Theory 7: Putin is named Vladimir

February 22, 2017 12:03 PM

At no time in history have more people with less knowledge, and greater outrage, opined on the subject of Russia’s president [...] And what does Putinology tell us? It turns out that it has produced seven distinct hypotheses about Putin. None of them is entirely wrong, but then none of them is entirely right (apart from No 7). Taken together, they tell us as much about ourselves as about Putin. They paint a portrait of an intellectual class – our own – on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

Killer, kleptocrat, genius, spy: the many myths of Vladimir Putin
posted by griphus (55 comments total)

"Putinology," by the way, is a taken on the Cold War concept of Kremlinology (specifically the more dubious instances of it.)
posted by griphus at 12:07 PM on February 22, 2017

One Putin only tells the truth, the other only tells lies. You may ask one question.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:41 PM on February 22, 2017 [9 favorites]

I must be punchy, but #7 made me laugh so hard I had to go outside and walk around the building a couple of times.
posted by Etrigan at 12:50 PM on February 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

This article squicks me out a little. Why does a guy implicated in a massive slaughter of civilians in service to another acknowledged dictator get such a light hearted, complex picture here? The fact writers use dumb little dishonest tropes stylistically like that Vladimir riff doesn't reveal anything about our "intellectuals being on the verge of nervous breakdown" though that does seem pretty on message for what an agitprop campaign against the U.S. might be aiming for...
posted by saulgoodman at 1:11 PM on February 22, 2017 [8 favorites]

Still reading the article, but I suspect that the person who wrote the counter-arguments to the first theory are not particularly familiar with the strategy of chess. Or, for that matter, checkers.
posted by kevinbelt at 1:16 PM on February 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm probably just getting jumpy because there's so much narrative to try to make sense of these days. It just feels like too much of a stretch to humanize a guy who has absolutely been doing a lot of things most of us would find appalling and unconscionable most of his life and career, like that bad journalistic habit of trying to achieve balance and deniability of bias by muddying the story. If the point is he's human, okay, sure. But he's a snake and he's got really big ambitions for large swaths of the world that don't involve any notion or concern for those populations consent to be governed by him. Maybe I'm overreacting.
posted by saulgoodman at 1:24 PM on February 22, 2017 [9 favorites]

This article squicks me out a little.

How does the old story go? A little boy cries "the Russians are coming! the Russians are coming!" over and over again?

Well, now that the little boy is grown into a rather hoarse and thoroughly discredited old man, the Russians are coming.
posted by jamjam at 1:25 PM on February 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

It'd be smart to at least minimally read Theory 7 before commenting. Tl;dr: everything evil about Putin is true, but talking about how evil he is, is not really to talk about Putin.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 1:32 PM on February 22, 2017 [3 favorites]

Thanks for posting this article. I saw it floating around on Twitter and hoped it would make it to the Blue. I think it ends on a strong note:

Compared to the 40-year cycle of US deindustrialisation, during which only the rich gained in wealth; the 25-year rightwing war on the Clintons; the eight-year-old Tea Party assault on facts, immigration and taxes; a tepid, centrist campaign; and a supposed late-breaking revelation from the director of the FBI about the dubious investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server – well, compared to all those factors, the leaked DNC emails must rank low on the list of reasons for Trump’s victory. And yet, according to a recent report, Hillary Clinton and her campaign still blame the Russians – and, by extension, Barack Obama, who did not make a big issue of the hacks before November – for her electoral debacle. In this instance, thinking about Putin helps not to think about everything else that went wrong, and what needs to be done to fix it.

This evasion is the essence of Putinology, which seeks solace in the undeniable but faraway badness of Putin at the expense of confronting the far more uncomfortable badness in front of one’s face. Putinology predates the 2016 election by a decade, and yet what we have seen in connection to Trump these past few months has been its Platonic ideal.

Here in front of us is a man – Donald J Trump – who has said countless cruel and bigoted things and proposed cruel and bigoted policies, who is a pathological liar, who has failed in almost everything he has ever tried and who surrounds himself with conmen and billionaires. And yet, day after day, there is breathless excitement over each new data point in the effort to uncover Trump’s secret/hidden connections to Russia – each one inflated by the hope that this, now, finally, will render him illegitimate, remove him from the White House, and end the liberal nightmare of having actually lost an election to this hateful dope.

posted by Rustic Etruscan at 1:39 PM on February 22, 2017 [21 favorites]

From tfa: But the confident proclamation of expertise by someone who does not technically know Putin’s name is surely a sign of something. It’s a sign that most Putinology is not and has never been about Putin.

