Democracy needs us more than ever

In November 2016, less than 10 days after Trump’s first presidential election win, I went through my first Hostile Environment Awareness Training (HEAT) before deploying as an election observer on behalf of the 🇩🇰Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark. Two years before, I had flown into Kyiv during the first phase of the war (after the invasions of Crimea and the Donbas) to observe 🇺🇦 Ukraine’s post-Maidan Parliamentary elections in October 2014 with Silba - Initiative for Dialogue and Democracy. In December 2016, a month after that first HEAT training, I observed 🇺🇿 Uzbekistan’s presidential election after Islam Karimov’s death and 27 years of authoritarian rule. It was an insane time to be on the frontlines of democracy with Russians, Americans, Germans, Brits and more of us, notionally all part of one election observation mission. I remember 🇷🇺 Russian delegates noting openly to us that 🇺🇸 America had fallen, that the new US president was on their side and not ours, and that 🇩🇪 Germany was their next target. As I fly out today from 🇬🇧 London to refresh my Hostile Environment Awareness Training eight years later — after the disgraceful meeting in the Oval Office and with Pres. Zelensky in London for the Summit on Ukraine’s Defense — it is clear those Russian FSB agents were right. We’re in for a bumpy ride. The free world needs Ukraine to hold back Putin’s advance more than ever, and vice versa. Democracy needs us more than ever, and vice versa. 10 years after my first trip to Kyiv, my planned work trip to Ukraine for next week has been postponed for a bit — but I plan to be back soon. Those in the US or elsewhere who think they can sit this one out; who fail to grasp that all who want to live in peace, democracy, and with dignity are in the same boat… I believe they will soon enough come to regret it.