Elon Musk called a combat veteran a 'traitor.' No American should tolerate it. | Opinion
Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly is a former Navy pilot who flew 39 combat missions. He's a former astronaut who clocked more than 50 days in space. He proved his patriotism by putting his life on the line.
Elon Musk did an enormous favor for the loyal opposition.
He gave the Democrats a leader to rally around and to push back against the “shock and awe” of the Trump White House.
Just when it seemed the Democrats had fallen and could not get up, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., went to Kyiv and told the world that Ukraine’s people and brave soldiers deserve our moral and material support.
For this, Musk called Kelly a “traitor.”
We tolerate a lot of blue language on our social media channels and even from the mouths of national leaders.
But the word “traitor” used against Kelly is an obscenity that no American should tolerate.
Sen. Mark Kelly's demonstration of patriotism
Kelly is a former Navy pilot who flew 39 combat missions. He’s a former astronaut who clocked more than 50 days in space. He proved his patriotism by putting his life on the line over decades.
Today that has steeled him with the moral authority to stand up to the Republican wrecking crew that is playing masters of the universe from the Oval Office.
No doubt Musk was appalled at Kelly’s tweets in which he criticized the administration for its disjointed and madcap policy on the Ukraine war.
"The world will become a very cold and lonely place if we continue this ridiculous ‘screw you, go it alone’ foreign policy,” Kelly posted on social media. "It’s dumb and it won’t age well and puts you and your kids and your grandkids at risk. America is the strongest, richest country in the world.”
The U.S. senator assured Americans that the Ukrainians are fighting for democratic values and did not start this war against Russia, as our president has falsely said.
It appears that Musk, who has entrée to the Trump inner circle, is upset that Kelly is pushing back against the president’s strategy to pressure Ukraine – more than it has the aggressor, Russia – to get to the peace table.
Musk calls out Kelly for violating foreign policy tradition
He appears to be calling out Kelly for violating an American tradition that “politics stops at the water’s edge.”
Those are the words of Arthur Vandenberg, a Republican senator from a very different time in America when this country came to the rescue of our democratic allies in World War II and helped rebuild war-torn Europe.
In the eyes of many, the Trump White House is taking a wrecking ball to the Atlantic alliance that Vandenberg’s generation built through the Marshall Plan and NATO.
In seven weeks, this White House has practiced chainsaw diplomacy, turning our closest neighbors – Canada and Mexico – into seething rivals, sowing hatred and disgust among our European allies, giving succor to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, who invaded Ukraine.
Our president has hit the kill switch on Ukraine funding, told its president he is a dictator and warmonger, and cut off vital intelligence to Ukrainian soldiers in the field.
That last action so shocked senior figures in the British Ministry of Defense, one of them told The Times of London that it shows Trump and his administration "are prepared to have civilian blood on their hands.”
If Kelly is a “traitor” because he breached protocol, then the people running our government should be indicted for high treason.
Democrats have a duty to stand up to the Trump White House
They blow through so many red lines on any given morning that our allies are holding their breath waiting for the next.
Kelly and the Democrats have a duty to stand up to the Trump White House and demand answers for a foreign policy that is wreaking more destruction than producing peace.
Even our most sympathetic allies in Great Britain, who have been trying to guide U.S. policy on the war to a more reasonable place, are challenged daily by President Donald Trump.
A political ally of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told The Times that the Americans have become a psychic burden: “Honestly the mood changes with every news cycle. Take Article 5 (in which an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all). The big win from the PM’s trip to Washington was to get Trump to publicly recommit to mutual defense. And yet look what he did yesterday ‒ he’s opened it all up again.
“Ultimately it’s the hope that kills you.”
If the Republicans are going to wing it on American foreign policy, the Democrats have more than a right to challenge them. They have a duty.
Traitors don’t show up for duty.
Mark Kelly just did with a wrench. And he’s holding it defiantly against the chainsaw.
Phil Boas is an editorial columnist with The Arizona Republic, where this column originally appeared. Email him at phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com