The rapturious admiration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — who has more than risen to the occasion as Russia invaded his country — was always bound to inspire a backlash.
The whole world has heard about Zelensky by now, but for many people, he’s nothing but a blip on the radar, just as Ukraine itself is a blip. Zelensky’s improbable biography and the history of modern-day Ukraine are closely followed by few people. The news cycle always moves on, but always, before it does, the vultures descend, picking apart the bones of a popular narrative.
However, it is worth noting that many of Zelensky’s vacuous critics are telling on themselves when they hurl insults at this unlikely, charismatic wartime president. Just as many Westerners are inspired by tales of brave Ukrainian resistance against an ethno-nationalist villain in the face of Vladimir Putin, others are uncomfortable with it — because it holds up a mirror to their own lives.
I can think of no better example of this than a popular edgelord podcaster mocking Zelensky as a loser:
It’s so cool that American libs have turned Zelensky into a God. A dude who oversaw his country turn into a Rampage level is the greatest statesman of the age. Sexually attracted to losers.
— crisp mattman (@cushbomb) March 14, 2022
It’s significant that Matt avoids mentioning just who invaded Ukraine. Ironically or earnestly, a lot of American leftists side with Russia — if only because they find our own democracy both too complicated and too boring in contrast to a bare-chested, murderous strongman. They’ve never had to live under draconian Russian laws, or else under the threat of Russian bombs (plenty of Syrians, by contrast, can relate to Ukrainians right now), so what do they care if Putin jails or kills a bunch of people?
More importantly, however, is the fact that Zelensky’s story, just as the stories of countless Ukrainian men and women, make the privileged question their own behavior. Most of them have never had to fight an existential threat, and many, I would argue, privately wonder if it would even be worth it. A very particular, very American self-loathing is on display here, borne of the times we live in — a claustrophobic, partisan, exhausting moment in history.
We look at a man like Zelensky, bravely facing annihilation, and we are momentarily awed, and then immediately irritated.
That’s because sincerity is not for cowards and the truth of the matter is that today, many Americans are too afraid to feel in earnest.
There is a great, subconscious shame over the war on terror, for example, its burdens borne by a small fraction of a population, set apart from the rest of society by our glaring civilian-military divide. We either blindly worship our military, or else we angrily disown it — what we fail to do is see it clearly, and take on a clear role in our relation to it as civilians.
The anguish of conflicts past and conflicts still simmering is like a phantom limb for millions of people — the pain is there, but the source cannot be grasped at.
Of course we’re going to be jealous of Zelensky. Of course we’re going to retreat into sarcasm as he rises to the status of global celebrity. He makes us feel bad about ourselves.
Same goes for the “perfect victim” narrative both the right and left try to foist on Ukraine — the idea that the country wore a short skirt, tempted Putin too much with its independence and its insistence to go its own way and make its own mistakes. Ukraine’s not so perfect, you see! (What country is perfect?) Ukraine has Nazis! (So do we) Ukraine has unscrupulous rich people! (Uh huh)
It’s a classic case of American projection, a process we are so accustomed to that we barely notice ourselves when we do it. It’s more than a little infantile, but our country is young, which is why you see us so eagerly foisting our own anxieties about our history and our place in it onto an embattled nation and its exhausted but defiant president.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: in order to resist evil, you have to believe yourself to be good. Not perfect, that’s very different. But you have to believe that you are worth saving, and that what you love is worth saving too.
Ukrainians have had the choice forced upon them. It’s fight back or be destroyed.
Americans, meanwhile, must reckon with how to make this choice for ourselves — because resisting evil is always good, actually, just as it is always good to love sincerely and to protect what you love when called to do it.
Image credit: President of Ukraine
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