Bullies Beat Up a Hero in the White House
The Destructive Power of Envy on Global Display (Vol. 5; Issue 9)
Last Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky boldly entered a hostile White House. He was ready to offer rare earth minerals from Ukraine in exchange for a security guarantee. The deal would allow the US to exploit these resources as long as it funded Ukraine’s continued resistance to Russia’s invasion.
Instead of any reasoned discussion, Trump and Vance—neither of whom ever led a country attacked by an invading army—blasted Ukrainian President Zelensky. They falsely accused Zelensky of failing to show sufficient appreciation for our support.
Vance said to Zelensky:
I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media…. You should be thanking the president for trying to bring an end to this conflict.
Trump interjected:
You have to be thankful.
And Vance demanded:
Just say thank you.
Trump proceeded to brag about his deal-making capacities. He demeaned the capabilities of his predecessors. Regarding Biden’s dealings with Putin, for example, Trump said:
That wasn’t with me. That was with a guy named Biden, who is not a smart person.
Referring to Putin’s capacity to adhere to a peace agreement with Ukraine, Trump added:
They [meaning Putin] broke it with Biden because Biden, they didn’t respect him. They didn’t respect Obama. They respect me. Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me. He might have broken deals with Obama and Bush, and he might have broken them with Biden, but he didn’t break them with me. He wants to make a deal.
Trump and Vance show an astonishing level of naïveté about Putin. Neither have made any kind of deal with the psychopathic Russian dictator. In confirmation, both men ignored Zelensky’s descriptions of Putin repeatedly breaking treaties with Ukraine, not to mention his war crimes, which include deliberate attacks on medical facilities, energy infrastructure, and densely-populated civilian areas. Putin’s army — notorious for the torture and killing of Ukrainian prisoners of war — also abducted tens of thousands of Ukrainian children, tortured civilians, committed sexual violence, and destroyed cultural heritage sites.
For the record, Zelensky not only repeatedly thanked Trump and Vance during the Oval Office debacle, but he had previously thanked Biden and numerous senators for helping Ukraine defend itself since the Russian invasion.
The Oval Office exchange dominated news cycles around the world, particularly because the two US leaders spoke words right out of Russia’s talking points. It gained particular attention in the Russian state-controlled media. Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian prime minister and deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, posted on X:
The insolent pig [meaning Zelensky] finally got a proper slap down in the Oval Office.
This historical betrayal of a European ally in favor of Putin, the war criminal, will be analyzed for years to come, and from every conceivable angle. The idea of envy, and how to manage it, offers a way of interpreting the exchange from a psychoanalytic viewpoint. Psychoanalyst Melanie Klein (1946, 1957), who took the deepest dive into this intensely primitive emotion, considered it a primary part of the human experience.
We humans grapple with envy* from the get-go, Klein observed. The green-eyed monster erupts because we enter life as small, dependent beings. We cannot help but envy our parents’ power over us. If you successfully mature into adulthood, you metaphorically take a seat at the adult table. You develop your own sense of self-worth and confidence, diminishing or eliminating envy. You have no need to prove yourself. But if you fail to make that transition, envious feelings will continue to haunt you.
Excessive levels of envy are typically handled in two basic ways. You either idealize those you envy, thereby reducing your own discomfort. For example, you might envy Taylor Swift, but your admiration of her art form surpasses whatever envy you might have for her. Alternatively, you engage in “envious spoiling” (Klein, 1957, p. 183). You eject your envy through aggression, e.g., keying the Mercedes you will never be able to afford.
Returning to the troubling Oval Office meeting, the Trump-Vance vs. Zelensky show-down illustrates envious spoiling in action. Trump not only bragged about his alleged deal-making capabilities, but he repeatedly berated Zelensky. He insisted the Ukrainian leader humiliate himself by bending a knee and expressing thanks.
It is hard to view Zelensky as anything other than a heroic figure—whether or not you agree with our supporting his country**. Zelensky won a decisive victory in the April 2019 Ukrainian election, becoming the president of Ukraine. Less than three years later, he faced an invasion by the vastly superior Russian army. Two days after the invasion, US officials offered to evacuate Zelensky from the capital city of Kyiv. Instead, Zelensky famously replied:
The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.
