U.S. elites often hail Ukraine as a lone bulwark of democracy in the authoritarian wasteland that is Eastern Europe. President Volodymyr Zelensky’s decision to extend his expiring presidential term by keeping the country under martial law, however, is far from the tidy narrative of Ukrainian democratic behavior the American ruling class and their allies in the corporate media have tried to sell U.S. taxpayers.
According to the President of Ukraine’s official website, the Eastern European country’s leader is supposed to be “elected by the citizens of Ukraine on the basis of universal, equal and direct suffrage by means of secret ballot for five years.”
Zelensky, who first came into power in 2019, was due for another vote this spring. Instead of slogging through an election that his rapidly declining approval rating might mar, Zelensky opted to extend his term indefinitely.
“Ukraine doesn’t need to prove anything about democracy to anyone. Because Ukraine and its people are proving it through their war,” Zelensky declared in a New York Times article headlined “‘What’s the Problem?’ Zelensky Challenges West Over Hesitations.”
Zelensky’s fundamentally anti-democratic decision earned the blessing of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who suggested the election should not commence until “all Ukrainians, including those displaced by Russia’s aggression” can vote. American corporate media were also quick to defend Zelensky’s prolonged rule, saying an election is something Ukrainians have “little appetite” for.
For more than two years, the people running the U.S. government justified throwing billions of American tax dollars at the Russia-Ukraine conflict by claiming it was necessary to defeat Russia and “defend democracy.”
They routinely ignored and even tried to silence those who warned that the Zelensky regime is corrupt in favor of amplifying suspiciously optimistic and hollow rhetoric about sending more money so Ukraine could send Vladimir Putin packing.
Yahoo! Finance reassured its readers that much of the money flowing to the new proxy war with no definable end will “pass through the U.S. economy first.”
By that, Yahoo! aims to affirm Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s belief that funneling funds to Ukraine through warmongering defense companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin is good for Americans. An overwhelming number of the taxpayers funding this venture, however, say any big spending should go to securing their country’s compromised border, not Ukraine’s.
The same politicians and media mouthpieces gnashing their teeth about former President Donald Trump’s First Amendment-protected speech about election shenanigans are calling for more money, more support, and more TV time and PR for a guy whose presence in power is currently guaranteed by martial law alone.
“Ukraine still shutters churches and restricts the free press,” Federalist Senior Editor David Harsanyi noted last year. “Maybe you believe those are justifiable actions during wartime, but under no definition are they liberal. Ukraine has never been a functioning ‘democracy.’”
Zelensky’s overstaying his welcome without the consent of Ukranain voters makes clear now more than ever that Americans were sold a lie about the reason billions of their hard-earned tax dollars are still up for grabs to sustain an overseas war.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
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