Into the Colosseum (Image from news.com.au / Photo by AFP)
There was a revolting tabloid quality to the Oval Office reception given to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on February 28, but then again, President Donald Trump is a tabloid brute, a man incarnated from the nastiest, shallowest precepts of yellow press clippings and, ultimately, the reality television empire that gave him a crown and forever enshrined him in the culture of brash Americana. From the foamy cable television rot of the republic, Trump’s progress was inexorable.
With such ingredients, the White House has become a studio, with the statesmanship of the bullying show paramount. The electors are to be entertained by what might be called colosseum politics. They want bread, but are very keen on the circuses. They want season tickets to the MAGA tent where they can witness muscular events. They want to know that the US will recoup what it gives, with interest.
When the satirically gifted Hugh Hector Munro (“Saki”) warned that being a pioneer was never wise, seeing as the Early Christian tended to get the fattest lion, it would be better to say that the lions here – Trump and his shock troop deputy J.D. Vance – seemed to have been on lettuce offerings and stale water for a week. The lean, mean duo were remorselessly and disgracefully hungry, making sure the Ukrainian leader was subject to a battering that proved unusually long. (These Oval office briefings before the press are usually short, snappy matters: a few anodyne questions; a few general remarks that barely ripple.)
It was also evident that Zelensky had not gotten the brief about Trump, prompting Marek Magierowski in the National Interest to describe him as “a worse psychologist than [French President] Emmanuel Macron and [UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer], who had paid a visit to the White House just before him and, to some extent, ‘charmed’ the US president.”
Unlike the two leaders who had come before him, Zelensky thought it wise to engage in a squabble about Russian intentions and the character of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, the factual record (always dangerous in dealing with Trump, who regards facts as, as best, malleable), a duel that saw shock trooper Vance weigh in. According to the Veep, Zelensky was not there to “litigate” the matter before the American public, which is precisely what he and Trump seemed to be doing. This was the language of prefects and school masters, with the student reluctant to play along.
It was a salient reminder that support for Ukraine has iced over, that it is no longer the blue-eyed boy of US politics, Western civilisation’s consecrated prop against Russian savagery. Republican Senator from South Carolina Lindsey Graham even went so far as to demand that the Ukrainian leader “either … resign and send somebody over and we can do business with, or he needs to change.”
Trump’s opponents have fumed at the president for having laid an ambush for the Ukrainianleader and promoting Russian talking points, naturally exonerating previous administrations for their contributory role (former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s intervention comes to mind) in feeding the conflict. “Zelenskyy flew to Washington,” quipped Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Jake Auchincloss, “but he walked into the Kremlin.”
What remains crudely apparent is that Zelensky had been given ample warning about what awaited but seemingly failed to see the billowing smoke signals. At a Saudi-sponsored investment meeting in Florida, Trump had declared that the Ukrainian leader was only “really good” at one thing: “playing Joe Biden like a fiddle.” He was also a “dictator” who had refused to have elections. “He’s low in the Ukrainian polls. How can you be high with every city being demolished?”
Zelensky had also done little for his own cause last year by injudiciously involving himself in the US elections, speaking at a Kamala Harris campaign rally and paying a visit to a munitions plant in Scranton, Pennsylvania last September. “It is in places like this where you can truly feel that the democratic world can prevail,” Zelensky stated at the time.
That the visit was also conveniently located in a battleground state that the presidential contenders had to win hardly helped his case in the Oval Office skirmish. Vance could not resist unsheathing his sword. “You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October,” he snapped. “Offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president who is trying to save your country.”
As a result of colosseum politics, no deals were reached, and certainly not one regarding US access to Ukrainian rare earth minerals, leaving Zelensky to seek solace in the bosom of weak European powers unhinged by the values of Trumpland. The lustre of the cause, at least across the pond, has not entirely vanished, though European support is hardly likely to swing matters on or off the battlefield for Kyiv.
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Dr Binoy Kampmark’s article Zelensky: Victim of Colosseum Politics” is a remarkable revolting tabloid quality misrepresentation and avoidance of facts. Dr. Kampmark’s account of what took place at the Whitehouse that day completely evades how Trump and Vance had designed it to prevent Zelenski to speak and level accusations at him!
Thank you Binoy Kampmark. So beautifully expressed! Trump and Vance were so very rude. We nice Australians, and other nice well-brung-up Westerners are so horrified at their bad behaviour. So that proves that Zelensky is a hero, and a leader to be admired and followed, DOESN'T IT?
Actually, no. Poor Zelensky has been riding so high on a wave of Western enthusiasm, indeed, idolatry, that he just doesn't "get it". Doesn't get it, that to repeat an unkind phrase, - "he doesn't hold any cards". I'm afraid that poor Volodymyr has been carried away by his own importance for far too long.
