Law, Power, and Justice

“HERE RIGHT MATTERS” ALEXANDER VINDMAN

Wednesday 12 February 2025

By Dr. Christina J. Johns

Well, I am livid.  Absolutely livid.

Sitting at Publix, waiting for my drugs, I was scrolling through BlueSky and happened to see a post by Alexander Vindman.  The post said that Pete Hegsmith (OF ALL F…ING PEOPLE) had just announced in Brussels that the US did not think Ukraine belonged in NATO.  Hegseth lectured a meeting of Ukraine’s allies: “Returning to Ukraine’s pre- 2014 borders is an unrealistic objective.” Hegseth called the idea of returning to pre-2014 borders, chasing an “illusionary goal.”  If Ukraine continued to try to recover its territory, it “will only prolong the war and cause more suffering. “  Then, to top it all off, Hegseth, pretending to be the sober, decent, competent human being he is not, said: “the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.”

It’s not that I didn’t think this was coming, but the arrogance of the pronouncement, the haughtiness, the sense of superiority, the imperiousness, just took my breath away.  This moron, casually, contemptuously betraying the people of Ukraine who have fought valiantly for three years for their chance at democracy.

The response of the Trump administration?  Too bad, you cost too much.  We’re out of here.  Oh, and you owe us (what Trump repeatedly called) “rare earth.”  What he is talking about are rare earth minerals in Ukraine that he wants to have sent to the United State as a payback for what a mafia boss president sees as “protection money.”  He has turned us into a cheap debt collector. 

I am furious.  And hearing this news though Alexander Vindman is heartbreaking.

In 2019, when Vindman was putting on his uniform, preparing to testify against the president of the United States in what would turn out to be the first of two impeachment hearings, his father, Simon, was worried for him.  Simon Vindman moved his three little boys to the US in 1979, when Alexander was three.  They arrived with nothing as refugees from Ukraine. 

Simon Vindman worried that by testifying, Alexander would not only ruin his career and his life but perhaps even risk losing his life.  Mr. Vindman was familiar with what happened to people who opposed people in power in Ukraine while it was still part of the Soviet orbit.

“Do not worry,” Vindman told his father.  “I will be fine for telling the truth.”  And then, almost as a throwaway line, Alexander said: “Here, right matters.” 

After Vindman testified against Donald Trump for attempting to extort Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by withholding government funding unless Zelensky created false and incriminating information about Joe Biden, he told the story about his father.  Looking out at the members of Congress with confidence, Vindman finished with the sentence:  “Here right matters.”

The sentence stuck in my craw, as we say in the South.  It stuck tight, uncomfortable, unwelcome and sure to cause trouble.  I couldn’t get it out of my mind.  And then, Vindman wrote a book using ”Here, Right Matters” as his title.  So, I heard the statement – bald, confident, righteous – repeated over and over again.

“Here, right matters.”

Every time I heard it, I felt a little nauseous, a little queasy with the nagging fear that no matter how much I wanted it to be true, it just wasn’t.  Not anymore.  Not since Donald Trump and the Republicans and the Religious Right had taken over.

“Here, right matters.”  It sounds so easy; sounds like the way I was raised; sounds like the way all the kids around me were raised.  It sounds like something I have believed without thinking very much about it practically all my life.   

I am 74 years old and cynical as they come.  I know better, but I wanted it to be true.  “Here, right matters.”  It hurt, hearing it.  It hurt because deep down inside me, I knew that it was like so many things the people in this country have repeated, nodded their heads in response to, told their children and taken for granted. 

Alexander Vindman, a child clinging to his refugee father, penniless, being drawn forward toward the promise of this country, believed it.  Almost forty years later, he still believed it.  You could see it in his eyes.  You could see it on every surface of his face as he was testifying.  And he was not afraid.  He was proud; proud of himself, proud of the country; proud of saying it, proud he could say it.  He had his heart on his sleeve that day when he told that story in front of the men and women in Congress; men and women who had taken an oath to uphold the Constitution. 

And because Alexander Vindman still believed in the honesty, the decency, the integrity, the incorruptibility of the country, I wanted to believe in it too.  I wanted to believe it for me, for you, for everybody, but I especially wanted to believe it for Alexander Vindman.

Here was this man who had traveled halfway across the world when he was a child, carried along by the belief in a dream.  And you couldn’t come up with a better example of how that dream had at one time worked.  Vindman, his two brothers and his father had $200 when they landed in this country.

Vindman retired as an Army lieutenant colonel, Director of European Affairs for the United States National Security Council.  He had a Purple Heart, a master’s degree from Harvard, and a doctorate in international affairs.

I could not bear the thought of seeing Alexander Vindman’s trust and pride and conviction and faith in the country shattered when he learned that nah, right didn’t matter here.  Not anymore.  Right was a fool’s game.  There was no “city on the hill.”  There was no Marshall Plan to ensure economic recovery for war-torn Europe.  There was no USAID assistance anymore to help the people in Ukraine .  There was no more food, medicine, water, grain trailers, generators, or textbooks, to help Ukrainians and others survive.  America was out for itself, Trump and the Republicans had announced.  Trump and the Republicans were out for themselves.  We were just too deluded to see it.

A friend of mine lives south of Kyiv, she makes handmade jewelry to support herself and her two children who are bombed almost every night.  The other day she posted that her two children could now sleep through a night of bombing. 

           Would you want that for your children?  No.  But she’s not us.  She’s not American.  Why help her?  Fuck her.  Who cares about her two children.  We need money at home.  Internet service is getting more and more expensive.   Gaming, the Daytona 500, getting your nails done, plastic surgery, designer clothes, guns, spa services.  People seem to think that now that we are not sending so much money to Ukraine, the government us going to cut them a check.  So, sure, let’s yank that money right out of Olga’s hands.  Bitch is not going to live off us while she’s trying to survive in the middle of a war.  Fuck her.

That’s what we have become.  That’s the tone used by the President of the United States and the slime he has surrounded himself with.  Fuck sending condoms to prevent an AIDS epidemic.  Fuck sending them and smirk about how funny it is.  Fuck funding people to dress themselves in hazmat suits and try to stop another Ebola outbreak.  It’ll never reach here.  Besides, we have other priorities.  We’re making money.  We’re buying bitcoin.  All the rest of you whiny bitches get out of the way, the United States of America doesn’t give a fuck about you unless you can make us money.

           Is that what you want this country become?  Is that the way you will tell your children about the country?  Not, we live in a country where truth matters, where compassion matters, where caring matters, where nobody is above the law, where cheating and lying are not honorable.  Where right matters?

Or will you tell them the truth?  Tell them that this is a country where we go out and get what we want.  Lie, cheat, steal, humiliate, abuse if you have to but make money and laugh at the dumbasses you make it off. 

I have found in 74 years that there are two types of people in the world.  Just two.  There are people who see vulnerability and rush to protect it and there are people who see vulnerability and can’t wait to take advantage of it.   The question is which one are you?  Which one do you want your children to be?  Which one do you want your country to be?