Dem senator turns ‘leader of the free world’ title on its head with Zelenskyy remarks

Chris Coons went on television and said Volodymyr Zelenskyy, not the American president, is now the leading figure of the free world. Sit with that for a second. A sitting U.S. senator looked at the office that Washington and Lincoln and Reagan held and decided a wartime head of state of a country that survives on American money and weapons deserves the title more than his own president does.

We understand the instinct. Zelenskyy has shown real courage, and nobody serious disputes that. But "leader of the free world" was never a participation trophy for bravery under fire. It's a description of the country whose economy, military, and alliances actually hold the free world together, and that's still the United States whether Chris Coons likes the current occupant of the Oval Office or not. Handing that title to Kyiv is not a tribute to Ukraine so much as a small act of self-erasure, an American official telling the world his own country doesn't quite deserve the job anymore.

That's the part that should bother people more than the partisan sniping it kicked off. This isn't really about Trump versus Zelenskyy. It's about a senator so eager to score a point against his own president that he was willing to diminish the standing of the country he represents to do it. Allies notice when American officials talk this way. So do adversaries in Moscow and Beijing, who would love nothing more than to hear a U.S. senator concede, on camera, that America has stepped back from a role it built.

If Coons wants to praise Zelenskyy's resolve, fine, plenty of Americans share that admiration. But there's a difference between honoring an ally and demoting your own country to make a domestic political point. He picked the wrong way to do it.