The Bully Pulpit

Sunday Reading List: Trump's Bullying of Zelenskyy, the ADL, and a Few Good Reads

Mar 02, 2025

We are being governed by bullies. We know this, have watched five weeks of Trump and Co. run roughshod over Washington like a playground tough who uses his power to make himself feel powerful.

Donald Trump is “a person who habitually seeks to harm or intimidate those whom they perceive as vulnerable.” He hectors and browbeats and demeans. His targets cower and often submit, giving up what little personal integrity they may have had in exchange for his protection and a chance to bask in his authority.

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Books by Hank Kalet

J.D. Vance. Marco Rubio. Lindsay Graham. All started as never Trumpers but are now his most vocal sycophants, a reality confirmed again Friday during and after the ugly spectacle at the White House when Vance and Trump engaged in a classic bullying beatdown of Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenskyy.

The press, of course, was surprised, mostly because it has never figured out how to fit the old rules of balance and objectivity to an administration that relies on lies, distortions, and extortion in the conduct of everyday business. Few outlets are willing to call Trump a liar or call this statements lies. They will say he “falsely claimed” or “falsely blamed” of “appeared to suggest” that Ukraine started the current war, They will correct the record but avoid the elephant in the room: Trump didn’t just offer a falsehood. He did it knowingly and purposefully. There was intent to deceive, to reset the narrative, to impose his own version of the truth on others. That makes it a lie. A blatant one, in fact.

The New York Times failed its readers on Saturday in its coverage of the bullying of Zelenskyy when it described Friday’s gang-up as a “dressing down,” language that implies they were reprimanding Zelenskyy for being a bad kid and not aggressively seeking to demean and intimidate. They were the parents and were responsible for correcting the recalcitrant lackey.

Trump says he is interested in peace, but that is also a lie. He has made it clear that he is perfectly willing to let Russian forces level Ukraine unless Zelenskyy meets two conditions: 1) Ukraine must give the United States access to Ukraine’s rare minerals, and 2) Zelenskyy must kiss Trump’s ring.

The spectacle in the White House on Friday was not about the war. It was about Trump. It was another chance for him to demonstrate his power over others. He is a bully, but in the end, bullies always get their comeuppance.

None of what I have written should be taken as an endorsement of prolonged war in Ukraine. I was skeptical three years ago that the war would be used to boost American weapons manufacturers, and I worried that the breakdown between Putin and the West would make diplomacy impossible.

But it has been clear to me from the beginning, as well, that this was a war of choice by Putin and that Russia was the aggressor. There are a lot of reasons for this, some economic, some ideological, some religious and historical.

Some on the left have been rewriting this history, however, out of legitimate suspicion of the American war machine and even mischaracterizing the 2013-2014 uprising in Ukraine, which overthrew a Russian-aligned government as a U.S.-backed coup, and the current crisis as a “US-NATO war against Russia over Ukraine.”

This puts ostensible leftists and, in many cases, self-described socialists, in league with Trump (a wannabe autocrat) and Putin (a longstanding autocrat).

I want this war to end as quickly as possible. Trump is right that too many have died, but he is wrong to put the onus on the victims to find a solution. That is blaming the victim and will only lead other powers to impose their will on their smaller neighbors.

The Haaretz Podcast hosted ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt this week for a discussion about rising rates of antisemitism and what he thinks of the Trump administration. The interview was a tough listen. Greenblatt was allowed to set the terms of the discussion, and was not challenged on his definitions, creating an opportunity to present the work of the ADL in the most favorable light.

The ADL — formerly the Anti-Defamation League of the B’nai Brith — is often relied on for its accounting of hate crimes against Jews, but the organization long ago gave up the right to be considered an honest broker when it comes to this issue.

The reason becomes clear if you listen.

Early in then interview he says this about Oct. 7, the Hamas incursion into Israel and massacre of civilians: “What we saw on Oct. 7 was the end result of anti-Semitism unchecked. Dehumanizing Israelis or Zionists or Jews leads to inhuman acts.”

This is only partially accurate. By framing this act solely in terms of antisemitism, he erases the century of conflict and nearly 80 years of Israeli repression of Palestinians (and the forced removal of hundreds of thousands to create the state of Israel. I don’t offer this as a justification, but we cannot just toss it off as an act of antisemitic butchery without understanding how poisonous the occupation and dehumanization of Palestinians has been.

Later, Greenblatt is asked about anti-Zionism and he doubles down on something he has been saying for quite some time: “It is not my belief that anti-Zionism is a form of anti-Semitism, it is.” It is a fact, he says, and that “fact” allows him to ignore all other evidence or explanation.

But is it a fact? Greenblatt relies on a logical fallacy. His entire argument is based on a faulty premise in which he treats the interpretation of fact as fact. Doing so allows him to avoid the conversation that needs to be had about what Zionism and anti-Zionism are and are not.

He ignores the numerous historians, philosophers, and theologians — Palestinian, Israeli, Jewish, Muslim, Christian —- who have looked at the same history, same set of facts, and have come to a different interpretation. I’m thinking of Jews like Ilan Pape, Shaul Magib, and Marc C. Ellis, and Palestinians like Edward Said and Rashid Khalidi who have written extensively about how the conflation of Israel and Judaism contributes to the ongoing conflict’s intractability.

There are other points he makes with which I disagree, but this is the key one, this inability to see critics as anything but antisemitic that undermines ADL’s data (is criticism of Israel included as an antisemitic incident in their count?).

Another recent podcast worth listening to comes from the Center for Security, Race and Rights at Rutgers Law School in Newark.

This discussion on the latest podcast considers the impact of race and what Edward Said called “Orientalism” on American foreign policy and its commitments to freedom both within the United States and beyond our borders.

You can listen here:

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