Perspectives on Trump’s victory: U.S. and Ukraine

In case you’ve been living in a hole for the last decade, just one name has dominated the US news cycle for nine years. Now, it will continue to dominate for four years more: Donald J. Trump. His November 5th victory over Vice President Kamala Harris has decisively redefined the American political spectacle. The new status quo is perhaps a classic spin on charismatic authority, where valor is made most quickly from brazen deceit, egotism, and greed. With the Supreme Court having handed him the rule of law on a silver platter, this second term will cement his legacy as the country's most significant postwar figure, and the coming decade of American political life now has a decisive name: The Trump Era.

His victory, however, may be equally consequential abroad. It is difficult to overestimate the influence of the United States in the Russian-Ukrainian war. Currently, the country is the most significant provider of military and financial assistance and a key ally for Kyiv. Trump's return to the U.S. presidency could bring major changes that would undoubtedly impact the course of the conflict.

This piece presents the two perspectives from the inside — one from an American, one from a Ukrainian —   facing a similar fear: the looming disintegration of their homelands. 

Authors: Asher Stein, Anastasiia Klemberh

Asher’s American Perspective 

Looking at reactions to his win in the media, I’m still unconvinced by many opined explanations; political scientists have been wrong about Trump almost every step of the way, and now I’m pretty sick of the talking heads. 

Perhaps analysing their babble around ‘the economy’ will be illustrative. As in most elections, this cycle’s polling data put the issue on top of voters' minds especially as a rationale to vote for Trump. But looking at the facts (if we can call them that) we are faced with a glaring dilemma: the economy has truly thrived under Biden. The first rule of sociology is that perception is key, but panic over the economy is one hell of a perception; call me a realist, but I find it difficult to believe people can even perceive the economy to be terrible in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. This issue should’ve been in the bag for democrats. 

We’re thus led to two dominant explanations. First, that economists are not usefully capturing the current picture, and now face a reckoning in their field to explain popular perceptions. This is certainly now true, and I welcome any impetus for change in this stagnant discipline. But the data we have remains quite convincing; even the Gini index has been falling under Biden, a formidable feat! It is difficult to believe that 50.4% of the population can perceive they are struggling more under Biden than they did under Trump. Perhaps their frustration with stagnation has reached a breaking point?

The other explanation is more banal and sinister: Americans are simply uneducated, and probably stupid. Inaccurate perception of reality is among the best definitions of stupidity, and abhorrence for this historical norm is indeed the scientific revolution’s driving force. Popular education’s alleged purpose is to bring the masses out of this stupor, and these institutions are certainly flagging in the US. Though I cannot dispute the truth of this claim, I will dispute its relevance in the election. Measuring “stupidity” is difficult, controversial, and an ultimately fruitless endeavor; we cannot know for certain and we certainly will not establish a causal link with political leanings.

But there is a more profound reason to disagree with our enlightened forefathers, and this comes with attention to the structures of ideology. If we take ‘education’ to be a choice, if people have agency in how they interpret their reality, (mis)perception of the economy fits well into a wider constructivist perspective on the inclination to vote for Trump. This is indeed my burgeoning perspective, as I will illustrate below.

The night before the vote I imagined the factors I would post facto attribute to each candidate’s hypothetical victory. It was written with some fervor: one of two worlds was decisively coming, and my anxiety over a potential fascist future was growing over the week. I soon realized the source of my anxiety: voting for Trump is a far more profound act than voting for Harris. My two lists are transcribed below (preserving my embellishments): 

KAMALA WIN

• Clean record

• Riding on the Biden economy

• Billion dollars + celebrity endorsements

• JOY

• “Maintain american democracy”

TRUMP WIN

• Changing the rules of the game, for gaining votes by shamelessly offering you POWER. And indeed, the greedier he is the more you identify with him! It’s a reflective cult of personality: it gives you permission to be a piece of sh*t too, to do anything but take responsibility for your actions. Thus, masculinity is huge here, thus really this is men vs women more than any other election. Masculinity, mind you, does not have to be limited to Men, though it is men who can make the most of it. You vote for him because you identify with and even emulate him; you know full well he’s not a generous man, that he is selfish and bigoted. But you think he will reward you, put you in his structure, and give you full membership into the new Nation. It’s a massive cult! It is a new style of supremacy. Power thus feels exponential here. You want him to lead because you want to BE him, you want the contemporary vices to become virtues. He is all vices to the left, he is the embodiment of their worst imaginable person. And this is exactly his power, the disdain he elicits for the “woke cancel culture,” the “witch hunt,” the snide fixation on how the left sees them: a victim narrative, indeed, for the perpetrator. This parallels the ethical shield provided by Mein Kampf, a book he apparently has positively quoted. Trump promises that this attitude will beget POWER, when it was less and less capable of doing so before. He frees you from the admittedly difficult obligation to be respectful, to empathize, to love other people. If you stand at the top of this new order, or you’re FIGHTING to do so, immigrants and asylum-seekers are a threat to the very legitimacy of that endeavor: they did not earn the right to be members of the nation like you did. And so too those who did not vote for him, holding opposing values: they want Trump’s new America to die! They are instead made into members of the invented elite who conspired against his righteous message.

Under a broader, instrumentalized ideology, then, we can make a theory of purposive misperception: dissatisfaction with the economy is a deliberate inversion of reality designed to shield the voter from the most tangible, objective argument to vote for the other side. I won’t claim this is the only explanation, but we must take it seriously as a contributing factor.

