Cutting Zelensky Down To Size - Updated
Several interesting articles have surfaced today following the publication of this blog post this morning.
Links to them can be found at the end of the post, along with a clip from a telling Marco Rubio interview.
President Trump and Vice President Vance’s combative meeting with President Zelensky was an important first step in preparing the American people for peace.
Watch Zelensky realize, in real-time, that the media isn’t going to be able to bail him out of this one.
After three years of being lionized by European Union members (with exceptions such as Prime Minister Orbán of Hungary), Trump and Vance viewed Zelensky differently.
Zelensky came off as arrogant, disrespectful (not wearing a suit in the White House and referring to the Vice President as “JD”), and ungrateful, and Vance mentioned two facts most of the American media have ignored:
- Zelensky interfered in our election by effectively campaigning for Harris in the swing state of Pennsylvania.
- The Ukrainian government has been forced to grab men off the street for conscription because its manpower problems are so bad.
JD Vance confronted Zelensky about forceful mobilization—that is what he meant! People are mercilessly grabbed and forced into the military.
Putting Zelensky in a more objective light was a necessary first step. The next step is to bring some objectivity to the subjects of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and the origins of the Russia-Ukraine War.
This Is Not A Marvel Movie
The Ukrainians aren’t the plucky good guys, nor are they cartoonishly evil. Vladimir Putin isn’t a movie villain. As long as people believe this propaganda, they will resist attempts to end the war.
The next step for the Trump administration, ideally Vice President Vance, is to give Americans a more accurate explanation of how we got here.
Glenn Greenwald did that recently in the X thread below.
The Extent Of American Media Bias Against Russia
Judging from conversations on X, a lot of Americans who consume mainstream media seem unaware of its bias against Russia.
This is true even on conservative cable stations, where, for example, they’ll refer to the Russia-Ukraine war as “Putin’s War Against Ukraine.”
This is misleading for the reason suggested by Greenwald’s last post above: any Russian leader would have reacted similarly in this situation.
But it’s also a propaganda tactic. We personify bad countries: Hitler invaded Poland, Saddam invaded Kuwait, and Putin invaded Ukraine.
By calling it “Putin’s war,” the media is suggesting that Hitler, Putin, and Saddam belong in the same category.
Do they? They were all autocrats to one extent or the other, but the similarities mostly end there.
Why Putin Isn’t A Movie Villain
We covered this in a post after Wagner Group’s abortive march on Moscow a couple of years ago (“Dodging A Bullet In Russia“):
An Objective Assessment Of Putin
As our friend Benjamin Braddock noted on Twitter, despite Sachs’s comparison of Putin to Lenin and Saddam Hussein, Putin is actually a moderate in the Russian political context.
Braddock also made another excellent point: We’re lucky America’s attempt at a color revolution in Belarus failed.
Braddock’s description of Putin as a moderate is true, but Putin has also been the best leader for Russians in at least a century. A few statistics illustrate how much better off Russians have been since Putin came to power in 1999.
Life Expectancy
Russian life expectancy is up 11.4% since 1999.
Homicide Rate
As of 2021, the homicide rate in Russia was down 85% since Putin came to power.
Per Capita GDP
Finally, as of 2021, per capita income in Russia was up 816% since Putin became president.
Critics often make two objections when you bring up these statistics:
- Putin came to power at a nadir in Russia, similar to America’s Great Depression. This is true, but Russia’s recovery from the catastrophe was not inevitable. Some countries never recover from disaster and plod along in poverty for decades.
- Putin benefited from a natural resources boom. This is also true, but it doesn’t explain how Russia’s per capita GDP growth has outpaced that of other commodity exporters.
Putin As A Force For Tolerance
Since racism (and antisemitism) are the worst sins in the West, Western critics sometimes dishonestly claim Putin is a racist, but in fact, he has presided over a multiethnic, multi-confessional empire in a way that’s largely been inclusive rather than divisive. In some ways, Russia has handled its diversity better than the U.S. has.
Putin’s Restraint
It may seem odd to write about Putin’s restraint when we’re 16 months into an invasion of Ukraine that he launched, but it’s worth noting how he has so far eschewed retaliating against Western provocations such as the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines. Consider how many potential targets for retaliation the United Kingdom alone has in the North Sea.
If Putin were the maniac some in the West claim he was, the Ukraine War would have spiraled into World War III months ago. Hopefully, our leaders won’t press our luck and will instead return to diplomacy and negotiate an end to the war.
Consistent with the data above, more than 1.2 million refugees from Ukraine have fled to Russia since 2022.
Russia Isn’t Cartoonishly Evil
Russia, like all countries, is flawed, as is its leader, like all national leaders–saints don’t go into politics. But a good test of American media bias is whether they would say the same things about Israel that they say about Russia.
For example, consider this post by CNN anchor Jake Tapper, where he quotes a “pro-Ukraine expert” who says Russia is winning in part because “Russia doesn’t value human life.”
Would Tapper have platformed an “expert” who said that about Israel? Of course not.
And yet more than three times as many civilians have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s invasion than have been killed in the Ukraine since Russia’s invasion (according to UN estimates, 12,600 civilians have been killed in the Ukraine and 46,600 in Gaza). Granted, Gaza is much more densely populated than the Ukraine and has militants mixed in with the population.
The point stands that our media’s coverage of Russia is hostile, biased, and unhelpful to those such as President Trump, who seek a diplomatic solution to a conflict that has already cost the lives of far too many Ukrainians and Russians.
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Western Journal: Trump Holds Meeting to Discuss Possibility of Cutting Off Ukraine…