I enjoy contrarian shit as much as the next iconoclast, but there is definitely an agenda here. This fantastical leap of logic embodied in the quote is not the only example. The author seems to be trying very hard to make Putin seem normal. He is not.
posted by Mental Wimp at 1:45 PM on February 22, 2017 [5 favorites]

(Well, by Russian standards, he's pretty normal, actually...)
posted by tobascodagama at 1:48 PM on February 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

(Well, by Russian standards, he's pretty normal, actually...)

A point the article drives home in a passage about the Moscow bombings of 1999:

The question of the Russian government’s involvement in the bombings has remained a vexed one. The most authoritative account of the available evidence was written up a few years ago by John Dunlop of the Hoover Institute. While careful not to claim to have settled the case definitively, Dunlop argued that there is compelling evidence that the bombings were ordered by the Yeltsin inner circle and carried out by the FSB.

And yet here, too, Putin evades us. If the apartment bombings really were a palace plot, it was not Putin’s palace but Yeltsin’s that plotted them. And indeed the political killings that seem to characterise the Putin years also characterised the Yeltsin ones. This does not, again, absolve Putin of anything. But it points to a longer and more complex period of violence, of groups inside and outside the government employing assassination and terror as a political weapon, and not just the machinations of one evil man. If Putin, as president, is unable to stop this violence, then maybe someone else should be president; if Putin, as president, is a party to the violence, then certainly someone else should be.

posted by Rustic Etruscan at 1:55 PM on February 22, 2017 [5 favorites]

This is the best thing I've read on Putin, and I've read a lot on Putin. Which is not surprising, because Keith Gessen is smart, knowledgeable, and writes well. (It's depressing to see some of the "my mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts" comments here, but it takes all kinds to make a MeFi.) I hope I will remember it well enough to be cured of some of the simplistic things I myself have thought and said about Vladimir Vladimirovich (which until he came along meant either Nabokov or Mayakovsky). I highly recommend the "Putin is a KGB agent" and "Putin is a killer" sections to those prone to spout those particular simplistic judgments. Thanks for the post!
posted by languagehat at 1:58 PM on February 22, 2017 [18 favorites]

This fantastical leap of logic

The author was making a joke. Link goes to Vanity Fair.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 2:00 PM on February 22, 2017

The author seems to be trying very hard to make Putin seem normal. He is not.

Sure he is. He's a brutal authoritarian strongman with plans of aggression. Not unlike despots the U.S. has fought previously, in the Cold War. And also not unlike despots that the U.S. has provided with aid and succor in the Cold War. It's important not to put the man on some sort of pedestal of exceptional evil. What distinguishes him from other strongmen is degree of power and influence, that's all.
posted by Apocryphon at 2:26 PM on February 22, 2017 [6 favorites]

The thing with Putin's name is just an acknowledgement that pundits (or whomever) will make their decisions about Putin first, and match the facts to it second regardless of how the facts match their assertions.

The section in the article being referred to is that Putin is "a former K.G.B. agent who, it is no accident, shares the name Vladimir [Ilyich] with Lenin." Instead of removing that section when it turned out that Putin is named Vladimir Vladimirovich and not Vladimir Ilyich, they just amended it into a weird, incoherent statement that creates a link between Putin and Lenin where no such link exists.

But there wasn't even a link to begin with! I'm not sure if the author of the VF piece understands that Russian patronymics aren't equivalent to American middle names and that no one gives you a patronymic. If Putin was named "Vladimir Ilyich," it would've been because his father was named Ilya, not because he was named after Lenin (in fact, a different first name specifically in tribute to Lenin does exist in Russian: "Vladlen")

The idea that that's "not an accident" that Lenin and Putin are named Vladimir Ilyich (never mind just "Vladimir," which is about as common in Russian as "William" is in English) is complete nonsense for a plethora of reasons but it boils down to the fact that the assertion is not even coherent enough to be wrong.
posted by griphus at 2:38 PM on February 22, 2017 [21 favorites]

I've finished reading the article. Overall, pretty good. Aside from my earlier gripe about chess strategy, Gessen does a good job of dismantling the popular perceptions of Putin.

