Paul Krugman: Putin and the Right’s Tough-Guy Problem

Janine DiGiovanni: Vladimir Putin’s Inhumane Blueprint to Terrorize Civilians

Vladimir Putin became the prime minister of Russia in August 1999, then president in March 2000. And in the 24 years since, the list of wars conducted on his watch amounts to a catalog of human misery. They stretch from the Second Chechen War to a military incursion into Georgia, from the annexation of Crimea to Russia’s lockstep allegiance with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to destroy that country’s opposition forces. That roster of calamity has culminated, of course, in the war that has mobilized Europe against Putin’s war machine—the devastating invasion of Ukraine, which commenced a year ago this week.

To comprehend Putin’s seeming thirst for territory and his ability to tolerate death and destruction, you have to understand his underlying motives. And from my reporting on military campaigns and the local populations in these three locales, I have come to an unsettling conclusion.

I believe Vladimir Putin is motivated by a desire to retain power, privilege, and leverage at all costs. A former spymaster trained in the Soviet surveillance state, he employs methods for remaining Russia’s supreme leader that are rooted in his background as an intelligence agent. He perceives those around him warily; his paranoia is the handmaiden of his success. He uses fear, brute force, secrecy, intimidation, and complete control to vanquish enemies. Unsettled by the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union (which he has called a genuine tragedy…. the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century, he has apparently come to see some of his neighboring nations as would-be adversaries and, therefore, potentially ripe for the taking.

Because he believes in brute force—and considers fear to be a force multiplier—he attempts to use brute force to instill raw fear in those who are most easily frightened: unarmed innocents. And as a result, he appears to be driven to attack civilians with indiscriminate bombardments, hoping to destroy the essential infrastructures of towns and cities—hospitals, schools, electrical grids, and water supplies—to weaken morale and crush the will of the population. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/02/vladimir-putin-chechnya-syria-ukraine

Tom Nichols: The War in Ukraine Is the End of a World

David Brooks: Let’s All Do the DeSantis Shimmy!

I suppose all contemporary young politicians dream of meeting their moment. At the enthusiastic dawn of their politico careers, they entertain a fantasy that some day, as a great historical challenge looms into view, their future selves will rise to the occasion — and masterfully dodge it!

They envision themselves bobbing and weaving, triangulating and feinting — filling the air with  meaningless clichés so that no one knows where they stand and no one can hold them accountable. Their political career sails on, soaring upward, their electoral viability unbruised and glorious!

Ron DeSantis is now trying to live out that dream.

He is like that Richard Gere character in the musical Chicago — giving them the old razzle-dazzle, even if his dance steps are more plodding. It’s not clear if DeSantis is for more Ukraine aid or not. No one can quite pin him down. Tippity tap. Tappity tip.

The problem with running a campaign in which you are trying to be Trumpy-but-not-Trump is that you’re never your own man. You have to compete with the king without crossing him. You’re always trying to find that magic sweet spot between just-MAGA and plain-crazy. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/23/opinion/desantis-ukraine-shimmy.html

Molly Jong-Fast: The Fever Of Trumpism Shows No Sign Of Breaking In 2024

Paul Waldman: Republican elites fear the monster they created

Erik Wemple: Fox News is worse than you thought

Bess Levin: Donald Trump, Whose Brain Is Held Together By Thumbtacks And Silly Putty, Demands Mental Competency Test For Presidential Candidates

The guy who believes exercise causes premature death also thinks candidates must prove they are physically up to the job.

Many things come to mind when one has the misfortune to think of Donald Trump. Bigot. Creep. Guy who used a speech at the Boy Scouts of America’s quadrennial Jamboree to brag about all the fabulous parties he went to in the ’80s. One thing we can say with full confidence that has never once been thought of is mentally sound. And yet, the ex-president apparently believes that what will set him apart from other 2024 candidates is his brain—and the level at which it functions. Oh, and his body too!

