Third Time’s A Charm? February 18, 2024 To a Harvard College classmate who voted for Trump twice but is undecided this time: Dear friend of nearly 60 years: Have you read A Fever in the Heartland, by Timothy Egan? Prequel, by Rachel Maddow? Both, true page-turners. The first tells how American democracy was almost lost to violent white Christian nationalists in the 1920s; the second, in the 1930s. I was shocked by how much of this history I didn’t know. And how high up it all went — with numerous U.S. Senators and Representatives on board. Each time, thankfully, the fever broke. But now, with a leader who kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside and who sides with Russia against Ukraine, will it be a case of, so to speak, “third time’s a charm”? (He had not heard of these books but promised to check them out.) To those who think this is hysterics — that Trump doesn’t really want to be a “strong man” like the opposition-murdering North Korean dictator with whom he proudly exchanged “love letters” or the opposition-murdering Russian dictator whom he trusts and admires — I’d counter: > That’s what many thought about Germany’s elected leader once upon a time. > Trump sat by approvingly as his lawyer argued he could murder his political opponents with impunity. (Unless impeached and convicted — but how likely would Senate conviction be if disloyal Republican senators happened to die in advance of the vote?) Right now, of course, even for Trump, this seems wildly fanciful. But two or three years into his next presidency? After having replaced the top ranks of the Justice Department, and of the military, with “his people?” Astonishingly, so much of this comes back to Putin and Ukraine. Mitt Romney was right: Russia really was our biggest foreign threat. Heather Cox Richardson reminds us of the timeline, concluding: . . . In exchange for weakening NATO, undermining the U.S. stance in favor of Ukraine in its attempt to throw off the Russians who had invaded in 2014, and removing U.S. sanctions from Russian entities, Russian operatives were willing to help Trump win the White House. The Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee in 2020 established that Manafort’s Ukrainian business partner Kilimnik, whom it described as a “Russian intelligence officer,” acted as a liaison between Manafort and Deripaska while Manafort ran Trump’s campaign. Now, ten years later, Putin has invaded Ukraine in an effort that when it began looked much like the one his operatives suggested to Manafort in 2016 . . . The day after the violence of February 18, 2014, in Ukraine, then-Vice President Joe Biden called Yanukovych to “express grave concern regarding the crisis on the streets” and to urge him “to pull back government forces and to exercise maximum restraint.” Ten years later, Russia has been at open war with Ukraine for nearly two years and has just regained control of the key town of Avdiivka because Ukrainian troops lack ammunition. President Joe Biden is warning MAGA Republicans that “[t]he failure to support Ukraine at this critical moment will never be forgotten.” “History is watching,” he said. Is it just coincidence that the only thing in the 2016 Republican platform that Trump had changed — the only thing! — was not about real estate or taxes or golf, but about weakening our support for Ukraine? Is it not appalling that — presumably on Trump’s instruction — Speaker Johnson just sent the House off on a two-week vacation while Ukrainians are desperate for the aid the Senate passed 70-29 but that Putin doesn’t want them to get? In case you can help break the fever, please click here. And/or volunteer.