I think Gessen is spot-on about the perception of the KGB thing, but I think he misses something, too. He's right that "KGB" is American shorthand for "spooky Russki communist", and is intended to scare people who are still fighting the last war. But I don't think Putin's experiences in the KGB can be written off so easily. His formative interactions with the US and Europe were with their intelligence agencies, which we now know were pretty horrible (and that's quite an understatement). He rightfully grew to distrust the West, and didn't ever see the US as a beacon of freedom and democracy. The very idea of the US as a liberal utopia must seem fairly ridiculous to him. He (again, rightfully) sees the West as ruthless imperialists, and it doesn't surprise me that he'd fight fire with proverbial fire.

(Side note: My initials are KGB. It's always amusing to take a monogrammed bag through TSA.)

The paragraph about getting away with the Khodorkovsky arrest should probably be more prominent.

One thing that Gessen doesn't really touch on except in passing, and pretty much everyone else seems to ignore as well, is the judo thing. Judo is probably the most interesting martial art for a leader to study. I'd love to see an eighth theory: Putin is a judo master.

The conclusion that Rustic Etruscan excerpted above is a good one.

My goodness, that Vanity Fair article was bad. "It is no accident..." What does that even mean? That Putin's parents intentionally named him after Lenin? First of all, is there any evidence this is true? Second, this was probably not uncommon in the Soviet Union. There are plenty of kids named George Washington in the US. Third, so what? One's name is not one's destiny. Wow. I kind of wish that Gessen would not have linked to that article, because I feel stupider for having read it. And I still wish Gessen would learn more about chess!
posted by kevinbelt at 2:51 PM on February 22, 2017 [6 favorites]

they just amended it into a weird, incoherent statement that creates a link between Putin and Lenin where no such link exists.

That incident showcases both the existence of hysteria towards Putin, and moreover that modern journalism in the age of quick internet edits is turning really dumb
posted by Apocryphon at 2:57 PM on February 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

I've heard of another hypothesis: that Putin is actually something of a moderate, the only thing standing between the masses, his own corrupt desire for power, and a cabal of bloodthirsty kleptocrats that must be kept at bay at all costs. His impulse is towards tyranny and control, which is threatened from all sides, but he also has a cold hard particle of a conscience, and a love for Russia, buried deep down in that sunken chest of his. If he loses control, a bloodbath of mythic proportions is the only possible result.

It's probably the most frightening theory I've heard, but seriously, the only thing anyone knows for sure about Russia is that if things can get worse, they probably will.
posted by klanawa at 3:38 PM on February 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

My friend linked me this earlier today, speaking about more the Putin as genius/chessmaster variant. I was happy this came along not necessarily because I could dismiss the article entirely, but more because I think it's definitely a more nuanced view than elsewhere that I've read. Certainly a lot seems to subscribe to the Xanatos Gambit mentality which dismisses our own electorates role in this whole debacle.
posted by Carillon at 3:46 PM on February 22, 2017

Mod note: Folks, we have lots of places to talk about American election results. Please stick to the substance of the article here if possible. Thanks!
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 4:28 PM on February 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

> But I don't think Putin's experiences in the KGB can be written off so easily.

Good heavens, he's not "writing off" the KGB connection, he's explaining it's not the simple MINION OF ULTIMATE EVIL gotcha that people use it as. Russians tended to make too much of George H.W. Bush's CIA connection too; that doesn't mean it can be ignored.
posted by languagehat at 5:19 PM on February 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

Waitaminute... I thought Putin's first name was Ras.
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:21 PM on February 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

Q: Is Putin evil?

A: Dude, do you think we're living in a fucking comic book? a fairy tale for four-year-olds?
posted by fredludd at 6:09 PM on February 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

To be honest, I'm probably personally invested in it too much. To me, it's important to emphasize how nasty and sneakily sophisticated Putin may be because I don't think most Americans have been taking the threat from Russia seriously enough. To me, his KGB time tells me one thing: he's comfortable using methods that in other contexts would be considered sociopathic. Intelligence services have normalized a lot of blatantly sociopathic behavior over the last 50 years or so in the name of Realpolitik. I hope people at least don't come away with the impression that should be viewed as normal and acceptable. Also, he's probably the only world leader who actually has the technical chops to pull off an actual electronic voting system hacking campaign. Don't mean to derail again on the election, my point here is, isn't Putin exactly the kind of guy whose life and experiences make it likely he could and would pull off an operation like that.
posted by saulgoodman at 6:22 PM on February 22, 2017 [5 favorites]