On Tuesday, the former guy took to Truth Social to declare: ANYBODY running for the Office of President of the United States should agree to take a full & complete Mental Competency Test simultaneously (or before!) with the announcement that he or she is running, & likewise, but to a somewhat lesser extent, agree to a test which would prove that you are physically capable of doing the job. Being an outstanding President requires great mental acuity & physical stamina. If you don’t have these qualities or traits, it is likely you won’t succeed. MAGA!

There are not enough hours in the day to list the many examples of Trump not having it all together up top, but we’ll just note that he recently mistook a photo of his rape accuser for second ex-wife; famously claimed the sound from windmills causes cancer; and weirdly insisted, on multiple occasions, that his New York–born father was born in Germany. (Do we even need to mention that he suggested people inject bleach into their veins?) He also boasted, in 2020, that it was a major feat to have been able to recite five words in the correct order:

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, when asked how Donald Trump would do on her proposed mental competency test for politicians over the age of 75:

I think he did great the last time he did it. I have no reason to think he wouldn’t do well this time.

Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.

Trump obviously thinks this test will fell his would-be general election opponent Joe Biden, and we know this because he has been insisting since the last election that Biden is slow, and, more recently, that the current president has dementia.

Meanwhile, Nikki Haley, Trump’s only GOP primary opponent so far, has also called compulsory competency tests for any elected officials over the age of 75, saying last week: In the America I see, the permanent politician will finally retire. We’ll have term limits for Congress. And mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75 years old.

As for Trump’s call for a test which would prove that you are physically capable of doing the job, that’s a drum he started beating last month when he claimed that winning a golf tournament—that he appears to have cheated in—proved he was fit to be president again. The reason that I announce [supposedly having won the tournament] on fabulous TRUTH is that, in a very real way, it serves as a physical exam, only MUCH tougher, he told his Truth Social followers. You need strength and stamina to WIN, & I have strength & stamina - most others don’t. You also need strength & stamina to GOVERN!

As a reminder, for the majority of his life, Trump has had diet that could give cardiologists recurring nightmares, with a soft spot for Big Macs, meat loaf, and KFC. (Former White House doctor Ronny Jackson once said White House staff had to sneak vegetables into his food.) Trump has also claimed that the human body has a finite amount of energy, which physical exertion can only deplete, which is why exercise is apparently bad. (You are going to die young because of this, he reportedly once told an employee training for an Ironman race.) https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/02/donald-trump-mental-competency-test

Maureen Dowd: From Carter to M.T.G.: What a Peach State Plummet

Robyn Dixon and  Catherine Belton: Putin, czar with no empire, needs military victory for his own survival

President Vladimir Putin likes to portray himself as a new czar like Peter the Great or Ivan III, the 15th-century grand prince known as the “gatherer of the Russian lands.” But Putin’s year-long war in Ukraine has failed so far to secure the lands he aims to seize, and in Russia, there is fear that he is leading his nation into a dark period of strife and stagnation — or worse.

Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began with hubris and a zeal to reshape the world order. But even as he suffered repeated military defeats — diminishing his stature globally and staining him with allegations of atrocities being committed by his troops — Putin has tightened his authoritarian grip at home, using the war to destroy any opposition and to engineer a closed, paranoid society hostile to liberals, hipsters, LGBTQ people, and, especially, Western-style freedom and democracy.The Russian president’s squadrons of cheerleaders swear he “simply cannot lose” in Ukraine, thanks to Russia’s vast energy wealth, nuclear weapons and sheer number of soldiers it can throw onto the battlefield. These supporters see Putin rising supreme from Ukraine’s ashes to lead a swaggering nation defined by its repudiation of the West — a bigger, more powerful version of Iran.

But business executives and state officials say Putin’s own position at the top could prove precarious as doubts over his tactics grow among the elite. For many of them, Putin’s gambit has unwound 30 years of progress made since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Putin’s vision of Russia horrifies many oligarchs and state officials, who confide that the war has been a catastrophic error that has failed in every goal. But they remain paralyzed, fearful and publicly silent.

