What led to the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to Russia on Feb. 22, 2014?
The simple and obvious answer is the EuroMaidan Revolution. But when the demonstrations that became EuroMaidan began in November 2013 to protest Yanukovych’s decision to abandon further integration with the European Union and align the country with Russia, there was no indication that they would topple the regime of the deeply corrupt president.
Had Yanukovych simply let the protests continue uninhibited, they might very well have petered out on their own. Instead, on Nov. 30, 2013, Yanukovych ordered the Berkut riot police to violently crack down on the protesters, sparking outrage among the Ukrainian public. It was the first of several waves of attacks on demonstrators that would eventually take the lives of more than 100 people.
Yanukovych might not have known it then, but with that first crackdown, he had sealed his fate.
There was nothing particularly surprising about this. As political philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote in the 1972 essay “On Violence,” violence does not create power, only obedience. And often it destroys the legitimacy of power.
So it is with great alarm that we watch the developments in the United States, where President Donald J. Trump has threatened to send in troops to put down protests over the murder of African-American George Floyd by a white police officer that have spread throughout the country. He has already sent them to Washington, D.C.
Using military force against American civilians would not only be morally wrong; it would also delegitimize Trump’s already controversial presidency and potentially bring the country to the brink of civil war. American law enforcement has already unleashed shocking violence to put down the protests, at times using tear gas against protesters trapped on the side of a highway, unable to escape, and openly targeting journalists covering the demonstrations. It has even used force against peaceful demonstrators to allow Trump to organize a photo op at a church. The government response to the Floyd protests has made one thing clear: For Trump, no measure is off limits if he feels it can protect his presidency.
If Trump believes he can end the protests through force alone without taking steps to address the underlying cause — systemic racism against African-Americans — he is wrong. If he believes that imposing long prison sentences for rioting — as he suggested in a leaked audio recording of a phone call with state governors — will bring an end to the protests, then he is making the same mistake Yanukovych made with the “dictatorship laws” in January 2014 to restrict freedom of speech and assembly.
But if he believes that the U.S. military can restore order, he is deeply delusional and a danger to the more than 328 million people who call the United States home. Trump should take a lesson from Ukraine, a country that has experienced protests, civil unrest, crackdowns, revolutions, and war on its own territory. It’s not too late to step back from the brink. Don’t make the same mistake as Yanukovych.
