So I get that to some people anything a politician does is purely for their own benefit. Nobody wants to look bad of course. But to me this seemed more genuine than most.

And just imagine what was going through the mind of that veteran! You do your part when you were young, filling out the forms, standing in the lines, training. Probably having doubts that they would make it out in one piece. Then decades later being thanked in person by a leader from the generations of children that didn't even exist in the world you fought for, but who also understands the realities and tolls of conventional war at an individual level. It's got to be surreal.

[–] e_t_wright@union.place 17 points 5 months ago (1 children)

@SomeAmateur @LaFinlandia As someone who has entered politics later in life, I can attest to the "optics" that, yes, everything you do does "appear" to be for somebody's benefit. I can also tell you that much of what you see is simply us. That's who and what we are-unvarnished. I suspect that with Zelenskyii just about everything is WYSIWYG to use the early computer acronym-what you see is what you get. That's just him.

[–] derpgon@programming.dev 4 points 5 months ago

What's funny about this is that he used to be an actor.

I fully support Ukraine and Zelenskyy, in case anybody gets the wrong idea.