As America heads into its 4th of July Independence holiday 2022, Biden heads to Europe for a G-7 meeting about Western woes. Back home in the US, Trump rallies the thinning MAGA crowd against the avalanche of 1/6 Cmtee findings that he orchestrated a coup against the US as if he was producing a reality show. Biden, meanwhile gets trounced at home for every global woe his foes ascribe to incompetence or age. They don’t recognize the broader context in which Biden operates and Zelensky knows only too well.
America’s in turmoil over the ugliness unleashed by Donald Trump but on a larger scale he’s as much a passing fad as the Apprentice reality show he rode to fame. That is the perspective of a Hungarian-American writer who retains the longer-range view formed by an early start to life in Europe.
Internationalist writer Fogarassy found that her view of the world as one big place was out of step with her American peers. “Why do you care?” was the response when she aired distress over refugees, orphans or immigrants. Friends understood when she explained but a visceral empathy was obviouly missing. The aim of her writing was to convey the feeling.
Light of a Destiny Dark bridges a big gap between Americans and their European close cousins. The novel is based on a memoir written by the author’s mother shortly after the family arrived in the US following the failed 1956 Hungarian revolution against Soviet Communism. While the book describes life in Hungary during the Second World followed by the 40-year Iron Curtain horror, recent events have given the experience a new relevance
The Russian invasion of Ukraine proved that the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union was far from a closed chapter in European history. The brutality of Russia in Ukraine in defiance of international laws instituted after the sSecond World War also put Europe on the alert.
Eastern European countries near Russia with their fledgling democracies and European Union memberships rightfully feared they could be next in line for a Russian incursion on their territories. That prospect hung over all of Europe as they united to aid Ukraine under the blanket of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance, which was once threatened by Trump and then revitalized by Biden to solidify democracies the world over.
This happened in the waning stages of the global Covid pandemic with its disjointed management at all levels from national to regional. Mitigation measures often became politicized. National hot button issues ignited. Global supply chains jammed and the threat of Russia unleashing nuclera weapons snapped links in the chain to near collapse.
Sanctions were the only democratic tool that Western democracies could use against renegade Russia’s barbarity. While much of the world still just flirting with democracy did not join in, the unifying efforts of American Biden combined wth the charismatic heroism of its leader, Ukraine became the lynchpin for western democratic freedom.
In a parallel that foreshadows the future for the global world, the battle for democracy is taking place simultaneously in Ukraine and the US. In both, the battle is fought with both arms and ideas, but with a dispropotionate mixture of both.
Ukraine fights with all its physical might for an ideal of democracy the US was on the verge of losing under Trump. Ukraine reminded the US of how ardently it had fought for its own right to democracy a mere 250 years before. The parallel also rings a warning bell about brain-spam in the digital age for however long it lasts.
The digital age is likely to go down in history as an unregulated wasteland where trash piled up faster than it could be cleared. It was a US phenomenon that spread globally like the Covid virus. The largest patches of debris consisted of conspiracies and calls for violence. They were exploited by opportunists like Trump, who aimed to distrupt and destroy rather than repair and rebuild.
The flavor of the Trump era time is presented in America Votes Obama to Biden Past Trump: a kaleidoscopic view of the Trump phenomenon. Written by a Hungarian-American born into Communist Hungary, Fogarassy would never see Russian Putin as a neutral observer of America’s success. This collection of essays looks at 21st century America as a marriage of convenience between Putin and Trump. In her view, Putin wanted America and Trump was happy to comply.
Ultimatelt, the book celebrates the triumph of American democracy in a global world. From Fogarassy’s perspective, the world is a benevolent place full of enormous clallenges that intersect ever more starkly as rich and poor counties interact.
Representative essay titles include Privilege Dies Hard, The White House Born Loser, Moscow Towers Over Trump and Defusing the MAGA Mob-sters.
Written over a 12-year spread, the essays become ever more relevant as the 1/6 Committee lays out the near-coup scenario even as America’s conservatives turn ever more rabid. The book concludes that under Trump in league with Putin, American democracy had a workout that showed the way to more secure buttressing with legislation.