GUEST COLUMN: Inviting foreign interference undermines Americans’ birthright

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Judy Daubenmier

One of the most shocking things to come out of U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin’s recent coffee hours was not that some people disagreed with her decision to support an inquiry into Donald Trump’s request that Ukraine investigate his political rival.

It wasn’t that at all. The most shocking thing was the “so what?” attitude critics had at Trump’s open admission that he asked the president of Ukraine to meddle in our elections as a “favor” during a discussion of releasing military aid for the hard-pressed nation.

It’s shocking that the crowd that wants to “make America great again” couldn’t see the irony of outsourcing our elections to a junior country barely hanging on to its existence.

Despite all their red hats and yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” bumper stickers, perhaps they are confused about what it means to be a sovereign nation, let alone the world’s only superpower. It’s as if they forgot about that whole declaring-of-our-independence thing from 1776.

Being a sovereign nation means we are masters of our own affairs. We pass our own laws, we collect our own taxes, we elect whomever we want. When someone breaks one of our laws, we investigate them, prosecute them, try them, and either acquit or convict and punish them.

We don’t ask anyone’s permission to do those things. We decide. We may disagree with each other, but ultimately, we decide.

Let’s suppose a future president asked China for “a favor” — to provide allegedly damaging information on a president’s political rival, resulting in the president’s re-election. Now who would owe whom “a favor”? Wouldn’t China have the president — and thus the U.S. — over a barrel? From then on, it would be a variation of “Whatever China wants, China gets.” The actions of the world’s only superpower would be controlled by the leaders of China, not the independently elected officials of our country.

China wants no tariffs? Done! China wants to annex Taiwan? Done!

This danger is precisely why federal election law forbids candidates from accepting anything of value from a foreigner.

We are a superpower. We should be masters of our own destiny. To willingly give up that sovereignty is to surrender part of our American birthright of freedom and independence.

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3 Comments

  1. Hypothetically, if Bernie Sanders was killed in Ukraine and Trump asked the President to do a favor and look into the murder investigation, would that be grounds for impeachment? Biden was a party to a corruption investigation in the Ukraine in 2016, along with the DNC. His request wasn’t a “personal favor” he was speaking on behalf of the American public! Get the facts America. Don’t listen to fake news.

  2. AGREED! We need to look past partisan politics to ask ourselves, is it okay for an elected official to openly use a foreign county to get dirt on a fellow American? That is unpatriotic, and an insult to our flag.

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