{"id":23990,"date":"2025-02-20T17:27:21","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T01:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=23990"},"modified":"2025-03-15T11:28:46","modified_gmt":"2025-03-15T18:28:46","slug":"sea-change-living-in-history-and-most-people-not-noticing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2025\/02\/20\/sea-change-living-in-history-and-most-people-not-noticing\/","title":{"rendered":"Sea Change: Living in History, and Most People Not Noticing"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>By supporting Putin and demonizing Ukraine, the US is withdrawing from the post-World War II world that it created and has supported for 80 years;<\/li>\n<li>With comments from Heather Cox Richardson, Nicholas Kristoff, <em>Slate&#8217;s<\/em> Emily Tamkin, and <em>NYT&#8217;s<\/em> Peter Baker;<\/li>\n<li>And my observation that most people don&#8217;t realize that history is happening around them, and haven&#8217;t throughout history.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/div>\n<div align=\"center\"><\/div>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/heathercoxrichardson_498x517.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/heathercoxrichardson_498x517-289x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Heather Cox Richardson<\/strong>, <a href=\"https:\/\/heathercoxrichardson.substack.com\/p\/february-19-2025\">February 19, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The past week has solidified a sea change in American\u2014and global\u2014history.<\/p>\n<p>A week ago, on Wednesday, February 12, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels, Belgium, that President Donald Trump intended to back away from support for Ukraine in its fight to push back Russia\u2019s invasions of 2014 and 2022.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>And in effect conceded that the US will let Russia keep the Ukrainian territory it&#8217;s captured, that Trump now parrots Putin&#8217;s talking points, and that the US will focus on China and leave Europe alone &#8212; i.e. to let Russia do whatever it wants.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Then, on Friday, at the sixty-first Munich Security Conference, where the U.S. and allies and partners have come together to discuss security issues since 1963, Vice President J.D. Vance attacked the U.S.A.\u2019s European allies. He warned that they were threatened not by Russia or China, but rather by \u201cthe threat from within,\u201d by which he meant the democratic principles of equality before the law that right-wing ideologues believe weaken a nation by treating women and racial, religious, and gender minorities as equal to white Christian men. After Vance told Europe to \u201cchange course and take our shared civilization in a new direction,\u201d he refused to meet with Germany\u2019s chancellor Olaf Scholz and instead met with the leader of the far-right German political party that has been associated with neo-Nazis.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Richardson is too disciplined to sound genuinely alarmed at all this. But many observers draw the straightforward conclusions: Trump is Putin&#8217;s puppet, not for any political reasons but simply because Trump admires dictators and wants to be one; Vance thinks Europe should become as dominated by extreme right-wing groups as the US now is. (Because treating people who are not white Christian men as equals &#8220;weakens&#8221; the nation.) This is pure xenophobic tribalism. The arc of history is twisting backward. But Richardson does take the long view.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>To be even clearer: under Trump, the United States is abandoning the post\u2013World War II world it helped to build and then guaranteed for the past 80 years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Ending:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>For his part, Trump appears to be leaning into his alliance with dictators. This afternoon, he posted on social media a statement about how he had killed New York City\u2019s congestion pricing and \u201csaved\u201d Manhattan, adding \u201cLONG LIVE THE KING!\u201d White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich reposted the statement with an image of Trump in the costume of an ancient king, with a crown and an ermine robe. Later, the White House itself shared an image that imitated a <em>Time<\/em> magazine cover with the word \u201cTrump\u201d in place of \u201cTime,\u201d a picture of Trump with a crown, and the words \u201cLONG LIVE THE KING.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The British tabloid <em>The Daily Star<\/em> interprets the changes in American politics differently. Its cover tomorrow features Vladimir Putin walking \u201cPUTIN\u2019S POODLE\u201d: the president of the United States.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Nicholas Kristoff is more blunt about all this.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/02\/21\/multimedia\/19kristof-cqgh\/19kristof-cqgh-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>NY Times, opinion by Nicholas Kristoff, 19 Feb 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/19\/opinion\/trump-putin-europe.html\">With Trump\u2019s Prostration to Putin, Expect a More Dangerous World<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I\u2019m not sure most Americans appreciate the monumental damage President Trump is doing to the post-World War II order that is the wellspring of American global leadership and affluence.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s shattering it. He\u2019s making the world more dangerous. He\u2019s siding with an alleged war criminal, President Vladimir Putin of Russia, and poisoning relations with longtime U.S. allies. The trans-Atlantic alliance is unraveling.