Here’s a question.  Does anyone remember the Budapest Memorandum?  No, it’s not the title of a Robert Ludlum thriller or the plot line of a Le Carre novel.  Rather, it’s an agreement that altered the shape of modern history by making Europe and the world a much safer place.  The Memorandum was an agreement signed by Ukraine, Russia, the U.S., and the UK.  Let’s back up a step.  When the Cold War ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine maintained possession of 1700 Soviet nuclear warheads.  In 1994, the Budapest Memorandum stipulated Ukraine would relinquish its entire nuclear arsenal and transfer them to Russia to be dismantled.  Moreover, Ukraine agreed to sign the nuclear nonproliferation treaty.  

What did Ukraine receive in return for its bold action?  Russia, the U.S., and the UK agreed to respect its national sovereignty and to protect it from any foreign aggression.  Yes, you read that right.  Ukraine received a security guarantee from Russia, the US, and the UK when it gave up its nukes.  Ukraine had a security deal guaranteed by the US.  Someone needs to give the current administration a much-needed history lesson.  However, the agreement proved unworthy of the paper it was printed on.  The only signatory that abided by its terms was Ukraine.  Of course, there is significant regret in Ukraine for agreeing to the deal.  In all likelihood, Russia would never have invaded Crimea in 2014 and/or started a full-scale unprovoked war in 2022 if Ukraine remained a nuclear power.  

Russian authorities allege Ukraine violated the terms of the Memorandum by engaging what it termed “extreme nationalist” behavior.  Their claim is reminiscent of how Soviet leaders referred to dissidents as “hooligans”.  Undoubtedly, the Russian leadership took strong exception to Ukraine’s 2014 ouster of its autocratic leader who was an obvious Russian puppet.  He fled to Russia to leave the Ukrainian people to decide their own political fate. And they chose national freedom over Russian domination, or what Russia interprets as “extreme nationalism”.  Clearly, Ukraine’s Western pivot threatened Putin’s desire to reestablish Russia’s imperial dreams in Eastern Europe.  

During his recent ambush in the Oval Office, Zelensky tried to explain to Trump, Vance, and the American people, that Ukraine was fighting for its own survival and resisting Russian aggression on behalf of Europe and the U.S..  This is what Zelensky meant when he said, speaking in broken English, that Trump would feel Putin’s “influence”.  As if engaged in a barroom brawl, Trump berated Zelensky without having a clue about what he meant and then managed to convey his clear affinity for Putin.  

Of course, Zelensky was right.  He understands how Russia wants to reestablish its empire in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and to sow discord in the West.  Prior to the war, Putin fashioned himself as a cross between Peter the Great and Henry Kissinger.  But he revealed himself to be nothing other than a Stalinist dictator but with a twist.  The Soviets used to ally themselves with radical left-wing movements in the West to promote a global socialist revolution.  

Putin does the opposite.  He curries the favor of right-wing nationalist leaders and movements. He referred to Silvio Berlusconi as a dear friend and remains close to others like Marine Le Pen and, yes, Donald Trump.  But make no mistake.  While the alliances are different, the Russian goal remains the same:  to weaken Western liberal democracies that Putin believes are weak, corrupt, and morally bankrupt.  Trump’s astonishing petulant outburst in the Oval Office, coupled with the immediate action to disband important working groups at the Justice Department targeting foreign agent interference and money laundering, and his unconstitutional and illegal actions over the last several weeks, indicate Putin has found an ideal partner to realize his subversive agenda from the most unlikely source:  the president of the United States.  It is time for all concerned Americans to pose Jack Bauer’s insistent question from the hit TV show 24:  Who is he working for?

Neal Aponte, Ph.D.

Editor of Delano

Donald Trump is an extremely lucky man.  In the blink of an eye and sudden turn of his head, he survived an assassin’s bullet.  But his good fortune extended far beyond that harrowing moment.  His astonishing election victory also represented a stroke of brilliant luck.  If Trump had lost, he was going to be convicted not once, not twice, but three separate times, beyond his guilty verdict on thirty-four felony counts in New York.  

Anyone who listened to the taped phone call between Trump and Georgia election officials or followed the Florida documents case or the January 6^th investigation and prosecution, knows he was investigated and prosecuted for one reason alone.  There was compelling evidence Trump engaged in criminal activity.  Four separate grand juries concluded the evidence assembled against him warranted a criminal trial.  

In other words, if Trump did not return to the White House, he was likely headed for the Big House.  He is the first convicted felon to sit in the Oval Office.  But surely, he would have been convicted of other more serious crimes.  

