Lessons From the Edge by Marie Yovanovitch

Author:Marie Yovanovitch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-01-22T00:00:00+00:00

10

The Transition

NOVEMBER 8, 2016, election day in the United States, was also my birthday. That night Mama and some friends joined me for a low-key celebration at a restaurant in central Kyiv. I ate too much khachapuri, the most delicious Georgian cheese bread, and went to bed relatively early. I had to be up at the crack of dawn to make it to the embassy’s election day breakfast. The plan was for Ukrainian dignitaries, the diplomatic community, and the press to see democracy in action as we watched the results coming in together. I fell asleep expecting to see Hillary Clinton elected president by morning in Kyiv.

I had liked working for Secretary Clinton at State. I had seen her in action during her visit to Armenia and when I returned to Washington for her final year and a half as secretary. She had an unmatched work ethic, and she was smart, creative, and funny. Moreover, she never shied away from tough talk with our foreign friends when warranted, something that many high-level American officials just won’t do. When foreign leaders tried to muzzle the free press, no one was better positioned to respond. Clinton told them she understood: she too was often criticized by the U.S. media, but a free press is the hallmark of a democracy. There wasn’t much anyone could say to argue with that, since everyone knew how viciously she was often pilloried.

The notion of a Trump presidency, though, unsettled me. Trump didn’t seem to share many of the bedrock American principles that formed the basis for our partnerships around the world and which had motivated me to join the Foreign Service. He didn’t seem to appreciate how alliances with our democratic friends had kept the peace, defeated communism, and enabled us to become prosperous and secure. From my perch, “Make America Great Again” was a dog whistle to our lesser angels. Trump wanted to close our borders, halt inclusion, and shut us off from global engagement—in short, to undermine much that in my view made our highly imperfect nation great, not just to ourselves but to the world. It was because of America’s greatness, indeed, that the international community in Ukraine looked to the American embassy, where we represented a country of unmatched principle and power.

Trump seemed troublingly—and triumphantly—ignorant of reality both in the U.S. and abroad. Most relevant to my work, during the campaign he had appeared to support Russia’s occupation of Crimea despite international consensus that this constituted an unlawful infringement of Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty. I worried about how someone who seemed completely estranged from the facts could lead the country. His slogan of “America First” somehow implied that my colleagues and I did not put America first, which offended me. On a personal level, I found Trump’s bullying behavior, his xenophobia, misogyny, and racism not just offensive and immoral but dangerous. I worried about the divisions he was encouraging in our homeland.

I was a government employee, so I did not share my views about candidate Trump.

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