“I can only imagine what the political prisoners and dissidents in Russian jails are feeling today [2/21/2025]. Only a year ago Alexei Navalny was killed by Putin in one of his prisons. Before he died, Navalny wrote me a few letters in which he said that what he saw in Russia’s prisons was the same world that I once experienced as a prisoner in the Soviet Union.
. . . I think that in some ways it is worse for the political prisoners in Russia today. We had the advantage of knowing that President Reagan was on our side. But what should the hundreds sent to Russian prisons for many years for daring to call out Putin’s aggression feel today?”
—- Natan Sharanksy, eminent Soviet dissident now living in Israel, after Trump’s comment calling Zelenskyy a “dictator” and accusing Ukraine for “starting the war”, in the Free Press on 2/21/2025 (see #1)
America is morally unmoored. There is nothing “grand” in Trump’s Grand Old Party. The party of Lincoln, the party that staked its existence on slavery’s abolition, is appeasing, if not siding with, a savage tyrant. So much for being “on the side of the angels”. Trump has signed us up for the Satanic host. On this, there can be no question.
To be clear, both political parties are unhinged. The Democrats lunged into neo-Marxism and hate Donald Trump down to his DNA. Conversely, a sizeable chunk of Republicans is enraptured by him. They treat him as their messianic north star. Trump dislikes Zelenskyy and has little use for Ukraine, and now so do they. In lockstep, they come to Trump’s defense no matter what he says and does. They clap like trained seals, or like Putin’s political ancestors during a speech by Stalin to the Communist Party Congress of the USSR.
Loyalty is one thing, obsequiousness another. It is disgraceful. But both parties are disgraceful. We are in an age of bipartisan disgrace.
Has Trump signed the country up for the Satanic host, or are we merely adjacent? Either way, it seems disgustingly so. The shameful abandonment of a beleaguered and desperate people is beginning. A headline from Washington reads “Hegseth Orders Pentagon to Stop Cyberoperations Against Russia” (see #2). Another headline: “State Department terminates U.S. support of Ukraine energy grid restoration” (see #3). These are probably the first of many steps to cut Ukraine adrift, adrift into the maw of Putin’s regenerated Soviet Union, a nation that has inflicted multiple holocausts on millions of Ukrainians. Are we now an abettor, if not an ally, of the new Axis of Evil? Did you sign up for this when you voted for Donald Trump?
J.D. Vance is making himself particularly loathsome. He has been for quite some time. The “dictator” smear, his castigation of the closing of Putin’s Russian Orthodox Church in the country suffering from a Putin invasion, the undocumented charges of waste and corruption, the demands for surrender under the guise of “peace”, heaping blame on NATO, and opposition to aid to the besieged country has been part of his stump spiel for the last couple of years. It is as if Copperheads won the 1864 presidential election. Trump, Vance, and the rest of the trained seals in the cabinet are Putin Copperheads. The converts to the Copperhead caucus in the right-leaning media have joined the abasement.
“It is impossible to live in Russia, but dying is possible.” — Dmitry Merezhkovsky, died in exile in 1941.
So, who is Putin, this person who enjoys the indulgence of Trump and Vance? Sharansky lays it out. He should know. Putin’s regime operates as if the Soviet Union was reanimated, something very familiar to Sharansky. Opposition is killed and jailed. Mariana Katzarova, the UN’s special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Russia, estimates the number of currently jailed political dissidents at over 2,000 (see #4). It is hard to say with any precision given Putin’s death grip on news and information in the country. One of the most reliable outlets, Memorial, was shut down by Putin in 2022.
Death grip is fully applicable to Putin’s Russia. Still, some of the more indecent inhumanities have been widely reported. To make you cringe, here are some examples (see #5). Trumpkins, do not avert your eyes for this is what you are signing us up for.
Aleksei Navalny, founder of Anti-Corruption Foundation, returned from exile only to be rearrested and imprisoned where he died in an Arctic prison camp on Feb. 16, 2024.
Mikhail Lesin, former Russian press minister and Putin critic, was found dead in a Washington, D.C., hotel room on Nov. 5, 2015. His death is considered by many to be “suspicious”.
Boris Nemtsov, former deputy prime minister under Boris Yeltsin and Putin critic, was shot dead on a bridge outside the Kremlin on Feb. 27, 2015. Critics with possible popular traction have shortened life spans.
