My country has been under occupation, dogged by corruption and war. Yet even I’ve been bewildered by the way the US seems to be fracturing
A version of this piece appeared in the Dial under the headline No Common Ground
In 2008, when I was a reporter for a leading Ukrainian TV station, I insisted on following Barack Obama’s campaign for US president. Few Ukrainian media outlets could afford to send a journalist to travel around the US to report on the election; even the newsrooms of those that could took some convincing.
As a media student in 2004, I had spent two months on the streets of Kyiv during the Orange Revolution, where people protested a stolen election and succeeded in defending their vote. The excitement of the fight for freedom and justice, combined with the energy of mass gatherings, was seductive. I recognised a similar momentum in the US during Obama’s campaign and wanted to see how things felt on the ground. As a Ukrainian, I could relate to Obama’s promises to restore respect for human rights and the rule of law, and his desire to mobilise people around the idea of “hope”. It also stood in contrast with what I knew of the US: I had studied foreign news reporting at the time of the US invasion of Iraq and the military’s crimes in Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo.
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My country has been under occupation, dogged by corruption and war. Yet even I’ve been bewildered by the way the US seems to be fracturingA version of this piece appeared in the Dial under the headline No Common Groun...
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