Jamin Bradley

Like many of you, I watched through Trump and Vance’s argument with Zelensky. It serves as a good look at how many justice conversations go when the oppressed try to explain their plight, and those unaffected by the difficulty don’t listen.

Zelensky is living in the pain of Russia’s violent invasion of his land, and he has brought stories, pictures, and statistics to help make Americans aware of how bad it is. Putin has repeatedly broken ceasefires. Zelensky is dealing with a terrorist who is killing his people, is not playing by the rules that exist in war, and is not open to diplomacy. From Zelensky’s standpoint, this whole war ends when his oppressor stops oppressing him.

On the other hand, Trump talks about Putin as someone he knows well—almost like a friend. He acknowledges the situation that Zelensky is in, but he doesn’t acknowledge the wrongdoing. As a businessman, all he believes needs to be done for peace is to get a terrorist to make a deal with the people he is oppressing. “They do not like each other… it’s unfortunate. It’s why you’re in this situation,” Trump said while looking for filler words, putting an incredibly basic spin on the war.

Trump has often talked about wanting to be remembered as a peacemaker, which is ironic as I can think of few presidents who have more divisively split their own nation apart. However, a peace deal is often a “peace that is no peace.” Real peace requires recognizing wrongs, repentance, reparations, and, if possible, reconciliation. Deals don’t have to do any of this. Instead, they often suppress the pain until it explodes later. Under Trump’s kind of peace, Ukraine might have Russia back off, but such peace will have been achieved without recognizing the painstakingly obvious wrongs, causing all parties to lose in their own way: America will not have called out the wrongs. Russia will not have been held accountable for its sins. Ukraine will feel completely overlooked.

You can see Zelensky’s face trying to hold back his thoughts and corrections as the conversation continues. Occasionally, he breaks through, but there are many times when he clearly had to pocket a comment. Eventually, everyone gets heated, leaving Trump and Vance to gang up on Zelensky, who is the person that should be uplifted and supported. But apparently, we can’t even support him unless a deal is made for Zelensky to give us his minerals.

When we are having justice conversations with people, we must hear their stories. We must see how they were wronged and come alongside them as advocates. And we must always soften our hearts to the oppressed, or we might go on the defensive rather than hear them out. Rather than process the conversation, we’ll make it out to be nothing more than two people who can’t get along.