Trump Gaslit Zelensky To Justify Dropping Support for Ukraine
This is just going to be a quickie, but I think it’s important to call this out. Trump recently had a meeting with Zelensky and Vance, where Trump and Vance ganged up on Zelensky and verbally berated him.
It was painful for me to watch, because it reminded me of times in my own life where I was put in an ostensibly winnable situation when there was actually no way to win. And, one of the tells that is familiar to me, is the intentional misinterpretation of what is being said in order to justify emotional escalation by the hostile party.
It’s really disorienting to be on the receiving end of someone who is not negotiating in good faith, but it looks a lot like how Trump and Vance were talking to Zelensky.
There was a particular part of the exchange that escalated, I’d like to call out.
Zelensky said: “First of all, during the war, everybody has problems, even you. But you have nice ocean and don’t feel now. But you will feel it in the future. God bless –”
And Trump responds “You don’t know that. You don’t know that. Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel. We’re trying to solve a problem. Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel”
This is an intentional misinterpretation of what Zelensky (who is not a native English speaker, keep in mind) was trying to say.
Zelensky was trying to communicate that, while this war may seem remote to America now, if it continues it will impact the world, including America.
However, Trump acted as if Zelensky was gaslighting him. Zelensky wasn’t communicating about literal emotions, but Trump responded as if he was. “You can’t tell me how to feel” is something that belongs in couples therapy, not diplomacy.
Trump eventually continued on to say “You are in no position to dictate what we’re going to feel. We’re going to feel very good.”
Zelensky probably doesn’t give two fucks if Trump lives in a perpetual orgasm for the next 4 years, he was simply trying to communicate that the war would have wider implications than just Ukraine and Russia. But, Trump intentionally misinterpreted his statement, that was colloquially correct, in order to justify getting angry at him.
There was nothing Zelensky could have done to prevent this. There was no amount of dick sucking or ass kissing that would have led to him not getting this outcome, because Trump wants to support Russia. Trump was just looking for something to rake Zelensky over the coals with, and because he couldn’t find anything of actual substance, he chose to use a literal interpretation of the word “feel” rather than the metaphorical interpretation (which, by the way, Zelensky used correctly as judged by normal English use today.)
And, now, a bunch of republicans are going to say, “Oh, Zelensky didn’t act in good faith, so we can’t support Ukraine anymore, etc.”
It’s just theater.
The only way Zelensky could win would be to completely surrender to Russia, and if he wants to do that, why the fuck would he give Trump any credit for it? At the very least, he’d let fucking Macron negotiate the deal becuase Fuck Trump at this point.
Anyway, if you want to see a breakdown of it from a more political angle, you could check out this video from the Bulwark. They’re a bunch of ex-conservative never Trumpers, but even though I’m definitely more of a lefty than they are, I like their analysis on a lot of these things more than I like the far left analysis. They’re not so echo-chambered.