Trump has never attained the popularity Zelensky enjoys from his people. Trump has never, unlike Zelensky, placed himself at personal risk by visiting his troops at the front lines. Years ago, Trump acknowledged he made up a fake injury to avoid military service, saying:
I wasn’t going to Vietnam.
Vance served four years in USMC public affairs, including one uneventful six-month deployment to Iraq. Although he at least served in the military, he hardly faced the lethal risks Zelensky faces. Putin has put a price on Zelensky’s head, resulting in Russian and other bounty-hunters actively seeking to assassinate him.
Here is another way to view last week’s White House scene:
It could be interpreted, metaphorically, as an interaction between three brothers—Trump the eldest, Vance next, and Zelensky the youngest. The two older brothers, who bullied their younger brother, distanced themselves from him. They gained immense wealth. They surrounded themselves with other wealthy persons. Their riches serve as a shield of sorts, but they offer neither integrity nor courage.
Zelensky, in contrast, chose integrity over affluence. He entered military service, was rapidly promoted, won an election, and became a loved and respected world leader. The elder brothers, although appearing more powerful on the world stage, harbor intense insecurity regarding their younger brother. They envy him because, for all their riches, they cannot make up courage.
Zelensky has led the defense of his small country against an immensely more powerful invader. Trump and Vance envy his grit. They envy his capacity to stand alone against oppression, to seek help from other democratic leaders around the world, and to stand by the side of his people. Neither of these symbolic older brothers will ever come close to living as courageous a life as Zelensky.
Therefore, the Trump-Vance team must demean him during the Oval Office meeting. They refused to respond to his offer of mineral wealth in exchange for support. Instead, they demanded fealty. True to his character, Zelensky exited stage left, leaving Trump to feebly proclaim:
I think we've seen enough. This is going to be great television, I will say that.
Trump certainly knows how to make good TV, but he knows naught about leadership, integrity, or courage. Horrified by the Trump, Vance, and Zelensky meeting, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman reacted as follows:
If you listen to Trump, everything we have done for Ukraine is pure altruism. We have no actual interests at stake ourselves in its fate or the triumph of liberty there. We have no actual interest in the fact that Ukraine is protecting the European Union — a giant, pro-American alliance of free markets and free people. It doesn’t matter a whit to Trump what happens to the E.U. or Ukraine. All that matters is that Zelensky says “thank you” louder for our altruism and that, in the middle of his war of survival, sign over a generation of Ukraine’s mineral wealth to us.
Asking Zelensky to publicly subjugate himself in front of a global audience is the epitome of envious spoiling. Friedman concludes, in seeming confirmation of the enactment of envious spoiling:
This is a total perversion of U.S. foreign policy practiced by every president since World War I. My fellow Americans, we are in completely uncharted waters, led by a president, who — well, I cannot believe he is a Russian agent, but he sure plays one on TV.
Not a Russian agent, perhaps, but definitely a foolish, uneducated, and envious man. His hell-bent intent to “create deals” overshadows the importance of the relationship with our European allies, not to mention the two countries, Canada and Mexico, with whom we share borders. We face frightening times because the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth is an immature, envious man. The Oval Office debacle only solidified the impression already observed by many.
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*Envy is considered a one-party emotion. You might envy a friend’s charm or success. Jealousy involves two or more people. If out with two couples, you might envy the other couples romantic connection, for example. The distinction is subtle, and I will certainly expand upon it in a future essay.
**Ukraine became an independent state in 1991 when it gained formal recognition by the United Nations. The Russian President at the time, Boris Yeltsin, personally acknowledged Ukraine’s independence. On February 24, 2022, Putin launched a military invasion of a sovereign nation—the first such act of overt aggression since World War II. The onslaught was part of Putin’s overtly expressed intent to recreate the Russian empire of the late 19th century.
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References
Klein, M. (1946). Notes on some schizoid mechanisms. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 27:99-110.
Klein, M. (1957). Envy and Gratitude and Other Works 1946–1963. London: Hogarth.