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have Trump and his oligarchy of ignorant shoe shiners vandalizing the network of organizations, agreements and values \u2014 largely put in place by America since the Second World War \u2014 which have given most of us, including America, on the whole an extraordinary degree of peace and prosperity,\u201d Chris Patten, the former British Conservative Party chairman and European foreign affairs chief, told me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The title of this piece in print today is &#8220;A Humiliating Month to Be an American.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>This has all happened before. Thinkers thought it wouldn&#8217;t happen again. But humanity, except for a few individuals, seems incapable of learning, and avoiding past mistakes.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/compote.slate.com\/images\/7d10e968-8716-4db3-9985-6458f1855a1f.jpeg?crop=1560%2C1040%2Cx0%2Cy0&amp;width=1280\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Slate, Emily Tamkin, 20 Feb 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/news-and-politics\/2025\/02\/trump-ukraine-russia-war-started-zelensky-putin-rakusan.html\">Where Trump\u2019s Ukraine Lies Are All Too Familiar<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;He wants us to disbelieve our own eyes and memories. Ukraine\u2019s neighbors have seen it all before.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>\u201cI\u2019m afraid we\u2019ve never been this close to Orwell\u2019s \u2018war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength\u2019 before.\u201d<\/strong> \u2014V\u00edt Raku\u0161an, Czech minister of the interior, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Vit_Rakusan\/status\/1892195384014901700\">on X<\/a> after U.S. President Donald Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/19\/world\/europe\/europe-trump-russia-ukraine.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&amp;referringSource=articleShare\">blamed<\/a> Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for starting Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The writer reviews the same events of this past week as the others have done. And concludes,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>And down is not up. We can see that with our own eyes. We know what just happened. Zelensky and Ukrainians lived through it, and the rest of us did, too. To say otherwise isn\u2019t disgraceful; it\u2019s to insist that, for all the power that Trump has, he does not control what\u2019s true.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>An analysis of yesterday&#8217;s news.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/02\/19\/multimedia\/19dc-prexy1-lfwp\/19dc-prexy1-lfwp-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>NY Times, Peter Baker, 19 Feb 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/19\/us\/politics\/trump-zelensky-russia-ukraine-war.html\">Trump Flips the Script on the Ukraine War, Blaming Zelensky Not Putin<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;As he seeks to negotiate a peace deal with Moscow, President Trump is rewriting the history of Russia\u2019s invasion of its neighbor.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When Russian forces crashed over the borders into Ukraine in 2022 determined to wipe it off the map as an independent state, the United States rushed to aid the beleaguered nation and cast its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, as a hero of resistance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Three years almost to the day later, President Trump is rewriting the history of Russia\u2019s invasion of its smaller neighbor. Ukraine, in this version, is not a victim but a villain. And Mr. Zelensky is not a latter-day Winston Churchill, but a \u201cdictator without elections\u201d who somehow started the war himself and conned America into helping.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Trump\u2019s revisionism sets the stage for <a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/18\/us\/politics\/trump-russia-putin.html\">a geopolitical about-face<\/a> unlike any in generations as the president embarks on negotiations with Russia that Ukraine fears could come at its own expense. By vilifying Mr. Zelensky and shifting blame for the war from Moscow to Kyiv, Mr. Trump seems to be laying a predicate for withdrawing support for an ally under attack.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>I think there&#8217;s an historical truism here. Most the events that historians write up in their textbooks are events that didn&#8217;t affect very many people at the time. Most people live their mundane lives without being affected by changes in governments or policy that turn out to have long-term effects.<\/p>\n<p>Heather Cox Richardson, I think, manages both to be matter-of-fact about daily events, while keeping a perspective on what current events mean for the long-term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By supporting Putin and demonizing Ukraine, the US is withdrawing from the post-World War II world that it created and has supported for 80 years; With comments from Heather Cox Richardson, Nicholas Kristoff, Slate&#8217;s Emily Tamkin, and NYT&#8217;s Peter Baker; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2025\/02\/20\/sea-change-living-in-history-and-most-people-not-noticing\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservative-resistance","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23990"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24205,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23990\/revisions\/24205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}