The suppurating wound on American life
When even George Will is harsh…
We are the sum of our choices, and Vladimir Putin has provoked some Trump poodles to make illuminating ones. Their limitless capacity for canine loyalty now encompasses the Kremlin war criminal. (The first count against Nazi defendants at Nuremberg: “Planning, preparation, initiation and waging of wars of aggression.”) For example, the vaudevillian-as-journalist Tucker Carlson, who never lapses into logic, speaks like an arrested-development adolescent: Putin has never called me a racist, so there.
J.D. Vance, groveling for Trump’s benediction (Vance covets Ohio’s Republican Senate nomination), two weeks ago said: “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine.” Apparently upon discovering that Ohio has 43,000 Ukrainian Americans, Vance underwent a conviction transplant, saying, “Russia’s assault on Ukraine is unquestionably a tragedy,” and emitting clouds of idolatry for Trump’s supposedly Metternichian diplomacy regarding Putin.
For Trump, the suppurating wound on American life, and for those who share his curdled venom, war is a hellacious distraction from their self-absorption. Fortunately, their ability to be major distractions is waning.
Let’s hope so.
That whole immigration thing really messed with Republicans.
I well remember the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and as a young man going to bed during the thick of it wondering how much of the world would be left to wake up to next morning.
Fortunately, President JFK and his team were excellent crisis managers, and General Secretary of the CPSU Vladimir Khrushchev was the one to blink first. (I have the DVD of the film that came out of that: ‘Thirteen Days,’ and have since played it more than once.)
This time around, I’m not so confident. Vlad Putin is a very evil man, though there have been worse in Russian history. While most of Biden’s future is behind him, at least he is somewhat predictable. But on the plus side, the US does not go into this situation saddled with a President Donald Trump, who would be a classic loose cannon.
I also hope there are no bugs in that White House to Kremlin hotline.
What I am hopeful for here is something of a replay of April to October, 1917. Given a choice between survival and dying for a cause and a tyrant they don’t believe in, I think a lot of Russian soldiers would again ‘vote with their feet.’ (Lenin’s term.) Or better still, turn their guns on the Russian tyrant.
If Hitler, even while besieged in his bunker in Berlin, had had a nuclear button to press, I am sure he would have used it; even though it would have been suicidal on his part. He might have seen it as having more finesse than blowing out his own brains with a pistol.
As Putin’s position weakens, something similar is the main danger for the world. At least as I see it.