And now our felon in chief seeks retribution against all those who worked valiantly to hold him accountable for his criminal activity.  We need to be very clear.  And we need to state repeatedly:  there was no weaponization of the FBI or the Justice Department.  There was no witch hunt to destroy Trump’s political career.  The FBI and the Justice Department was not corrupt and partisan.  These are Trump’s big lies.  

Just the opposite was true.  The fact Trump was investigated and prosecuted was powerful evidence our justice system worked as designed.  It proved no one in our country, not even an ex-president, was above the law.  It demonstrated we are still a nation of laws, not of men.  Make no mistake, Trump’s mission to seek revenge on those who investigated and prosecuted him is not merely an attack on the integrity of the FBI and the Justice Department.  It is a frontal assault on the rule of law, on the defining hallmark of our democracy.  

Many were incredulous when Trump chose supremely unqualified people to wield enormous governmental power.  Candidates like Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel, Pam Bondi and RFK Jr., to say nothing of the obscene nomination of Matt Gaetz to be attorney general, shared one quality:  a slavish loyalty to their boss.  This time around, Trump ensured there would be no adults in the room who would inhibit and constrain him in any way.  This time around, he wanted to appoint sycophants and cronies intent on doing his bidding.  

Can anyone seriously imagine our nation is safer now from terrorist plots or cyberattacks given the alarming number of layoffs or reassignments at FBI or CIA, and the identity of those leading our law enforcement and intelligence agencies?  Can anyone seriously imagine we are safer from a medical health crisis, say, from a measles or an Ebola outbreak or the emergence of a new coronavirus, with layoffs at the CDC and RFK Jr. running HHS?  Of course, anyone who would pilfer and then hide boxes of highly classified documents pertaining to our nuclear arsenal in his bathroom could never be considered a steward of our nation’s security.  

The president of the United States works for all citizens.  The White House is the people’s house.  And yet Trump does not behave as a public servant conducting business on behalf of citizens.  He remains in the business of enriching himself, his family, and billionaire friends, and keeping his personal brand relevant and lucrative.  Trump’s brazen and corrupt scheme to issue crypto coins in his own and his wife’s name is a stark portent of things to come. Fortunately, his declining poll numbers indicate people are paying attention to his corrupt and unlawful behavior.  Here is a prediction:  the ultimate guardrail against Trump’s authoritarian power grab will be his own recklessness, impulsivity, and foolishness.  More people will realize his constant lies do not merely broadcast outlandish conspiracy theories, but express disturbing figments of his imagination.  It will be increasingly obvious that he simply makes things up.  Recent egregious examples include his proclamation Zelensky is a dictator who started a war against Russia and whose approval rating in Ukraine stands at four percent, or that the January 6^th rioters did not attack police officers but were themselves attacked.  

It will become increasingly clear Trump prefers to bully opponents both here and abroad to coerce them to kiss the ring.  But Americans did not go to the polls last November to elect a king.  And they certainly did not vote for a president to act like a kingpin.  But that is who we have.  The next four years will be a grand civics lesson about the fragility of our democracy.  In a recent speech at the Munich security conference, JD Vance lectured European leaders about what he deemed the “enemy within” their democratic societies.  He referred to their stubborn refusal to embrace right-wing populist movements.  But Vance’s abhorrent rhetoric ironically defines an important truth we must recognize about ourselves:  Donald Trump is a cancer on our body politic, a powerful enemy to our democracy.  And it is up to each of us to resist this political threat.  All hands on deck. 

Neal Aponte, Ph.D.

Editor of Delano

Donald Trump does not fashion himself as a businessman or politician.  He is an entertainer and a masterful storyteller.  He managed his campaign and now directs his administration as a reality television show.  Each week, each day provides his viewing audience, the American public and the entire world, with a brand-new episode.  He is determined to ensure his second term in office remains a compelling drama or “must see” TV.  

Yes, Trump rambles and lapses into bewildering incoherence.  Yes, his stories are filled with half-truths and outright lies.  Yes, many of his speeches are like maladroit jazz improvisations or vulgar stand-up comedy routines.  But Trump tells his underlying story simply, concisely, and repeatedly until his lies and made-up nonsense establish a narrative many accept as truth.  

Here is the central and disturbing challenge we face:  how do we deal with a political leader who knowingly lies every time he speaks, who uses deceit as a central political strategy?  How do we resist a modern-day Caligula?  Fortunately, the answer is clear and simple.  Opponents push back proclaiming the truth.  And by repeating the truth simply, clearly, and repeatedly, until people recognize the big lie as a big lie.  Until the Trump narrative is dislodged and debunked.  This is the most important public service anyone can offer. 

