Truth tellers: from embattled Ukraine

There remain among us people who insist on telling the truth -- the truth of Donald Trump et al.'s depredations and the truth of who some American people aspire to be. 

Consider, for example, Tim Mak. Based in Kiev, Ukraine, and ensuring through The Counteroffensive substack that Ukrainian writers can describe the war as they live it, Mak has carved out his own definition of the job of a war correspondent. 

Tim’s breakout in journalism doesn’t follow a known model. Born in Canada, he moved from academic institutions there to the forefront of American politics and cut his teeth reporting on the Obama administration and key political movements, including the rise of the Tea Party and two elections. But the intensity of the 2016 campaign season forced him into an unexpected detour, where he joined the U.S. Army as a combat medic, a role he believed at the time would strengthen his resilience to enrich his later journalism.  

Mak is an American citizen by choice; he could have just remained a Canadian observer of his big neighbor's follies. But he chose to come inside our bedraggled tent. He's also an observer of wars' horrors by choice; his talents could have won him other berths. But he persists because something about Ukraine's stubborn resistance to Russian imperialism reminds him of what he values. He views Trump's turn to enabling Russian conquests as betrayal of his adopted country as well as of Ukrainians.

... One of the reasons I wanted to become an American is that it meant something more than just citizenship in a country. Americans, even when the country failed to live up to its ideals, at least tried to uphold values of freedom and human rights.

America did not need to made “great again” because it was already good — or at least *tried* to be. America exemplified a place where immigrants could make it, fellow allied democracies were boosted, and bad actors were confronted.

... [Trump's new "National Security strategy] throws away any pretense of American exceptionalism or idealism.

It’s a Neanderthalish view of interacting with the world. We are great because we are powerful. We are powerful because we can kill or coerce, or otherwise manipulate you due to the threat of both. ...

Tim Mak thinks we can do better. Sometimes we have done better; sometimes we still do.