There is a belief, running rampant in the land, that Putin makes decisions based upon others’ actions. Nope. Putin is trying to kill as many Ukrainians as it takes to fulfill his fantasy of “Russian Greatness”. He missed the punchline. Russian Greatness is embodied in the killing of “others”. It is animated by this killing. Putin tells us this every day he remains in Ukraine. When Russians, inspired to this Greatness, are not killing, the tangible perception of this “greatness” ebbs, and generates a yearning, like an appetite.
The notion then, that Putin's increased missile actions in Ukraine, are a reaction to a Trump nominee, of all things, is laughable. Putin is a dictator. Russian Greatness is his Counsel. This counsel exists between his left ear and his right ear. There are no sounds, no entreaties, no pleading, beyond this counsel.
Dictators, simply, want more. Putin's "more" is, at present, the rest of Ukraine. Simply that. If the US, and the ever-wavering EU, should opt out of the current war, it is opting in to the next. The next will occur is the same manner and animated at the same pace as an increasing appetite. The next will see Putin invading Moldova, Poland, and the rest of the former USSR, one bite at a time. Putin sees these peoples as only happy when the Russian boot is on the back of their necks. But more so, those in pursuit of Russian Greatness are only happy when they are devouring these others.
The EU nations, for their part, should stop worrying about whether their deliveries of weapons to Ukraine "reduce their own capacities". The EU is at War. Their collective effort to deny this merely tells Putin that "more" is within his grasp, and "more" beyond Ukraine, like tomorrow’s dinner. More beckons to Putin, like an appetite.
Trump, we all know, has an appetite. His efforts will be to propagandize whatever whim is sated by whatever sounds emit from his face. Trump's goals have little to do with Ukraine and much to do with the Senate. Getting the Senate to approve his "squad" - SecDef, AG, DNI, Homeland - is the key to Trump's creating the means to construct his own dictatorship. This new appetite, at least new to Americans, is being shaped. Once the coercive powers of these agencies are led by those who possess great loyalty to Trump and little to the Constitution, this appetite will demand satiety.
Then, all bets are off.
We’ll be told Ukraine's problems have been solved. We'll be told that it was necessary to round up undocumented immigrants and anyone who looks like them. We'll be told that mainstream media outlets needed to be quieted, only for a while, to effect his "mandate". We'll be told that Social Security and Medicare were being so abused by fraudsters that they had to stop it and start again, soon. Contact your Congressperson. We’ll be told that the top echelons of the Military needed to be purged, because, well, loyalty.
And after a while we won't be told. The machinery of dictatorship, The Fear, will be in place. Fear of speaking out, because someone we know, or heard of, was taken away. Fear of speaking our own thoughts, because ears which hear these may see benefit in denouncing us to the appetite’s franchisees. Fear of becomes the beginning and end of every sentence. Ask a Russian, or a Chinese, or a Venezuelan, or a Cuban, or….
Optimists, straddling The Before and The Now, will assert that all this fear will simply send the America we knew underground. They are wrong. There is no underground. Fear will make our era’s social media cautions about “echo chambers” seem like a sunny version of The Before. Sunny, because then we had a choice.
The Before is when we had a chance to steer away from The Now. And the Now will establish its echo chamber in our own heads. Fear is like that. When a military is used domestically, it has the effect of creating The Fear. This is the point.
This is understood. Others perish when dictators rule. And at this point, we all become others.
It is the intent.
The only sound we'll hear, or live in fear of, will be a knock on the door. This is the sound of Putin’s Russia, of Xi’s China, of Maduro’s Venezuela. It was the sound of Pol Pot’s Cambodia, of Stalin’s Russia, of Hitler’s Germany. Sometimes a knock isn’t even required. Look for the Thousand Yard Stare among your neighbors. And you’ll know.
History’s rhymes sing us these things. It’s not a lullaby.
We too often miss History’s rhyme. Because we weren’t paying attention. Power is always paying attention. Power’s interest is like a shark’s interest in the scent of blood. It is drawn closer. When it realizes we’re not paying attention, it draws even closer.
Peoples who fail to pay attention often lose their freedom and the means to recover it.
So, pay attention. Phase I is underway.
Related Links, Trump’s nominees for Phase I: