Much has been said about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s controversial meeting at the White House, and it generated many images, if not “conspiracy theories.”
Nonetheless, the scene was a message to the world, a lesson to those who remain captive to outdated conceptions of former US President Donald Trump’s mindset, value system, understanding of political processes, how he defines friends and enemies, and his commitment to respecting institutions, traditions, and historical relationships.
The cameras and microphones captured something of a “trap” the Trump administration set for the Ukrainian leader, not serious political dialogue between “allies,” regardless of the disparity between them. While Zelensky had likely already been aware that today’s Washington is not the Washington of yesterday, I doubt he expected the “firing squad” to come at him in this public and dramatic fashion.
It is common knowledge that since 2014, Democratic administrations- under Barack Obama (2009–2017) and Joe Biden (2021–2025)- made and reinforced most of the United States’ commitments and pledges to Ukraine. On the other hand, Trump has consistently demonstrated (during his presidency, on the campaign trail, and in his public statements) that he cut from a different cloth, breaking not only with his Democratic predecessors but also the approach of most American presidents and leaders since the end of World War II in 1945.
One could argue that the man has an independent bent that allows him to “think outside the box.” Of course, others believe that times have changed, and with them visions of politics and risks. Major emerging challenges require a different approach “liberated” from the constraints of the traditional alliances and considerations that limit the president’s options and restrict his room for maneuver.
All of that is valid. It has even been applied to the coexistence of two schools of conservative thought that gradually came to dominate the Republican Party since the early 20th century at the very least.
Historically, the party was home to a broad spectrum of right-wing and center-right factions, as well as centrist and even progressives. A small list of 20th and 21st-century figures who left their mark on the Republican Party could include hardline conservatives like Senator Robert Taft, Senator Joseph McCarthy, former presidential candidate Senator Barry Goldwater, former California Governor, and President Ronald Reagan, and later, Governor and President George W. Bush. These pre-Trump figures rose to prominence within the Republican Party, as well as national politics, through rigid ideological movements like McCarthyism, the “clash with the East,” the “Moral Majority” (Evangelical Christian values), and later, the neoconservative movement born of an alliance between the Christian right, Likudism, and the gun lobby.
Alongside those figures, the party was also home to realist and center-right figures, notably former President and General Dwight Eisenhower, as well as former Presidents and Governors Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush; added to them are many governors, senators, and presidential candidates like Thomas Dewey, Robert Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney.
Finally, former President Theodore Roosevelt (who would be considered leftist by today’s standards) was among the most prominent liberal and progressive centrist presidents in US history. Other key figures included former Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, along with senators such as Jacob Javits, Charles Percy, John Chafee (who also served as Secretary of the Navy), and James Jeffords.
The pluralism that once defined the Republican Party had largely disappeared by Donald Trump’s second presidential term. In fact, the hardline movements mentioned before (despite their fanaticism relative to their own time) seem to have been committed to respecting the foundations of American democracy, its institutions, and traditions, particularly the principle of separation of powers. They were also more open to a form of cohabitation of opposing views.
Despite their ideological rigidity, these movements were ultimately less prone to "personalization" and "hero worship" than the MAGA. Make America Great Again is not only Trump’s populist political base, it has become a de facto replacement for the long-standing political traditions that had long been upheld by both the Republican and Democratic parties in all their iterations.
MAGA and, behind it, President Trump, does not care for the separation of powers, the peaceful transfer of power, or judicial independence. It refuses to recognize the legitimacy of any election that its candidate fails to win. It did not bat an eye before storming the US Capitol, the ultimate “sanctuary” of democratic legitimacy in the US, to achieve its goals. In cooperation with the unelected financial elite billionaires, it is currently gutting what remains of the “New Deal” that was passed in the 1930s to provide American citizens with a safety net after the Great Depression.
That sums up the domestic front. Abroad, every taboo has fallen: traditional enemies have become friends, long-standing allies have been reduced to economic competitors, and neighbors’ territory has become tempting and is now seen as lawless space ripe for annexation, occupation, or forced purchases, while undesirable populations are to be walled off.
The political culture in Washington inherited from the Cold War era has collapsed- with the only exception, of course, being its unwavering support for the ambitions of Israel’s far-right settler movement.
While mixed signals have been sent to allies and adversaries since January 20, the most misguided and dangerous signal that Donald Trump has sent to the world was his humiliation of the Ukrainian president.
Washington’s allies in East Asia and Western Europe cannot feel secure after this episode. It has no viable vision for a stable Middle East, no safeguards against a nuclear catastrophe in South Asia, and no reassurances, in Latin America, against reckless populist regimes that refuse to accept limits.
