Sometimes in life, a penny drops: We suddenly understand what has heretofore made no sense. Once that penny drops, we can’t go back: Our perception has been irrevocably changed.

That happened for many Americans last Friday after the Oval Office meeting between our president and vice president, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine. Zelenskyy was berated and humiliated by our leaders, who accused him of disrespect and ingratitude. They said, to a man whose country has been fighting a ground war against Russia for three years, whose cities have been destroyed, and whose people have suffered more than 400,000 deaths and injuries, that he wasn’t yet ready for peace.

That meeting, by the way, came close on the heels of a vote in the United Nations that named Russia as the aggressor in Ukraine, and called for the withdrawal of Russian troops: The United States voted with Russia against that resolution.

Those two events gave Americans who were paying attention a lot to process.  

Let’s begin with what the past six weeks have produced:

1. Public anxiety. Americans are more divided, stressed and angry than ever, now that an unelected billionaire is taking a chainsaw to government agencies with no regard for the value of those agencies’ work, or for the lives of people who depend on them. Name your issue: LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive healthcare, drug costs, electric vehicles, environmental protections, national parks, Black History Month, Women’s History Month, veterans’ resources. We don’t know what to protest first or how to organize our resistance.

2. Reduction in the federal workforce. People with no reason to think that their work was unsatisfactory, or their position was expendable, are out of work.  Cuts to programs with any hint of diversity, equity, or inclusion have shuttered whole offices.  The entire federal workforce is demoralized, waiting for the next Elon Musk email, or for DOGE workers to lock them out of their computers.  We have yet to appreciate the effects of these cuts on ordinary people — but it’s tax season and we are about to see if anyone is left at the IRS to process our returns.

3. Scapegoating of immigrants. Blaming everything from the cost of housing, to crime, to “poisoning the blood” of the country on immigrants, Trump has targeted birthright citizenship (a constitutional right), and given ICE the power to increase monthly arrests by 627%. Our government has sent immigrants, in chains, to tent cities at Guantanamo, and shipped them on military aircraft to other countries. Immigrant communities live in fear.  

4. Destabilizing the economy. Remove immigrant labor from farms, industry, and healthcare, and what will happen? Impose tariffs on trading partners, and watch prices rise. Change the federal position on green energy, and see what it does to those industries. Were you planning to buy a car or a house (or eggs)? Think again: Your job or your savings may not be secure.

5. Elimination of the U.S. Agency for International Development, charged with delivering humanitarian and developmental aid to other nations. USAID has been the way America presents itself to the developing world: the good guy who offers help with HIV/AIDS, gender violence, crops, hunger, disease prevention. We aren’t the good guys anymore — assistance, research, and boots on the ground have come to a screeching halt.

6.  The loss of government data, information, and science. Entire sections of websites have been deleted. At the same time, Americans’ personal data has been exposed.  Research projects addressing everything from cancer prevention to next year’s flu vaccine have been put on hold or eliminated. We are ceding leadership in the knowledge economy and in science to other countries.

7. The abdication of power and responsibility by Congress. Amid the avalanche of executive orders, firings, policy changes, and violation of laws (especially regarding civil rights and worker protections) Congress has been flaccid. They have approved the administration’s woefully unqualified cabinet appointments, and the dismantling of agencies whose job was to provide oversight of federal programs, consumer issues, and policing. They barely squeaked when Trump’s henchman, Elon Musk, usurped the power of the purse by halting grants and payments already approved by Congress. They murmur dissent, but line up to vote for their leader.

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The puzzle until just now has been WHY?  

Who benefits when the federal government ceases to work smoothly?

Who benefits when diversity, equity, and inclusion cease to be hallmarks of a mature civilization, and become instead the reason that airplanes crash or California fires can’t be controlled?

Who benefits when America betrays commitments to its former NATO allies and to developing nations?

When our economy sputters? When our scientists leave to find better working conditions? When democracy fails? When Americans lose faith in their government?

Answer to all of the above: Russia, Russia, Russia.

Is Trump a Russian asset? What hold does Putin have over him? Is Trump the only player on Russia’s team, or is this the end of Putin’s long game: the destruction of American democracy from the inside out?

The answer is obvious, on the one hand. On the other, it doesn’t matter, because Russian interests are served as the Trump/Musk agenda steamrolls forward.  

Maybe it’s not a penny that has dropped: It’s a kopek.

— Community Columnist Barbara Mezeske is a retired teacher and resident of Holland. She can be reached at bamezeske@gmail.com.