Not one. I talk to Americans every day. I live here. Not a single one recently mentioned the war in Ukraine. Even when I insisted, with Republican voters, for example, in the polar cold of Iowa or with Democrats in warmer South Carolina, Ukraine rarely earned me more than a shrug of shoulders.
No one is against virtue and everyone wants world peace, but Ukraine suffers from the same affliction as global warming, COVID and, more recently, the destruction wrought by the Israeli offensive in Gaza : we get tired of everything.
Even here in Washington, in my neighborhood or on the way to the White House, I frequently came across, just last year, a Ukrainian flag placed in the window of a private residence or a handmade poster on the background yellow and blue saying #WeStandWithUkraine. Most of them have disappeared.
Anecdotal, I admit, but indicative of a shortness of breath, of fatigue with regard to a conflict that drags on. Even the desire to refresh its decoration ends up taking precedence over the Ukrainian war.
Awareness
Americans’ attention span and their ability to concentrate are suffering from attacks of which they are no more aware than we are. No longer getting their information from traditional newspapers, they scroll from one epiphenomenon to another on their favorite social media.
The major television news bulletins which, until a few years ago, offered them a common perspective on current affairs, rarely send their reporters to the Russian-Ukrainian front line.
Out of compassion
What I hear more often – and what polling firms corroborate – is that the cost of living has taken a toll on the finances of the average American and that a majority fear not having the means to pay for health care that would be involved in a serious accident.
After immigration, the continuing opioid crisis and gun violence, Americans are at the end of their compassion for Ukrainians.
