The 18th century war Europeans usually refer to as the “American War of Independence” US citizens prefer to remember as the “American Revolution.” The plucky colonists, after aromatizing Boston Harbor with British East India Company tea, effectively broke the model of government English-speaking people had clung to for centuries, which defined citizens as “subjects” of the Crown. It makes sense to call such a change of status a revolution.

The victorious patriots established a republic based on the idea of representative democracy. They later called it “the land of the free,” meaning they were no longer “subjected” to anyone’s rule. Alas, they could not have anticipated the vagaries of history that, some two centuries later, would transform their society into a system that treats them not as subjects of their regal government, but as objects (and even targets) of marketing campaigns conducted alternatively by wealthy corporations and powerful political parties.

Revolutions evoke strong emotions. Even when they go awry, we remember them as largely justified or at least comprehensible rebellions against injustice. Revolutions may be bloody to the point of turning into a “Reign of Terror,” as was the case in France after their revolution in 1789. To this day, we (this author of French nationality) may be called upon to sing the rousing “La Marseillaise” that celebrates furrows flowing with impure blood, as a particularly effective compost to nourish our crops. Other revolutions, in contrast, have been bloodless. England in 1688 remembers its “Glorious Revolution” when the last Stuart king, James II, fled the kingdom without so much as drawing his sword.

During the Reign of Terror, the French put their recent innovation, the guillotine, to good use. They demonstrated on a major scale what a future president, Emmanuel Macron, would describe as the spirit of a “startup nation” committed to technological innovation. Though most revolutions gain momentum thanks to the energy of a popular revolt against what is perceived as an abusive power relationship, the true driving force that accounts for any revolution’s success, is, in the immortal words of political consultant James Carville, “the economy, stupid.”

Over the past month, the US appears to be undergoing a new revolution made possible by last November’s election, when a majority expressed their dissatisfaction with Bidenomics, which included unconditionally funding two controversial foreign wars. Nobody could foresee where the coming disruption of their previous government’s habits might lead the nation. It sounded like a revolution, but would it be one?

A month after Trump’s second inauguration, that seems to be the case. Between the likely end of a comfortably installed war of attrition and co-president Elon Musk’s DOGE tornado, that is already ripping up well-rooted features of the landscape, the US is living, if not a full-blown revolution, then a radical sea-change.

The most consequential facet of the Trump 2.0 revolution is its effect on the “world order” thanks to the president’s commitment to ending the war in Ukraine. In an article with the title, “Trump’s Pivot Toward Putin’s Russia Upends Generations of U.S. Policy,” The New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker accuses the president not only of “switching sides” but of doing so because of “a perplexing fondness for Mr. Putin.” To make his case, he quotes Kori Schake, a director of the American Enterprise Institute and former aide to President George W. Bush.

Today’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Disgraceful reversal:

In the age that has established the principle that to be respected war will be preferable to peace, any change of policy that relies on the highly suspect practice of dialogue and diplomacy.

Contextual note

According to InfluenceWatch, the “American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is a right-of-center think tank that promotes free markets and an active foreign policy role for the United States.” David Rose, writing for Vanity Fair in 2014, noted that AEI was regarded “as the intellectual command post of the neoconservative campaign for regime change in Iraq.” The liberal and dominantly Democrat-allied NYT, which has never hidden its sympathy with neoconservative causes, expresses its worry about Trump’s peace efforts it describes as a “pivot” and “switching sides,” a “disgraceful” and even treacherous thing to do.

Baker goes further as he describes an initiative to establish peace as an act of aggression. “Indeed, Mr. Trump has spent the first month of his second term stiffing the allies” because he hasn’t invited the Europeans to the negotiations. He appears to believe that this is a worse offense than Biden’s persistent and successful campaign to cripple the economies of his European allies and cast them into the role of extras in the global drama of democracy vs autocracy.

Baker appears not to have noticed the effect of Biden’s Ukraine mission on Europe and Germany, in particular. He quotes political scientist Ian Bremmer who speaks of an initiative that “makes Trump look like an adversary to Europe’s largest economy.” No one has reason to doubt Trump’s indifference to Europe’s future, but does it really compare unfavorably with Biden’s Ukraine policy that has put exceptional stress on European budgets, and most spectacularly the sabotage of Nord Stream, a war crime that has directly contributed to the deindustrialization of the German economy?

Baker correctly observes that “Mr. Trump flavored his comments with multiple false claims.” That should surprise no one. We have all learned to expect it from a president who falsely asserted last month that Spain is a member of BRICS.

Baker concludes by quoting Ian Bond, deputy director of the Center for European Reform in London, who half-correctly observes that “Trump is siding with the aggressor, blaming the victim.” Bond is right to observe that when Trump blames Ukraine for the war, he is abusively blaming one of the victims. But, as many observers have noted, Russia, though on legal grounds clearly an aggressor, is also a victim. The events of late 2021 and early 2022 and a series of statements subsequent to Russia’s invasion confirm that the proxy war that began unfolding at that time had been thought out and executed by Washington as an intended regime change operation. When a US president shouts out in a public address, “This man cannot remain in power,” and promises to destroy the Nord Stream pipeline months before its actual destruction, it’s fair to conclude that Russia was not the only aggressor in this conflict.

The main victim remains Ukraine, a country that will never be the same. Talk about betraying one’s allies. Trump is right to insist, as many critics have done, that the entire drama could have been avoided.

Historical note

“No Ukrainian leaders,” Baker reminds us, “were in the room for the meeting, held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, much less other Europeans, although Mr. Rubio called several foreign ministers afterward to brief them.”

Need we remind Baker that no US or European leaders were in the room for the drafting of the “Istanbul communique” in late March 2022, when Russia and Ukraine reached an agreement that would have ended the military operation? As former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter describes it, the agreement hammered out in Istanbul “would have brought the conflict to an end on terms which, in retrospect, were extremely favorable to Ukraine.”

When, days later, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson showed up unexpectedly in Kyiv to inform the Ukrainians they should not sign such a deal since NATO and the transatlantic alliance were committed for “as long as it takes” to winning the war, no Russians were present to discuss the finer points or renegotiate the terms of an agreement Washington and London disapproved of. The decision had come from on high and Ukraine didn’t even have a veto.

Ever since NYT’s notoriously dishonest campaign in 2002–2003 to justify George W. Bush’s unjustifiable and illegal invasion of Iraq, it should be clear that the Gray Lady, like most of the Democratic party, prefers war to peace, conflict to negotiation. Baker is, after all, just doing his job, which apparently includes turning history on its head and distorting all available facts. Twice in the article he accuses Russia of violating “two cease-fire deals negotiated in Minsk, Belarus, in 2014 and 2015.” Has he not heard that France’s President François Hollande and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel both confessed that the goal of the Minsk accords for them was not to resolve Ukraine’s civil war, but to gain time to build the Ukrainian military in the interest of blocking the promised autonomy of the Donbas region?

Are all reversals bad? And as far as “disgraceful reversals” go, how much blame should we place on newspapers of record that simply reverse the truth?

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of Fair Observer Devil’s Dictionary.]

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.