Boris Berezovsky, former Putin ally turned critic, was found dead in his home in Berkshire, England, on March 23, 2013. Officially listed as a suicide, strong suspicions remain.
Sergei Magnitsky, Russian lawyer and auditor who exposed corruption that was traced to Putin, was imprisoned, suffered beatings, denied medical treatment, and died in prison on Nov. 16, 2009. Our Magnitsky Act, which sanctions Russian abusers of human rights, was named after him.
Stanislav Markelov, human rights lawyer and journalist, was assassinated in Moscow on Jan. 19, 2009, by the same killer of Anastasia Baburova (see below).
Anastasia Baburova, a journalist and human rights activist, was killed alongside Markelov on Jan. 19, 2009.
Had enough? The sources are brim full of poisonings, murders, and disappearances in Putin’s Gulag Archipelago. Inside or outside of Russia, it does not matter. On the hit list was an elected Ukrainian president, Viktor Yushchenko, who was poisoned in September 2004 during the campaign. His face was scarred from it.
Putin barbarity is most resplendent on the ground and in graves throughout Ukraine. Putin starts this war, targets civilians, commits atrocities, and Trump and his sidekick level their abuse at the president of the country resisting the crime. Now, Trump is cutting them off. America, are you going to stand still and let this mauling of our sense of decency continue?
“When you see Trump with Putin, as I have on a few occasions, he’s like the 12-year old boy that goes to high school and meets the captain of the football team. ‘My hero!’ It’s really creepy.” — Malcom Turnbull, 2015-2018 Australian Prime minister, Dec. 29, 2024 (see #6)
Why the toadying to Putin and not Hamas? Try to make sense of it. It boggles the mind unless Trump has some adolescent affection for strongmen. As for Vance, he is just young and foolish. The young establish conclusions first, then root around for a rationale. The result is a logical mishmash. Vance sounds as mature as my 10th-grade students in my high school World History class.
Trump is constructing his Kyiv, as Biden did his Kabul, and the 1975 Democratic Congress did their Saigon. All of them besmirched the reputation of our country, but more than that, they soiled us. Joining the Axis of Evil makes us no better than our co-thugs. Admiration for thugs is a dangerous thing.
RogerG
Sources:
1. “Natan Sharansky: A President’s Words Saved Me in the Gulag”, Natan Sharansk, Free Press, 2/21/2025, at https://www.thefp.com/p/natan-sharansky-a-presidents-words
2. “Hegseth Orders Pentagon to Stop Cyberoperations Against Russia”, New York Times, at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/02/us/politics/hegseth-cyber-russia-trump-putin.html
3. “State Department terminates U.S. support of Ukraine energy grid restoration”, Vaughn Hillyard, NBC News, 2/28/2025, at https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/state-department-terminates-us-support-ukraine-energy-grid-restoration-rcna194259
4. “UN Expert Sounds Alarm on 2,000 Political Prisoners in Russia”, The Moscow Times: Independent News from Russia, 2/17/2025, at https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/02/17/un-expert-sounds-alarm-on-2000-political-prisoners-in-russia-a88054
5. Reportage on Putin thuggery include:
“Putin’s Opposition: Dead, Jailed Or Exiled”, AFP in Barron’s, 3/16/2024, at https://www.barrons.com/news/putin-s-opposition-dead-jailed-or-exiled-964f341b
“Most of Russia’s opposition is either dead, in exile abroad or in prison at home. What happens now?”, Emma Burrows, AP, 2/19/2024, at https://apnews.com/article/navalny-russia-opposition-putin-8554f74e229c451f96956939b05d2a99
“The List Is Long: Russians Who Have Died After Running Afoul Of The Kremlin”, Steve Gutterman, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 2/16/2024, at https://www.rferl.org/a/enemies-kremlin-deaths-prigozhin-list/32562583.html
“Full List of Putin Critics Who Have Died in Mysterious Circumstances”, Isabel van Brugen, Newsweek, 2/26/2024, at https://www.newsweek.com/putin-critics-dead-full-list-navalny-1870692
6. Malcom Turnbull’s comment can be found on X at https://x.com/highbrow_nobrow/status/1873556154556838212?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1873556154556838212%7Ctwgr%5E87a08c42098cfd7dc62d00f18c68b6d36fbf2878%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationalreview.com%2F2025%2F03%2Fhinge-point%2F
7. Thanks to Jay Nordlinger for his contributions to this article at “Hinge Point”, National Review, 3/3/2025, at https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/03/hinge-point/