In the 2024 presidential campaign, Democrats had over a billion dollars to spend.  But no one thought to implore someone like Jeffrey Katzenberg to hire a world-class storyteller to create a series of very short films highlighting the triumphs of the Biden administration.  The most progressive president of our lifetime, who passed important bipartisan legislation during a period of profound political polarization that will impact the lives of middle- and working-class Americans for years to come, ended his term with a dismal whimper.   Biden and his administration were atrocious storytellers.  

A YouGov poll published last October asked eight thousand voters to rank policies by the two presidential candidates without identifying who proposed them.  Guess what they found?  The most popular policy positions were associated with Harris, while the least popular were associated with Trump.  One quick takeaway?  A series of very short films promoted on social media laying out clearly and concisely what Harris stood for may have altered the outcome of the election.  

So how does Trump control the political narrative?  The heart of his strategic playbook is rather simple.  There are two main elements.  The first is adapted from Trump’s infamous mentor Roy Cohn:  admit nothing, then attack, attack, attack.  This is what enabled him to survive repeated humiliating revelations that would have destroyed the career of any other politician.  

The other feature of Trump’s strategic playbook is more sinister.  It runs like a red thread connecting his assertion Obama was not a US citizen to his rant about the 2020 election.  And it is a ploy used by all authoritarian leaders:  proclaim a big lie and repeat it until the big lie is adopted as truth. During his 2024 campaign, Trump repeated many big lies.  Here are three salient falsehoods that remain alive and well:  1) Trump won the 2020 election; 2) The election was stolen by Joe Biden via widespread election fraud; 3) While in office, Joe Biden “weaponized” the FBI and the Justice Department to persecute him.   These big lies form the heart of Trump’s false narrative that must be debunked by his opponents.  

The recent confirmation hearings of Pam Bondi and Kash Patel represented golden opportunities to expose Trump’s big lies.  Unfortunately, Democrats muffed their chance.  For example, it was astonishing how Bondi and Patel refused to say Biden won the 2020 election.  Pam Bondi asserted she had been in Pennsylvania and saw disturbing things.  Yet no one thought to ask her exactly what she saw?  And no one saw fit to remind her that she and other election deniers were accorded their day in court.  In fact, they had many days in court.  No one thought to ask Bondi how many lawsuits were initiated to challenge the results of the 2020 election.

So here is a pop quiz.  Can you tell me how many lawsuits there were?  The number may surprise you.  There were sixty-four lawsuits initiated across several battleground states to support Trump’s claim of a rigged election.  That’s right, sixty-four.  Of those sixty-four cases, twenty were dismissed before a hearing, another fourteen were voluntarily withdrawn by Trump’s supporters.  Out of the remaining cases, Trump prevailed in only one, a Pennsylvania case involving very few votes that did not affect the election outcome.  In 2022, a blue-ribbon panel of conservative jurists and politicians reviewed the purported evidence of fraud.  That panel included the likes of John Danforth, J. Michael Luttig and Ted Olsen.  They concluded with 100% certainty there was no evidence of electoral fraud.  In other words, the 2020 election was fair.  Donald Trump lost the election.  

Of course, Trump’s opponents know and accept this.  But no one thought to tell Bondi and Patel during their confirmation that they had four years to present any meaningful evidence of electoral fraud.  And that it was time to either put up or shut up.  This exchange would have provided a compelling TV drama and an opening salvo to restore faith in our electoral system.  

Another central tenet of Trump’s false narrative involves the audacious assertion Biden “weaponized” the FBI and the Justice Department to persecute him.  This big lie is now being used to hollow out the FBI and to undermine the independence of the Justice Department.   We should be clear about what this means:  we will become more vulnerable to terrorist plots of all kinds, and the rule of law at the heart of our democratic experiment will be undermined. 

Trump’s opponents must begin to systematically challenge and debunk his big lie about the FBI and the Justice Department.  Here again, the Bondi and Patel hearings represented a golden opportunity.  But no one thought to ask Bondi if she believed criminal suspects should be investigated.  Surely, she would have agreed.  And no one thought to ask her if a criminal suspect should go to trial in the face of compelling evidence.  Surely, she would have concurred again. 

After Bondi agreed, Democratic senators could have reached for the jugular.  Trump was investigated and prosecuted for one important reason and for one reason alone:  because he was suspected of breaking the law.  When the evidence marshaled against him was presented in Florida, Georgia, the District of Columbia, and New York, four separate grand juries found the evidence compelling enough to warrant a trial.  Donald Trump was not investigated and then prosecuted because of corrupt FBI agents or overzealous Justice Department lawyers bent on destroying him.  There was no witch hunt organized against Donald Trump.  There was no weaponization of the FBI and the Justice Department. That is a big lie. 