Some are sure that Putin can maintain his hold on power without a victory, as long as he keeps the war going and wears down Western resolve and weapons supplies. For anyone in the elite to act, Bondarev said, “there needs to be an understanding that Putin is leading the country to total collapse. While Putin is still bombing and attacking, people think the situation is not so bad. There needs to be a full military loss, and only then will people understand they need to do something.”

What all camps seem to agree on is that Putin shows no willingness to give up. As Russia’s battlefield position deteriorated in recent months, he escalated repeatedly, shuffling his commanders, unleashing brutal airstrikes on civilian infrastructure and threatening to use nuclear weapons.

Now, with his troops reinforced by conscripts and convicts and poised to launch new offensives, the 70-year-old Russian leader needs a win to maintain his own credibility. “Putin needs some success to demonstrate to society that he is still very successful,” a senior Ukrainian security official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss politically sensitive issues. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/20/putin-czar-with-no-empire-needs-military-victory-his-own-survival/

David French: Why Fox News Lied to the Viewers It ‘Respects’

There are some stories that are important enough to pause the news cycle and linger on them, to explore not just what happened, but why. And so it is with Fox News’s role in the events leading up to Jan. 6, 2021. Thanks to a recent filing by Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation lawsuit against Fox, there is now compelling evidence that America’s most-watched cable news network presented information it knew to be false as part of an effort to placate an angry audience. It knowingly sacrificed its integrity to maintain its market share.

Why? There are the obvious reasons: Money. Power. Fame. These are universal human temptations. But the answer goes deeper. Fox News became a juggernaut not simply by being “Republican,” or “conservative,” but by offering its audience something it craved even more deeply: representation. And journalism centered on representation ultimately isn’t journalism at all.

To understand the Fox News phenomenon, one has to understand the place it occupies in Red America. It’s no mere source of news. It’s the place where Red America goes to feel seen and heard. If there’s an important good news story in Red America, the first call is to Fox. If conservative Christians face a threat to their civil liberties, the first call is to Fox. If you’re a conservative celebrity and you need to sell a book, the first call is to Fox. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/26/opinion/fox-news-lies-dominion.html

Michelle Goldberg: DeSantis’s ‘Apocalyptic’ Attack on Higher Education

Under Florida House Bill 999, general education core courses couldn’t present a view of American history “contrary to the creation of a new nation based on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence,” creating obvious limits on the teaching of subjects like slavery and the Native American genocide. The bill also says that general education courses shouldn’t be based on “unproven, theoretical or exploratory content,” without defining what that means. “State officials would have unfettered discretion to determine which views are ‘theoretical’ and banned from general education courses,” says a statement by the libertarian-leaning Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

Finally, the bill centralizes political control over hiring by allowing faculty to be cut out of the process. Right now, some boards of trustees have the power to veto hiring recommendations made by faculty and administrators, though Young says they rarely use it. Under House Bill 999, rather than an up-or-down vote on candidates vetted by university bodies, trustees could just hire whomever they want. “They don’t even have to hire someone who applied through the regular process,” said Young. “They can just say, ‘Here’s my friend Joe, he’s going to be the new history professor.’”

This would give DeSantis’s cronies enormous power over who can teach in Florida’s colleges and universities. Last month, I wrote about the governor’s campaign to transform the New College of Florida, a progressive public institution, into a bastion of conservatism. At the time, some faculty members suspected that DeSantis’s new trustees might find their grandiose plans stymied by bureaucratic obstacles. Young believes that House Bill 999 would sweep many of those obstacles away.

The bill, of course, is only one part of DeSantis’s culture war. His administration has already limited what can be taught to K-12 students about race, sex and gender. (Some teachers removed all books from their classroom shelves while they waited for them to be reviewed for forbidden content.) When Disney spoke out against one of DeSantis’s education measures, the governor punished the corporation. And he is pushing legislation taking aim at the news media by making it easier for people — especially those accused of racial or gender discrimination — to sue for defamation. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/27/opinion/desantis-higher-education-bill.html