To understand a person’s values, examine their heroes and villains. Perhaps that’s why, instead of praising his heroism, some on the right went beyond mere criticism of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Christmastime visit to Washington. They leveled a racially charged slur against him: welfare queen.
The usual suspects got in on the action, including the former president’s son. Donald Trump, Jr., tweeted, “Zelensky is basically an ungrateful international welfare queen.”
Put aside the irony of this trust fund “nepo baby” calling someone else a welfare queen. The bigger irony is that we are at the end of 2022, a year in which Zelensky’s refusal to flee Ukraine ahead of a Russian invasion probably constitutes the most significant act of bravery and heroism. And yet, the new right vilifies his heroism, attempts to assassinate his character, and paints him as a culture war cartoon.
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Junior wasn’t alone in his criticism of Zelensky. Right-wing radio host Charlie Kirk also got in on the action, calling him an “uppity foreigner” and an “international welfare queen” who “can’t be bothered to put on a suit and tie.” This same slur was advanced on Twitter by other less notable figures.
The term “welfare queen” was popularized in 1976 when Ronald Reagan described Illinois newspaper accounts of a Chicago woman named Linda Taylor, who bilked the government out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Although Taylor could credibly be called a real-life villain (whose alleged sins were far worse than mere welfare fraud), the term became commonly used as a racist stereotype to suggest that African Americans on public assistance are all lazy con artists.
Understanding this context is vital, as Don Junior and Kirk want to exploit this stereotype. By transferring these deep-seated attitudes about race, they hope to apply this same dog-whistle to the Jewish president of Ukraine, who has for almost a year bravely fended off an invasion by a nuclear-armed power with exponentially greater military might.
Their message is simple: Zelensky isn’t Winston Churchill; he’s the same as a lazy Black welfare recipient who collects checks while wearing a fur coat and driving a Cadillac. (If there was any doubt about the racial undertones, Kirk’s use of the word “uppity” is telling.)
Of course, the same ridiculous slur could have been leveled against Churchill after his 1941 visit to Washington. America had already been funding Great Britain’s war effort, thanks to the Lend-Lease Act of 1941. Then, in the wake of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and Germany’s subsequent declaration of war, Churchill asked the United States to delay confronting Japan and focus instead on Germany.
While a sliver of the old (or is it new again?) right continue to criticize Churchill, he has largely been viewed across the political spectrum as heroic and indispensable.
One wonders how long that will last.
Of course, Churchill is not a perfect analogy. He wanted more than just our money and moral support—he wanted America to enter the war.
In this regard, America’s financial support for Ukraine may be more akin to The Reagan Doctrine, whereby the U.S. provided overt and covert aid to resistance movements—with the caveat that today’s imperialistic Russia is not Marxist (although its leader is a former KGB officer).
What would the rightwingers now calling Zelensky a “welfare queen” say about the former Republican president who popularized the term? By the logic they employ, one imagines he was at the very least a welfare purveyor.
After all, they might ask why Reagan (who also popularized the slogan, “Let’s Make America Great Again”) wasn’t putting America first. They might also suggest that funding anti-communist freedom fighters was a provocative act, considering it might have spurred Russia to, I don’t know, nuke us? (Better red than dead!)
They might criticize Reagan for putting the lives of suffering people around the world ahead of suffering Americans. They might ask why he wasn’t, instead, focusing on the drug epidemic in America, crime-plagued cities like New York City, the AIDS crisis, and homelessness.
During Reagan’s era, these criticisms would have been associated with the left. Today, these same exact things are being said by the right. The degree to which today’s right lacks the same conservative values that I grew up with (in the Reagan decade) simply astounds me.
Today’s American right perversely admires the likes of Donald Trump, Kanye West, and (in some cases) Vladimir Putin—while mocking and attacking a heroic leader, and resistor of Russian aggression, like Zelensky.
The Ukrainian president has refused to take the easy way out and bow to what looked like an inevitable defeat. What would today’s right say about Polish dissident Lech Wałęsa, Pope John Paul II, Czech dissident Václav Havel, or Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn? Would they also have received the Zelensky treatment?
I suspect Ronald Reagan would have liked and admired Zelensky. The two former actors might have gotten along swimmingly. But that likely wouldn’t matter to today’s Republican Party—a party that probably wouldn’t respect Reagan to begin with.
