You may have noticed that I write a lot about Russia: my past travels there in the late 1980s and early 90s, her history, her culture, the beauty of her varied landscapes and cityscapes, and the warmth of her ordinary people.

Mostly, though, I write about Russian politics, and the murderous, totalitarian regime of Vladimir Putin.

I hold nothing back in calling out Putin and his minions — Lavrov, Medvedev, Shoigu, Patrushev, Dugin, Naryshkin, and all the others — for their undisguised crimes against humanity, both in their own country and what they call “the near abroad” . . . those areas once part of the Soviet Union . . .

. . . for the blatant lies, and twisting the truth to deflect blame onto everyone but themselves . . .

. . . and most of all, for the decimation of the sovereign nation of Ukraine, on the specious excuse that it “belongs” — according to their reimagined version of history — to Russia.

I hold no illusions as to Putin’s future expansionist agenda; his maniacal compulsion to destroy Western dominance and replace it with an alliance of his own creation; or his manipulation of a pitifully naive Donald Trump in order to achieve those goals.

And I freely express my outrage at his imprisonment of political opponents, journalists and others — both Russian and foreign — to be held as pawns in his political chess games.

I hold these viewpoints, and claim the absolute right to express them, because I am an American. As such, I enjoy the freedom of expression, freedom of choice, freedom of . . .

But wait a minute. That has always been the case, from the day I was born until . . . let’s see now . . . two months and eight days ago. Until the world began spinning out of control, and millions of Americans, myself included, suddenly realized that those rights and freedoms and blessings of which we have always been so proud and so grateful had begun to erode . . . not gradually, bit-by-bit, but seemingly all at once, practically overnight.

And I awoke this morning, after a vaguely disturbing dream the details of which I can no longer recall, to the horrible reality that my country is no longer the land of the free, where every individual has the same precious rights under the law as every other individual . . . and, more frighteningly, that there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.

Because I am one small, insignificant person — not wealthy, not famous, not influential. I voted, as I do in every election; but my vote wasn’t sufficient. All I can do now is speak out, and hope that enough voices will join mine in a chorus that will be heard.

In the meantime, I have asked myself whether, in good conscience, I now have the right to criticize the people of another country — Russia — for “putting up with” the autocracy that has been forced upon them, when I am in precisely the same situation . . . when the person sitting at the head of my government is engaging in the same sort of lying, manipulative, threatening, illegal, ham-fisted control over the people and the institutions of the United States as Vladimir Putin wields over the Russian people?

Is that not the pot calling the kettle black?

*. *. *

After much soul-searching, I have decided that the answer is no . . . it’s not the same. Because I now realize that we are not, simply by reason of being Americans, superior to the people of Russia or any other country. Thomas Jefferson famously said, “The government you elect is the government you deserve.” And the evidence of his wisdom is clearly before us today.

We — a slim majority of Americans — elected Donald Trump, not just once, but a shocking second time. And we are watching him stack our most vital institutions with unqualified, inept, self-serving billionaires who have set about gleefully annihilating entire agencies, ignoring laws and targeting judges who dare try to enforce them, endangering our environment, weakening our economy, and destroying international relationships so carefully built and nurtured over decades, in order to join forces with the arch enemy of everything America has always stood for: Vladimir Putin.

*. *. *

So I continue to claim the right to speak out, as long as I also recognize that Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump are two sides of the same coin. The only difference is that Trump believes he is smarter than Putin . . . whereas Putin knows better.

And that realization has left me and all of my fellow Americans who didn’t vote for him (and more than a few who did) feeling, well . . .

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
3/28/25