Putin Is Winning August 17, 2025August 17, 2025 In 1963, when I 16 and Putin was 10, I was arrested outside Kharkov (as the Russians then called it) for selling my blue jeans. They claimed the purchaser would be executed for dealing on the black market (though I came to realize he was almost surely just part of a sting designed to frighten misbehaving tourists like me). Because I was so young, they let me go. But say this for the former Soviet Union: There was virtually no violent crime. That’s one of the appealing features of dictatorships. Because everyone is terrified . . . and punishment, whether deserved or not, swift and severe . . . crime is very rare. They don’t call them “police states” for nothing. There’s no crime in North Korea, either. Trump exchanges love letters with the leader of North Korea and rolls out the red carpet for Russia’s dictator. (Heather Cox Richardson knocks it out of the ballpark, as usual, in describing the Putin meeting.) Putin is 9th dan judo black belt, the highest rank achievable in the sport designed for a small power to overcome a larger power. (Trump is a fake-wrestling Hall of Famer with an alleged bone spur). Putin’s overarching goal: destabilize Western democracies, especially the U.S., in order to reconstitute the Russian empire. In Ukraine, he’s having a rough go. Here in America, without firing a single shot, he is succeeding. Long-time readers know I’ve been harping on this (because it’s kind of important?) for some time now. The phrase “Putin is winning” appears in 42 posts (43, counting today). I don’t expect you to re-read any of them . . . and it’s not as though I don’t realize I’m preaching to the choir (except for Carl) . . . but I did start looking back at them myself: March 10, 2025: Putin Is Winning. We Can’t Give In To Fear. Feb 25, 2025: U.S. VOTES AGAINST U.N. RESOLUTION CONDEMNING RUSSIA FOR UKRAINE WAR. Really. We did that. The Russian economy is on the brink of collapse but Trump is riding to Putin’s rescue — and fast destroying the largely successful 80-year post-War order. February 8, 2022: It’s Not Alarmist If The Threat Is Real Including this footnote: *The only thing Trump changed in the 2016 platform he inherited when he won the nomination — the only thing! — was the part about defending Ukraine. What a crazy coincidence. December 30, 2021: Grounds For Optimism December 9, 2021: It Was The Worst of Times, It Was . . . August 27, 2020: Winning The Second Cold War August 22: 2020: Washington’s Left-Leaning POST Meets The Right-Leaning EXAMINER June 3, 2020: Republican Voices I Agree With February 27, 2020: Beating Putin December 30, 2019: Long Before “The Perfect Call” There Was This I know the mind has the tendency to shut down over all this. But Russia is winning. Putin is winning. America is losing. Democracy is losing. It’s worth our attention. Even if it takes reading more than once. As you can see, I was going in reverse chronological order. Here is the first of the 42 I found, from June, 2017: GREAT Health Care At A Tiny Fraction of the Cost — Easy! Putin is winning. Bannon is winning. The forces of intolerance and ignorance are winning. And millions of fine people — not deplorable, just bamboozled — are still eager to give this petulant, bullying, narcissistic, uncharitable, pathologically dishonest, ignorant president time to come through with “great health care at a tiny fraction of the cost” (“it’s going to be so easy”) — even as he takes $900 billion out of health care and slashes the budget for research that could one day save their child’s life. No question: Trump (and Carl) are right. Crime is bad. Especially violent crime. (Which, interestingly, as Philip Bump noted Saturday, is worse in Ohio than in DC, yet Ohio is sending National Guard troops to DC.) No liberal, no progressive, no socialist — no anything — would disagree. But in pursuing a crime-free America (while allowing troubled teenagers to buy assault weapons), how many of us really want to live in a police state? (Ruled by an adjudicated rapist twice-impeached convicted felon.) I know quite a few Americans emigrating to Canada, Portugal, and elsewhere; but none emigrating to Russia or North Korea. In this truly dynamite post the author makes a compelling case that Putin fills Trump’s daddy void. I hesitate to share it because its tone is far from calm and thoughtful. More in the tone of the recent South Park episodes that have surely offended some. But with that caveat — see what you think. Have a great week.