The implications of giving in to a bully and thinking a politician is always right

The United States is experiencing an unusual moment, with a president who is adopting Moscow's rhetoric on the invasion of Ukraine.

A very revealing few hours about principles, patriotism and sovereignty
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In this Trumpian drift, every day we see a new infamy. On Tuesday, he blamed Ukraine for the Russian invasion, for not giving in to the invaders: a variant of the miniskirt argument, by which rapists blame their victims for "provoking" and not giving in to their desires. Yesterday Trump called Zelensky a "dictator", a word he has never used to refer to Putin. Today we learn that The US is opposed to talking about "Russian aggression" in the G7 statement on Ukraine, perhaps because that would contradict Trump, who has blamed the country under attack for the aggression.

All of this is very alarming, and so is seeing the lack of critical thinking on the part of many Trump supporters in the face of it. In the face of things like what the US president has been saying in recent days, it would be logical for those who have been supporting the cause of Ukraine to be critical of him, because the truth is not suspended simply because a politician distorts it. Unfortunately, Trump's words are leading many to change their discourse to align it with their idol, even if they have to contradict themselves.

This astonishing situation has reminded me of one of the slogans used by Italian fascism: "Il Duce ha sempre ragione" (the Duce is always right). This reference to Benito Mussolini was a clear example of how irrational the cult of a ruler can be. It is a situation that we are also seeing in Spain with the current president of the government: socialists who defend Pedro Sánchez's "changes of opinion" (this is how he justifies his lies) simply because he is their leader. I expected not to see something like that among those who are in opposition to this apprentice autocrat. I was wrong.

These days I'm seeing some surprising argumentative pirouettes and turns by his supporters to justify Trump. If these forced maneuvers to hammer reality into reality had no consequences, this would surely be a comical article. Unfortunately, these pirouettes have very serious implications, since they affect the pillars of our civilization. Pillars that are based on principles that predate democracy, such as the idea that the person responsible for a crime is the criminal, and not the victim, or the idea that a person's words and actions should be evaluated by their correspondence with truth and justice, and not by the condition of that person.

If we ignore these principles, we are damaging the pillars of our civilization. Pillars that have already been eroded by other injustices and abuses that our politicians have been committing for years. It is surprising to see some assuming the idea that since others have done wrong, Trump is now justified in doing wrong, because in the end that is what some justify, if we strip their words of the artifices of demagoguery.

What it means to blame the victims of an attack is what should scare us the most. If Ukraine is to blame for not giving in to the aggressors, what interpretation should we make of other attacks? Because both the invasion of a country and the act of beating up or shooting an ideological rival are different forms of the same scourge: the use of violence for political purposes. For years I have been denouncing both terrorism and those who dedicate themselves to threatening and attacking their opponents (something I have had the misfortune of suffering in the form of death threats). What message are Trump and his followers sending us? Perhaps that we should give in to the aggressors or we will be pointed out as guilty of the attack we suffer?

Some may believe that this extrapolation is exaggerated. I wish it were so. Sadly, I am already seeing people who denounced ETA terrorism, who rejected the concessions to that criminal gang by the PSOE and Popular Party governments - concessions that I denounced here - and now they approve of Trump giving in to a terrorist like Putin and blaming Ukraine for the invasion, simply because they admire Trump.

The same can be said of people who have been denouncing the violence unleashed in Spain by the extreme left and separatists, a violence that aims to prevent the rest of us from exercising our freedom to express ourselves, but who now do not see anything wrong with Trump blaming Ukraine for the invasion it is suffering because it did not want to reach an agreement with Putin.

I wonder how they will apply this argumentative model to political violence in Spain: from now on will they try to reach agreements with the extreme left so as not to be attacked? Will they blame future attacks on those of us who do not want to give in to the aggressors? What some are causing is an ethical and moral earthquake, which is what happens when you give in to a bully. It is an earthquake that will overlap with the one already unleashed by the left when it gave in to ETA and launched the message that violence could be profitable in a civilized country, a message that explains, to a large extent, why the left never condemns attacks against its rivals.

What I expect from the defenders of Western culture is that they oppose reason to barbarism, and not that they call for negotiations with barbarians to redefine the foundations of our society (because that is what Trump's actions in relation to Ukraine imply), or that they justify the bad actions of one politician with the bad actions of others.

I will continue to say what I have been saying up until now: we cannot give in to criminals, whether they are Putin, ETA or ISIS; and of course, we cannot commit the indignity of blaming those attacked for not giving in to the aggressors. If this means losing an audience and being attacked, I accept the price. A ridiculous price compared to what others have agreed to pay to defend their homeland from invasion. History teaches us that freedom is not free, as so many heroes have shown us, including the Ukrainian people.

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Photo: El Confidencial. A violent protest by the far left in February 2015 in Madrid.