My own decision to vote for Harris was very easily made, most profoundly by my intimate knowledge of the Nazi regime (which the upcoming one resembles uncannily) and by my identity as a queer Jew (someone with little to no right to power in Trump’s America). But I am obviously unique in this sense; I am representative of no coveted American electorate. Perhaps I’m doomed!

Anastasiia’s Ukrainian Perspective

If I were to describe the mood of Ukrainians regarding the future with Trump in one sentence, I would choose the comment of the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba: “There are many statements and steps ahead that will make Ukrainians reach for calming drops.” Trump's victory for Ukrainians was a truth that we did not want to face. At a time when everything pointed to his likely victory, most of us chose to stay in our information bubble, convincing ourselves that the next U.S. president would be a Democrat — and hence from a party whose stance toward Ukraine has generally been more predictable and supportive.

Reactions were mixed. Despite the fact that President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy congratulated Donald Trump on his "impressive victory" in the US elections and expressed his support for Trump's "peace through strength" approach to global affairs, the mood in the Ukrainian social media space on the morning of November 6 was pessimistic and sarcastic. Social networks such as X, Facebook and Instagram were flooded with memes about Trump's victory, clearly indicating how negative the situation was. 

The negative reception of this news is not surprising, largely due to Trump’s repeated statements, which have led many Ukrainians to feel a sense of uncertainty and doom. On multiple occasions, Trump has criticized the scale of U.S. support for Ukraine and stated that if he was re-elected in November, he would immediately "solve this issue".

His bold statement in June 2023, promising to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours, left many Ukrainians both amused and alarmed, as we could only speculate about the methods he might use to fulfill this promise. At that time, no details of his plan were shared or published, so his statement felt less like a hopeful prospect and more like a potential threat of losing U.S. military aid and diplomatic support, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s proposed Peace Plan. 

The Ukrainian vision of peace and justice is most likely very different from that of the incoming Trump administration. This thesis finds its confirmation in the recent statement from a former adviser to the President-elect who indicated that the new administration would focus on achieving peace in Ukraine rather than supporting the return of territories occupied by Russia. He added that, for Ukraine, "Crimea is gone."

This stance is entirely opposed to Zelenskyy's victory plan, which clearly rejects any concessions of Ukrainian territory or sovereignty. It also goes against the Budapest Memorandum signed in 1994, under the terms of which Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for ensuring the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. The USA, Russia and Great Britain, for their part, undertook to respect the independence and existing borders of Ukraine. The current narratives of the Trump administration essentially legitimize the annexation of Crimea and clearly undermine the legitimacy of such intergovernmental treaties as the Budapest Memorandum. They also signal the weakness and inability of the United States to keep its promises.

The words "peace" and "justice" hold equally significant value for Ukrainians. The war is now in its third year, and I would be lying if I said Ukrainians aren’t exhausted. We are weary of constant shelling, loss of life, blackouts, relentless anxiety, stress, and uncertainty. We all yearn for a peaceful, quiet life. However, giving the aggressor and war criminal exactly what he wants — what he invaded Ukraine for — and allowing him to escape responsibility for the destroyed lives, economy, and infrastructure has nothing to do with true "justice."

Moreover, this kind of rhetoric has historically contributed to Russia's lack of responsibility and accountability for its aggressive actions: the occupation of Transnistria in 1993, the invasion of Georgia in 2008, the annexation of Crimea in 2014, aggression in Donbas, and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This raises an obvious question: to stop this bloody machine called the Russian Federation, shouldn’t we reject concessions and fully deter their expansionist ambitions; shouldn’t we do everything possible to hold them accountable? Perhaps this is a rhetorical question that, I fear, the Trump administration does not factor into its policies at this moment.

In Trump’s proposed peace plan, it is suggested to freeze the current conflict and establish an 800-mile buffer zone, which will be policed by European and British troops, to separate Russian and Ukrainian forces. Additionally, Ukraine has to postpone its NATO membership ambitions for 20 years. This would effectively allow Russia to retain all Ukrainian territories it has occupied since 2014 and give the Russian government the impression that it can influence NATO member countries and the policies they implement. 

I believe there is no need to explain why this is wrong from a “justice” point of view. However, it is worth looking at this plan from a security perspective. Responding to such proposals, Zelensky noted that any concessions to Russia perceived as weak would endanger Europe’s stability. A similar "freezing of the conflict" did already occur  under the Minsk Agreements. On September 5, 2014, the Minsk Protocol was signed, with key points including a "complete ceasefire," withdrawal of all formations, removal from the border, and Ukraine’s full restoration of control over the entire Ukrainian-Russian border. 

Whether the points of these agreements were fully valid or had potential is debatable. In any case, Russia has once again proven untrustworthy, as the security provisions were never upheld. This raises the question: even with direct involvement from the U.S. and EU in the treaty and peace process, can Russia truly be compelled to honor an agreement and cease hostilities? And can Ukrainians be assured that ceding territories will prevent yet another invasion?

According to the Vienna Convention of 1969, a treaty concluded under coercion, as a result of force, or under the threat of force is null and void from the moment of its signing. This was the case with the Minsk Agreements, and it could happen again with any future agreement if the new U.S. president does not reconsider his approach to this war.

Currently, Russian troops are advancing on the front lines, and the termination of U.S. military and financial support to Ukraine could lead to significant territorial and human losses. If the Trump administration pushes for negotiations under these unfavorable conditions for Ukraine, I have serious doubts that this will result in lasting peace for the continent. To, however, conclude my reflection on a positive note, I believe that this is a pivotal moment for Ukraine and the European Union to reduce their dependence on U.S. support. This could be an opportunity to strengthen regional partnerships, foster greater self-sufficiency, and build a more resilient European security framework.