarding his stance on Ukraine's victory over Russia.
The contrast between Trump and Harris on Ukraine and Poland could not be starker. A Trump administration would continue favoring Russia over Ukraine and fail to hold Russia accountable for the devastation it inflicts on innocent civilians.
Meanwhile, Harris will maintain her support for Ukraine’s courageous fight to preserve its sovereignty and democracy, advocating for just reparations once Russia’s illegal aggression ceases. She will also ensure that the U.S. remains a steadfast ally and protector of Poland.
To the extent voters consider vital U.S. foreign policy and national security issues important this November, the only option is clear. A vote for Harris and her running mate Tim Walz is a vote for America’s and Ukraine’s interests in Europe, while a vote for Trump and Vance favors Russia and enables Putin’s ongoing war of aggression.
War shifts political views in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village, once reliably GOP.
CHICAGO — The Ukrainian Village, a neighborhood nestled only a mile north and slight jog west of the United Center, where Democrats are convening this week, is the heart of the Ukrainian diaspora in Chicago — a compact enclave of faith, hope, resilience, anxiety, fear and a notably transformed political sensibility shaped by old memories and the harsh reality of the Russian invasion of the homeland.
THE WASHINGTON POST
By David Maraniss
Many in the neighborhood remain conservative on issues such as abortion, but Russia’s war in Ukraine and Trump’s isolationism has them rethinking their votes.
CHICAGO — The Ukrainian Village, a neighborhood nestled only a mile north and slight jog west of the United Center, where Democrats are convening this week, is the heart of the Ukrainian diaspora in Chicago — a compact enclave of faith, hope, resilience, anxiety, fear and a notably transformed political sensibility shaped by old memories and the harsh reality of the Russian invasion of the homeland.
Reminders of that war are everywhere here, more than 5,000 miles from the battlefield. It might be the other war, the largely forgotten war, in much of America and the world, overshadowed by the bloody events in Gaza that are drawing all the noise and protest now, but to the people of Ukrainian Village, it is never far from mind.
The war in Ukraine torments Oksana Ambroz, a fashion designer whose bitter feelings about Russia go back to stories about her father. At age 2, starved and weakened by the Holodomor, the Soviet-caused famine of 1932, he was thrown into a mass trench by Russian soldiers and left to die before his horrified mother pulled him to safety. The war haunts Slava Pillyuyko, a psychiatrist who each night calls his friends and family in the Ukrainian city of Khmelnytskyi, trying to help them deal with the trauma of constant shelling. If they drink, he said, they now drink more; if they had insomnia before, they now sleep even less, never knowing whether the next day will be their last.
Walk the streets of the Ukrainian Village and feel the sorrow of a distant war. “Stop Putin, Stop War” posters in storefront windows. Flower-bedecked memorial crosses in churchyards. Blue and yellow flags fluttering in the late summer breeze. Photo exhibits of wounded soldiers and uprooted families in the museum. Pockets of newly arrived refugees huddling outside a building that offers relocation assistance. And endless discussions in English and Ukrainian, about the war — what is happening from Kursk to Kyiv, what might happen next, and what the 2024 presidential tickets are doing and saying about it all.
Despair here over Republican diffidence, or outright dismissal, of Ukrainian pleas for support in fighting Russian aggression has rearranged the political landscape. “This area used to be totally Republican,” said Marta Farion, vice president of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, who lives across the street from the Sts. Volodymyr and Olha Ukrainian Catholic Church and has visited Ukraine 55 times. The dominant viewpoint was conservative and staunchly anti-communist. “Ronald Reagan was revered here,” she said. “When he said ‘Tear down this wall!’ he was speaking for all of us who suffered under the Soviets.”
But even as Ukrainian Villagers remain culturally conservative and generally receptive to GOP positions on abortion and crime, they saw a vast distance between the old party of Reagan and the party that President Donald Trump has refashioned as more isolationist.