Fascinating how the armchair analysts seem to get off on sinking the boot into Zelensky from the safety of their seats behind the screen, seemingly oblivious to the reality that confronts the Ukrainian leader on a daily basis; mutilation, carnage, death, tragedy.
Put yourselves in his shoes, if you will, and then make your observations.
Superficial commentary, dispensed with the same degree of thoughtlessness as when one picks one's nose and flicks the booger in the bin. Pathetic.
Canguro, the "reality that confronts the Ukrainian leader on a daily basis" is a reality of his choice.
When a far-right leader in 2019 publicly threatened his life if he pursued peace, Zelensky had three options -- do a peace deal, continue the civil war, or resign.
He chose war.
That far right figure is still active in Ukraine politics.
The country is corrupt.
It is known globally as a hotbed of human trafficking and child exploitation.
That's who we are supporting.
Steve, I guess when you're born & bred in a land that's endured countless years of internecine struggle, occupation by external forces, a famine that claimed millions of lives, power plays between competing factions, imposition of instability and fomenting of revolution by western interests, along with economic & social frameworks that struggle to survive amid these exigencies, it's bound to be, at some levels, a dog eat dog existence... which, history would furnish, always includes the worst of humanity's behaviours such as you have cited.
Given the Russian aggression on the eastern front, and the natural resistance to this by the Ukrainians, if there's a line to be drawn in the sand, which side are you going to stand on?
And corruption, I think you would agree, is always a facet of any society under extreme duress.
If the smelly slime you find at the bottom of your Green bin had a personality and two legs, it would be exactly like Donald J. Rapist. https://maxgrossarchive.com/2025/03/01/diplomacy-is-dead/
Canguro, Only months before Putins “special mission” I was well into following “Bald and Bankrupt” on U-tube as he travelled through Ukraine with an informed commentary on the history of the old soviet union there.
His style is such that he chats to the locals, and it was a bit baffling to find him quizzing locals about whether they chose to use the Russian language while it had been banned. You learn from these travelogues.
You can check it out, but there was a lot of animosity towards the new regime who neglected the regions of mostly Russian supporters, and they looked forward to crossing the border to shop. Shops in Ukraine were a bit sad.
There was a huge awareness of the war between Ukrainian army, and the local freedom fighters which had been going on for 8 years. Zelensky had been voted in because he promised peace, and the locals laughed at that.
So I don`t think its true to regard ALL Ukrainians as being supportive of a move to the west. I many ways a civil war was well under way, and the West are not willing to allow for the fact that there are 2 sides within the one nation.
This aspect of the war has slipped out in press coverage, which we are expecting to carry a single consistent message.
Canguro, I agree with much of what you said.
But Zelensky got caught in a geo-political powerplay for which he was not prepared.
He had options.
He chose unwisely.
Trump's malevolent, cowardly and irrational attack against the Ukraine President, Volodymyr Zelensky is not only completely ILLOGICAL it provides a dangerous insight into Trump's total lack of moral character and zero discernment. Trump has only been in megalomaniacal power for a short time and ALREADY he is causing division, conflict and chaos! Trump is an intellectual midget without one iota of diplomacy, zero compassion and a terminal lack of insight. Trump has now openly displayed his absolute ignorance of the world OUTSIDE the insular boundaries of America! Doesn't this fool know that it was his "mate", the murderous ex-KGB killer Vladimir Putin, who ruthlessly attacked and invaded the Ukraine and NOT the other way around? As well as being a notorious, unrepentant misogynistic predator, a recidivist pathological liar and a CONVICTED CRIMINAL, Trump has proven himself to be a thuggish bully, and a tyrannical, completely deluded undemocratic megalomaniacal narcissist whose dangerously undemocratic collaboration with that appalling like-minded Elon Musk - a self-serving, UNELECTED multi-billionaire - has now formed into a twisted, totally depraved, tyrannical Diarchy; The Trump/Musk Diarchy are, indeed, the most likely pair of unstable political psychopaths ready, willing and able to start WW3 !!! When THAT happens, you can be absolutely sure that neither Trump, Musk or any member of their grasping, parasitic families will be seen on the front line fighting in one of the catastrophic wars they are likely to instigate!
Wouldn't expect anything better from a right wing tankie making excuses for both Trump and Putin?
Auditioning for a role at Tone's Hungarian workplace the Danube Institute with support of PM 'mini Putin' Orbán, partnered with the Atlas-Koch's anti-Ukraine and Opus Dei Heritage Foundation promoting Project2025 for Trump?
In fact Tone's Brit lead and Oz (Russian speaking) advisor in Budapest sound different via social media, but similar outcomes; Islamophobia, anti-woke, anti-Starmer/Labour, anti-immigrant etc., but barely a whiff of criticism of Trump, Putin and Orbán; specious sophistry to nudge against the centre towards the right....