The world’s attention span in this media age is ridiculously short and specious. After less than two years of life and death struggle against the forces of a craven, cynical, and stoat-faced despot, Ukraine finds itself in danger of lost interest and sympathy, support and resources. Truckers in Poland and Slovakia and Russian assets in the United States—i.e. the Republican Party—have placed their own self-interests, particularly selfish ones, ahead of not only the dire existential needs of Ukraine, but ahead of the larger interests of Europe and the West. Shameful, discouraging but not altogether surprising. Human nature can be frail, easily distracted and divided, even with the noble example of the Ukrainian people available to us daily. To my fellow Americans and friends in Poland, I ask, “Can we get our shit together?” To Ukraine, I offer the hopeful Churchillian observation that America will do the right thing—after it has tried everything else.
