In the Way I Used to Think Putin's Evil Wasn't Russia
So, I used to think America wasn't Trump - now I fear I was wrong on both fronts
A Russian journalist living in Portugal — he is anti-Putin and slowly becoming anti-Russia — reacted with surprise the other day as we polished off a bottle of vinho Verde (a wonderful Portuguese wine best served cold and white) when I declared, waveringly, albeit: Putin does not represent the mindset of Russia and Russians.
He stared at me and blinked repeatedly. He does not know me well as we only met here and not so long ago. His feelings of being “anti” to everything that is his home culture are much stronger than my own, I learned.
“After two years, you really still think that most Russians aren’t comfortable with Putin’s assessment of the world? You really think they don’t support this war?”
Not expecting such a reaction, I began to weave my way through an answer that even I lost interest in hearing. I stopped and did something I seldom do when speaking to Russians, especially regarding their opinions about the war or Putin. I asked him what he thought.
I was pretty convinced that I knew every angle of their opinions, and I was also ever seeking to give them escape pods in which they could jettison themselves away from the Death Star. Not wanting to hear what I feared my new acquaintance would tell me, I usually let Russians nod their heads in semi-approval. At the same time, I constructed for them sane, peace-loving answers to the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine.
“Of course, Russians accept Putin. Do you really think the war would still continue if the majority were against his war? Putin’s domestic army (Rossgvardia, the guys dressed in black who beat up protestors) have mothers and wives. If their families had been against the war, after two years, many of them would have begun to stop beating protestors.”
But they aren’t stopping the beatings. They are more active today than in the past, and people are detained for the most questionable of reasons, with everything, even a skeptical look, being regarded as “defamation of the Russian army.” Russians wanting to run in opposition to Putin are being denied those opportunities by the Russia rubber-stamping Supreme Court because the candidates-want-to-be’s are opposed to the war. Not a whisper of complaint is raised by anyone.
Thousands of Russians daily are filing official complaints with the police, accusing their fellow citizens of being against the war. A man was reading on a train recently, and on his backpack was a sticker that could be misconstrued as a Ukrainian flag. Upon arrival at his destination, the police were waiting for him. He was arrested. It turns out the man across from him got up and complained, and the train conductor alerted the police. The supporters seem to vastly outnumber the handful genuinely against the war to the point where it’s now necessary to accept that Putin’s war is Russia’s war.
To the point that it is necessary to demand that all Russians, when the time comes, pay for this war.
Trump is America
As opposed as so many of us are to Trump, we love to say that it’s only 30 or 35 percent of Americans are really pro-Trump, and the rest are against him, why are we seriously considering the possibility that Trump can be re-elected? No one can be elected to the presidency with only 35 percent of the vote.
Trump has openly said that he will be a dictator — forget about the “one-day” nonsense! — and somehow, he doesn’t get crushed under the weight of indignation for such a comment, but millions all over our great land twist themselves in pretzel shapes, trying to justify his words. “He was just joking.”
Haha. Good joke. This one is right up there with “How do you punish a blind person? Re-arrange the furniture, and don’t tell them.”
It is not the occasional Republican politician who cowers before the porcelain throne of Trump, it is the overwhelming majority. Life-long politicians who made their name on being staunch “patriots” now realize that if they dare to doubt Trump publicly, then the wings of their political future will be clipped viciously and for good. Before whom are these politicians cowering? They are deadly afraid of the reaction of the Republican base, the American voters.
Every politician in Congress had the opportunity to impeach Trump after January 6th. If that had happened, there would be no Trump problem today. We might be seeing a slavery-denying Nikki Haley or tunnel-hating Chris Christie leading the Republican field. Instead, because the Republican-controlled Senate was so fearful of offending the sensibilities of the “real America,” thus sparing Trump the impeachment he deserved after his insurrection, the United States has transitioned to full-blown fascism.
We can kid ourselves and pretend we are smarter, better, and more evolved while we sip on organic coffees and pick the remnants of free-range lunches out of our teeth, but we are not. We will be the victims of this America, the real America.
The America of Trump, and Putin, and the one where hate, extremism, dirty energy, and violence rule the roost.
I fear it is who we have become, and I am not the least bit surprised. Trump is now the American Standard in more ways than one.