Not mentioning any names here, but one of the dangers of committing crimes to win an election is losing and not having the friends in high places to cover them up!
Autocrats and would-be autocrats use this as leverage. "We all go down together if I fall." They make it impossible to hedge your bets. It's a mafia technique. This is why it's so important to clean things up, so there's no impunity.
If such people win, they write the pardons, the laws, and the history books. An example must be made of them when they lose, so others do not follow in their criminal, treasonous footsteps.
Such people are capable of anything, so they constantly surprise us. Deterrence must be clear and powerful or they and others just learn and improve their chances of success next time. Jan 6 is a case study, as are Trump and his cronies.
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A summit with a killer? Biden has been good on Russia so far, but he needs to be consistent if he wants to change Putin’s murderous behavior. My new op-ed in the @WSJwsj.com/articles/why-w…
Just being better than Trump (obviously) or Obama (not hard) on Putin isn’t enough. Biden can’t sanction Russia but then give Putin the status and legitimacy he craves if he wants to defend American interests.
John Kerry is a genius at getting nothing for something. Now he has a “climate envoy” position to make deals with dictatorships that could undermine the White House and State Dept line. To quote Kerry, I’m deeply concerned. wsj.com/articles/why-w…
The unjust imprisonment of Alexei Navalny must not be forgotten, but expanded to the unjust condition of all Russians in Putin's dictatorship. The free world must support a movement, not only a man. My op-ed with @AVindman in the Washington Post: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Navalny always urges his supporters to keep fighting despite his repeated jailings and even Putin's murder attempts. The US should heed his advice by targeting Putin's gang and authoritarianism & corruption broadly.
As Navalny says, fighting Putin is pro-Russian, and the same is true about supporting democracy there. And it's not just idealism or pushing back against Putin's aggression. A world with more democracy makes Americans safer and more prosperous.
Bingo. As I said in our RDI event with @EliotHiggins yesterday, the free world refuses to admit it's in a war and so is losing without a fight. Unless there are serious consequences for traitors and their handlers, it will only get worse.
One of the ways the West has failed to adapt to fighting modern dictatorships like Putin's is still thinking about national interests and ideology instead of individual greed. It's the money, stupid.
Betraying your country for cash instead of Communism is not an improvement. Putin and now the Saudi & Chinese dictatorships have figured out they can just buy what they want with few limits. Wallets instead of hearts and minds.
Schröder does openly what would be a scandal bordering on treason were it uncovered. Brazen influence peddling in the service of Putin's hostile dictatorship. Now China too, why not?
"Realpolitik" was a failure even when in good faith. The pragmatic pursuit of interests over value-based foreign policy fails in the face of authoritarian regimes with no values at all. They take the deals and use "engagement" to spread corruption.
As for Schröder and his ilk, we take "realpolitik" from his language, but their behavior has a more accurate German word: "Prostitution". Though selling your soul and selling out your country is far less respectable!
This is the trend I've been writing and speaking about over a decade, and much this democracy slide is due to the free world abandoning the defense of its values to "engage" with dictatorships like China & Putin's Russia. Needlessly.
The autocratic, populist Trump rising wasn't a coincidence. It came after years of the US pretending democracy was just a word, and abandoning it abroad inevitably devalues it at home.
I wrote this for the WSJ five years ago, on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Soviet Union. Every condition about losing the will to stand up for democratic rights has gotten worse, as the Freedom House report documents. wsj.com/articles/the-u…
My appearance on the @MehdiHasanShow last night, my thanks to @mehdirhasan. I'm dismissive of Navalny's old remarks as irrelevant to his circumstances as a political prisoner. Arguing them easily falls into the Kremlin smear campaign.
Navalny has just been sent to a vile Russian prison so Putin can torture him in full view of Europe's appeasers. He may not live to see another day of freedom. His politics (which are very liberal for Russia btw) or some nasty remarks a dozen years ago are a distraction.
Liberal Western orgs like Amnesty grabbing onto these old remarks reminds me of the "he was no angel" tropes that the right push when there is a police killing. It's a deflection. Debate Navalny's politics when he's free. And unlike Putin, he will actually debate!