As Boris & I wrote in 2012, with Navalny's concurrence, foreign pressure like the Magnitsky Act is pro-Russian. Alexei said, "It helps defend us from the criminals who kill our citizens, steal our money, and hide it abroad." wsj.com/articles/SB100…
Many European leaders prefer to leave flowers for dead Russian opposition leaders instead of listening to them while they're alive. In the US, post-McCain, global human rights have become a partisan political show at best.
There are exceptions, and I've been honored to be invited to testify on Putin's Russia & foreign interference in the US, Canada, and the UK. It's all connected. You cannot deter Putin's hostile acts without threatening his grip in Russia.
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I encourage you to see the reader comments on Mamdani and socialism and my responses below. A few summary remarks for those who have never experienced socialism, let alone communism, and why it's been a siren song for idealists & a Trojan horse for authoritarians for a century.
"Socialism" has become a talisman for the left in the free world, everything they like from public education to healthcare. But even the most robust welfare states in democracies were built on the spectacular success of capitalism. Don't kill the golden goose to get to the eggs.
The bait and switch is always about power. Sooner than later, even when sincere, attempts to enforce equity requires growing limits on freedom. As for the insincere, there's a reason the worst fascist movements of the early 20th century started with socialist branding. It sells.
Socialism is like polio, it comes back when people forget about the horrible damage it did last time.
Talking about socialism is a luxury paid for by the successes of capitalism. As I wrote in 2016:
"A popular rebuttal is to invoke the socialist leanings of several European countries with high living standards, especially in Scandinavia. Why can’t America be more like happy Denmark, with its high taxes and giant public sector, or at least more like France? Even the more pro-free-market United Kingdom has national health care, after all. First off, comparing relatively small, homogeneous populations to the churning, ocean-spanning American giant is rarely useful. And even the most socialist of the European countries only became wealthy enough to embrace redistribution after free-market success made them rich. Still, why cannot America follow this path if that is what the people want? What is the problem if American voters are willing to accept higher taxes in exchange for greater security in the embrace of the government?
The answer takes us back to all those inventions America has produced decade after decade. As long as Europe had America taking risks, investing ambitiously, attracting the world’s dreamers and entrepreneurs, and yes, being unequal, it could benefit from the results without making the same sacrifices. Add to that the incalculable windfall of not having to spend on national defense thanks to America’s massive investment in a global security umbrella. America doesn’t have the same luxury of coasting on the ambition and sacrifice of another country."
Link to that article: Garry Kasparov: Hey, Bernie, Don’t Lecture Me About Socialism. I Lived Through It. kasparov.com/garry-kasparov…
Graham's "overwhelming support" for this sanctions bill is becoming Trump’s "two more weeks" when it comes to action against Russia. Putin clearly doesn’t think they’ll really do anything—other than reduce aid to Ukraine, which they actually did.
Putin is the poker player, the bluffer with a weak hand but even weaker opponents who keep folding their winning cards. Trump, Macron, Starmer, Merz, so much talk. Western leaders have blustered and caved so many times that there is no longer any credible deterrence, only action.
Events taking shape in California can be an example for the nation to follow, or they can be the harbinger of a long, hot summer. Do protesters want change for the better or just to help Trump by trying to rule the ashes? Link below. 👇
My piece on the LA protests and how Trump's opponents can respond and join me + @UrielEpshtein today @ 5pm ET/2pm PT LIVE at The Next Move from @Renew_Democracy. Read + subscribe below. thenextmove.org/p/i-resisted-p…
I concur with the thought of MLK Jr that if they can’t attack your principles they will attack how you protest to defend them. The point of protest is discomfort, to shake the status quo when justice is unjust. But leaving the path of nonviolence only aids the oppressor.
Normalizing military in the streets, masked agents grabbing people, and everything being an emergency that only the president can deal with by force are all part of the authoritarian playbook. As I wrote months ago:
The Democrats seem to think they, and the country, can wait to see what happens in the 2026 midterms. That’s not how this works. There will be fake and real crises every day, each one a power grab, a breaking & bending of laws and norms, all in the name of national security.
Violence will increase and will be manufactured if insufficiently bad to justify the successive outrages against the Constitution. As I wrote in April, Trump and his gang are moving so fast they will cross the point at which they deem a coup to be less risky than losing power.
I summarized the Trump-Putin call before it happened, to recap: Trump didn't pressure Russia or ask for any concessions & Putin didn't offer any. Putin agreed to keep murdering Ukrainian civilians and Trump agreed to keep pressuring Ukraine to surrender so he can call it peace.
Trump proposed a ceasefire, Ukraine agreed. Putin told him to fuck off. Trump fucked off. Trump, Rubio and Vance all now saying the "punishment" for Russia for continuing the war it started will be for the United States to walk away & do nothing, i.e. what Putin wanted.
They are desperate to announce some sort of deal as an excuse to lift sanctions on Russia and open channels of oligarch money that will compete with the Middle East. But Ukrainians know that Russian occupation is death & the end of their nation.