Many expressed dismay over Trump’s cozy relationship with Vladimir Putin and the way as Trump seemed to trust the autocrat’s propaganda more than the findings of U.S. intelligence services. They blamed recalcitrant Republicans in the House for delaying U.S. aid that Ukraine desperately needed. “Each of those six months added hundreds more killed,” Pillyuyko lamented. And then came Trump’s new running mate, JD Vance, who once was quoted as saying, “I got to be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.”
If Trump returns to the White House, Farion said, she feared that “he will sell Ukraine down the pike. He says he will end the war right away, but that only means he will make a deal with Putin. We know he is going to make a deal with Putin. … The future of Ukraine is on the line in this election.”
Farion spoke while seated at a round table in the basement cafeteria of Sts. Volodymyr and Olha after a Sunday service, not far from a spread of Ukrainian pastries. Dozens of parishioners were drinking coffee and eating desserts at nearby tables. Seated next to Farion was Chrystya Wereszczak, vice chair of the church council, who nodded her head in agreement, then said, “It will be the biggest desecration in U.S. history of the defense of freedom.”
Wereszczak was quick to add that the neighborhood still had many Republicans who came to the party because of its opposition to abortion and strong history of anti-communism. “But a lot say either they’re not going to vote or not vote for Trump.” Illinois has voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1992 and is expected to continue its streak this fall.
At the Ukrainian National Museum across the street from the church, Ambroz and Pillyuyko work as volunteer tour guides. Ambroz, who arrived in America penniless in 1997 and built her own design company from scratch, had just returned from a month’s visit to see her son and other relatives in Kyiv. She came away with a renewed sense of hope and deep admiration for her people. “I am so proud of Ukrainians as humans, and the very heroic way they’ve endured, these little acts that reveal the most about them.”
She talked about how the elevators in her nephew’s apartment had little boxes on the floor filled with water and crackers and anxiety medications in case people were trapped in them when Kyiv officials felt the need to turn the electricity off, which happened almost every day. When it did, she would walk up the 19 floors to the apartment just like everyone else. And she recalled the time when a missile exploded between two nearby buildings and blew out all the windows of the first-floor coffee shop. “It happened at 3 in the morning, and by 9, the people had cleaned out all the glass and replaced it with plastic so the shop could open again. Little things like that, acts of resilience every day.”
When Ambroz returned to the United States, she fell back into the habit of searching for news about Ukraine at all hours. “I look before I go to bed at night. I wake up at 3 to try to get the latest. And then I look again when I wake up for good at 7. I can never get enough information.”
Generations of mistreatment shaped her antipathy toward Russia, she said. Her grandfather, an economist, spent eight years in a Soviet prison. Other relatives on her mother’s side disappeared into Siberia and were never heard from again. This family history shaped her politics. She became an American citizen 15 years ago and has voted in every election since. “This country has always supported freedom and the soldiers of Ukraine are fighting for freedom,” Ambroz said. “I will vote for whoever will fight for freedom.”
Pillyuyko, the psychiatrist, who was also a national billiards champion in Ukraine, arrived in Chicago in 2022, only five days before the war started. His take on American politics was subtle and complicated. He said he was reluctant to criticize Trump and Vance because he was not yet a U.S. citizen, but added, “If they are elected, it will be more difficult.” He appreciated the support that President Joe Biden has given his homeland, fearing that without it, the death toll would be in the millions, then added, “But none of this might have happened if Obama had responded more strongly when Putin seized Crimea 10 years ago, so it’s not perfect on any side. But Ukrainians are grateful to the world anyway. Putin said he’d have Kyiv in three days. It’s now getting near three years.”
From his home in Chicago, after hearing harrowing stories in his phone calls to Ukraine, he tries to keep his mood in balance by listening to progressive rock, especially Jethro Tull and Genesis, and searching for humor on social media. When he finds something good, he sends it back home. “I need it. They need it. We all need it,” he said.