Here is the breathtaking truth that needs to be asserted clearly, concisely, and repeatedly.  The investigation and prosecution of Donald Trump did not signal our justice system was partisan and corrupt.  Just the opposite.  It proved that our system of justice functioned the way it was designed to work.  It proved our justice system worked brilliantly.  The prosecution of Donald Trump affirmed we are a nation of laws, not of men.  It proved that no one, not even an ex-president, is above the law.  

Donald Trump became furious because our criminal justice system held him accountable for his alleged criminal behavior.   His accusation about the “weaponization” of the FBI and the Justice Department are mere expressions of his familiar playbook:   admit nothing, attack, attack, attack.  Currently, he alleges that any judge who opposes him is “weaponizing” our judicial system.  Let us be clear about this. Anyone who resists Trump’s unconstitutional and illegal behavior will be accused of being corrupt.  He will attribute to his opponents what he engages in himself, namely, the weaponization of our justice system to go after political enemies.  

How sinister that Trump rebranded criminals, who violently attacked police officers and invaded the Capital Building to undermine the peaceful transfer of power, as political prisoners and then pardoned them.  Now he wants to prosecute all those who worked to bring those criminals to justice.  FBI agents and Justice Department officials were not simply doing their jobs.  Their work signaled our justice system was alive and well, that no one, including an ex-president, was above the law.   

We cannot afford to equivocate. Trump’s current vendetta is not merely against FBI agents and Justice Department officials. It is a frontal assault on the rule of law at the heart of our democracy. Therefore, it is imperative Trump’s opponents in political life and civil society expose Trump’s big lies as big lies. It is time to debunk his false narrative. The political stakes could not be higher.

Neal Aponte, Ph.D.

Editor of Delano

With the upcoming presidential election a few days away, the latest polls indicate the candidates remain in a virtual tie.  There is a reasonable chance Trump could get reelected.  What a remarkable thing to write or even think.  Let’s be clear, Trump has run an extraordinarily poor campaign.  His abject vulgarity knows no limit.  And his rally speeches offer an incomprehensible mélange of non-sequiturs he refers to as “the weave”, a vain and deceitful attempt to describe his rambling presentation as coherent.  Every day, Trump says or does something that would destroy anyone else’s candidacy.  Yet here we are, on the verge of an election still too close to call.   

Here is a profound mistake we make about Trump:  he is not running a political campaign.  He has no interest in doing so.  This explains why his speeches only contain mindless slogans and endless insults, and why he remained an indifferent campaigner this fall, spending many days without a single public appearance.  Rather than organizing a campaign, Trump produces a reality TV show where he gets to be the director and star.  Trump fashions himself as an entertainer, a vulgar insult comedian like Don Rickles on steroids. 

Trump will say and do anything he imagines will boost his ratings.  And here is the sad truth:  his strategy has been very effective.  Audiences laugh when Trump is vulgar. They cheer when he insults his opponent or makes ominous comments about acts of political violence.  And they are amused by his nonsensical stories.  Far too many Americans find all this entertaining. 

Of course, as Trump presents his vulgar “shtick”, the sordid, despicable truth about his character and behavior gets lost.  He defamed the woman he sexually assaulted, he committed widespread fraud in his business, he stole top secret documents and hid them in his bathroom, he fomented a political insurrection at the Capitol Building that threatened the life of his vice president, Nancy Pelosi and other congressmen and women and did nothing to stop the violence on January 6^th, he pressured Georgia officials to find him votes so he could overturn Biden’s victory in that state, he lied about losing the 2020 election and still denies the result.  

Donald Trump has taken a wrecking ball to the political heart of our cherished democracy:  the existence of a free press, the belief in the sanctity of free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power.  But the polls indicate that for too many Americans, none of it matters.     

But here is my hope.  At critical historical moments, the American public has made the right choice.  Think of the 1860 election as the nation trembled on the brink of Civil War and elected Abraham Lincoln.  Or the 1932 election, when Franklin Roosevelt became president during the Great Depression.  This is the most consequential election of our lifetime.  How will we respond?  Will we greenlight Trump’s abhorrent and dangerous reality TV show for another chaotic season?  Or will we decide he does not have the moral or intellectual stature to become president again?  My gut tells me that in a few short days, we will elect an African American woman to become the most powerful leader in the world.  It’s about time.   America let’s do this.  

Neal Aponte, Ph.D.

Editor of Delano