Trump epoch values Ukrainian Truth
Western civilization. Western world. Western values.
These concepts have inspired the progressive Ukrainian community for decades. They were mentioned during the Orange Revolution and during the Euromaidan, in the midst of a hybrid confrontation with the Russian Federation and at the beginning of a full -scale war. Every time they gave us hope for a better future. However, in February 2025, this perennial rhetoric has actually lost its relevance.
Talking about « event » or « collective event » as a single value space no longer falls. The former conditional « event », united by Biden, Macron, Scholz and Boris Johnson, is gone.
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There is now America Trump and a mask that destroys the usual value system with excitement. And there is a confused Europe that tries to maintain faithfulness to these values, but does not look strong enough to protect them.
Moreover, Trumpism also finds supporters on the European continent: from Orban and Fitzo to Alternative Für Deutschland.
Over the last month, the new US administration has not succeeded not in promoting its own values - whether it is about economic protectionism or cultural conservatism – as in discrediting, devaluation and destruction of others.
The concept of « globalization » is thoroughly discredited: the long -term leader of the global world himself abandons this role and begins to beat the pots with yesterday's partners. The belief in « International Law » is seriously undermined: America is voicing territorial claims to other countries; It will play with the initiators of the bloody invasion of the war and tries to shift the blame to the victims of aggression.
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The concept of « democracy » is quickly depreciated quite quickly: when Washington pedals the topic of the Ukrainian elections, he is too clearly managed by the hostility to Zelensky and the desire to get along with Putin, not the concern for high democratic standards.
Of course, it is too early to say that the Old West does not stand under pressure from Donald Trump and his supporters in the US and Europe. However, in our eyes, the possible contours of a strange new Trumpist world are already emerging.
A world where there is no hint of global rules and global safety. Where the right of force completely replaces the validity of law. Where selfishness, cynicism and injustice do not even try to mask. Where there can be no common value space – and only situational interests of interests are possible. Where former civilizational beacons and moral tunes are scattered like card houses.
It is obvious that Trumpism has become a test for the entire planet and especially for the fighting Ukraine. But if you dig a little deeper, it turns out that different sections of Ukrainian society are experiencing this test differently.
The main victims of Trump and Ko are those who are accustomed to appealing to the authority of the collective event and consider it as a valuable landmark. Those who have called for fellow citizens to be equal to developed Western countries. Those who defended liberal ideals, defended democratic virtues, sought the rule of law or fought for gender equality, based on what was so launched in a civilized Western world.
Already, these poor people will have to adjust their rhetoric, gradually replacing « Western values » with « European values ». And if under the pressure of Trumpists the European Union also cracks, then to preserve the usual progressive agenda, you will need to look for some new arguments. And not the fact that they will be found.
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However, for the majority of the population of the old value system is not so painful: most people do not have their own values and beliefs. They have the desire not to deviate from the norm and a willingness to adjust to any new norm.
Everyone stands for democracy – and you are in democracy. Everyone votes for Poroshenko in 2014 or Zelensky 2019-and you also set ticks opposite their names. Everyone listens to Russian pop – and you listen to it. Everyone goes to Ukrainian – and you are also Ukrainian. Everyone believes on the Armed Forces at the turn of 1991 – and you believe in it. Everyone starts thinking about peace talks with the Russian Federation – and you try not to keep up with others …
For millions of our compatriots, conformism has been and remains a standard behavioral model. Therefore, many Ukrainians who supported democracy, free market or gender equality yesterday can easily transform into the supporters of sexism, protectionism or critics of a rotten democratic system.
At the same time, Trump and Trumpism are a potential window of opportunity for a certain layer of Ukrainian society. The same window of opportunity that was full of Russian aggression against Ukraine: when ideas that looked overly radical and marginal before 24.02.2022 quickly became a new mainstream.
Discreditation of globalization is a chance to build a distinctive Ukraine for its own taste. Erosion of a collective event is an opportunity to promote your own ideological agenda, despite foreign authorities. And the depreciation of current Western values gives hope that Ukraine will no longer require compliance with these values.
Many passionaric Ukrainians are suppressed by Donald Trump's pro -Russian rhetoric: but not his antiglobalism or antililiberalism.
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Even before the US president began to open the blackmailing of Ukraine, he managed to tear the applause on our social networks, defeating USAID and putting in the difficult situation of pro -Western « grentoids ».
And one of us was pleased with the Demars Vice Vens of Vens in Munich. Like, remaining without many years of American protection, Europe will finally be ashamed, abandon rotten humanism and liberal fleshty, replace gay parades with military parades and will not bother Ukraine with its futile recommendations.
We do not know how much Trump and k will succeed in the destruction of the old world order. We do not know if Ukraine will withstand this historic storm. But if the Trumpism world still wins, and Ukrainians will be able to adapt to it, then our state will be little like the ideal Ukraine of the future that in 2004-2024 they saw part of a single Western civilization.
In the world without a common value space in Kiev, it is unlikely that incentives to build exemplary democracy, to seek the rule of law or to take care of personal freedoms of citizens: no one will evaluate these efforts abroad.
In a world where only situational unions of interest will remain, Kyiv will boast a few trumps. And the main one will be the army, which has the real experience of the Great War. It is this trump that will have to sell in the foreign market, positioning Ukraine as Eastern European Sparta as a militarized fortress country. And the more such a country in the strange new world will be in demand, the higher the likelihood that the future partners of Ukraine will close their eyes to our shortcomings.
Theoretically, in the Trump era and Trumpism, we will have a more chance of speaking in the hypostasis of « Your Son's Son. » South Korea, Taiwan, or Latin American states that opposed the communist threat, played in the 1950s and 1960s in the 1950s and 1960s. Become a country that is not aware of the strict compliance with democratic standards and not observance of human rights, but only utilitarian benefits.
Only to begin with, Ukraine will have to prove potential partners their own usefulness, irreplaceability and value. And on February 28, 2025, millions of Ukrainians have seen that in the world of Trumps, masks and venses, this task could be almost insoluble.
Mikhail Dubinyansky
