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I think I have mentioned a few times that one of the most difficult reading experiences of my life involved Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands, his painfully vivid account of the savagery on the Eastern Front of World War II, particularly the savagery visited upon the civilian populations of the region. I would read 10 or 15 pages, and then I’d have to put the book down and stare at the ceiling for a spell. The sheer human torment described therein is vast and unbearable.
Ever since the country elected El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago in 2016, with the essential aid of the Russian government, Snyder has been sounding the alarm about the rising general threat of 21st-century authoritarianism. In an interview with Greg Sargent of the Washington Post, Snyder employs a unique vantage point on the essential relationship between Vladimir Putin’s dreams of a new Russian empire and the events of January 6.
For me the most revealing text here is the victory declaration, which the Russian press agency accidentally published on Feb. 26. What they say is that the West just basically needed one more push to fall into total disarray. If you watch Jan. 6 clips over and over again, you can get that impression. The Russians really have been fixated on Jan. 6. They thought a successful military operation in Ukraine would be that nudge: We’d feel helpless, we’d fall into conflict, it would help [Donald] Trump in the U.S., it would help populists around the world.
As we learn more and more how deeply complicit “respectable” Washington conservatives were in supporting the Big Lie that brought the January 6 participants to Washington—and that inflamed them once they got there—Snyder’s international perspective carefully delineates a compelling, spidery connection between the January Sixers and whatever weird critters dance among the stalagmites in Putin’s brain.
Number one, they use it to mock us by saying, “These are just peaceful protesters.” Number two, they use it for one of their favorite arguments, which is that democracy is a joke everywhere. But the deeper point is that Trump’s attempt to overthrow the election on Jan. 6 made the American system look fragile. They think, “One more Trump and the Americans are done.” In invading Ukraine, they think they’re putting huge pressure on the Biden administration. They’re going to make Biden look weak. That probably was their deep fantasy about the West: Successful military occupation in Ukraine; the Biden administration is totally impotent; we humiliate them; Trump comes back; this is a big strategic victory for us.
And in case you miss the most important point, Snyder continues:
I think you put it extremely well. Putin’s idea about Ukraine is something like, “Ukrainian democracy is just a joke, I can overturn it easily. Everybody knows democracy and the rule of law are just a joke. What really matters are the capricious ideas of a tyrant. My capricious ideas happen to be that there are no Ukrainians. I’m going to send my army to make that true.”
That is much closer to the way Trump talks about politics than the way the average American talks about politics. I’m not saying Trump and Putin are exactly the same. But Trump’s way of looking at the world — “there are no rules, nothing binds me” — that’s much closer to Putin. So there’s a very clear through line.
And now the president is in Poland, demonstrating how far from reality both Putin and Trump have drifted. It is of capital importance that the latter never be in a position of political power ever again. The time of being entertained by the delusions of powerful men is long past.
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