Something about that piece seems a little suspect to me also. Sure, there may be a tendency in the West to portray Putin as a cartoon villain, but this article on the other hand seems to be trying to show him as not really so bad, in a comparative way at least, by whipping up a bunch of...dust. I'm not a Putinologist, to put it mildly, but I do remember watching a CBC Passionate Eye program that put together quite a convincing case for Putin being involved with the apartment bombings, for example. A nice guy or incompetent that he's not in any case. Putin's role in the fake news/troll wars and support of far right causes generally, not just in the US, is mentioned but then kind of brushed off—but that alone makes him one of the most dangerous international actors currently.
posted by blue shadows at 6:49 PM on February 22, 2017 [3 favorites]

It's interesting to read this article after having read Masha Gessen's (Keith's sister) book on Putin, The Man Without a Face. Her take seems to align most closely with the second and fourth theories here: Putin, in her eyes, is a fundamentally bland and unimpressive - faceless - man, who operates chiefly according to what he learned as a KGB agent.
posted by Christian Buddenbrook at 12:10 AM on February 23, 2017

Putinology is Kremlinology. I understand people saying that we need to understand it to beat it, but, like #45, Putin is so secretive, particularly with respect to how much he controls and understands and how much is manipulation via palace whispers, that it may be better to treat it as a black box. No theory of mind, just principled rules of engagement and acceptance of unpredictability. Exceptions will be made only for those experts who predicted the invasion of Ukraine directly after the Winter Olympics before the Olympics

I was going to chime in with my personal theories, but I think that in reality, theory is useless here.
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 12:55 AM on February 23, 2017

As a child of Ukrainian immigrants(with much family still in Ukraine) I am super worried by the phenomenon of Putin as an intellectual topic for people with no dog in this fight to pontificate about. Does attempting to humanise this man prevent the spread of annexation and Russian imperialism? I'm tired of people insinuating that being radically anti-russia is this silly thing that only uncultured or alarmist boors do.

I don't want it to become taboo to call Putin and his government vile and oppressive, for fear of being lumped in with the Putin alarmist crowd. I honestly don't see how directing any effort one way or another towards analysing Putin will change the fact that Russification is creeping back in,unchallenged, whether Putin is at the helm or not. Who cares if the man lives up to the icon he has become.

I've even seen American leftists throw around words like "Russophobia" lately when criticism of Putin and Russian imperialism is brought up. That makes me really fucking uncomfortable. I'm not going to be a nice pure leftist and act like being alarmed about Putin/Russia is uncool and nonintellectual. I'm not going to act like the assimilation and removal of Ukrainian culture is just "lol white people problems" or some conspiracy theory.

Please don't make normalising Putin a thing.
posted by InkDrinker at 1:27 AM on February 23, 2017 [8 favorites]

I've even seen American leftists throw around words like "Russophobia" lately when criticism of Putin and Russian imperialism is brought up.

I've certainly read some of the Russian comments in recent politics threads here with a raised eyebrow; there's an undercurrent of 'Russia as America's eternal opponent' distrust thrown in with the entirely justified concerns.
posted by mushhushshu at 1:54 AM on February 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

I love Russia and Russian culture. But at this moment in history, Putin is one of the biggest threats to action on global warming and likeliest to promote oppression and right wing extremism. If Russia's the multiplier effect behind the whole swing to the right worldwide, Putin's Russia poses a serious problem for the rest of the world right now, and for any effort at building a better, more sustainable technology/industrial future. He's pushing oil as hard as possible because it's so central to his own power base.
posted by saulgoodman at 3:21 AM on February 23, 2017 [6 favorites]

I mean, why else did Trump put a propagandist for the oil industry in charge of the EPA? Our EPA played a leadership role in promoting environmental standards around the world in the past, when it was more politically powerful domestically.
posted by saulgoodman at 3:25 AM on February 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

"I mean, why else did Trump put a propagandist for the oil industry in charge of the EPA?"

I can think of a number of reasons, none of which have to do with Putin or Russia. This is part of what the article was getting at: Putin is probably a bad guy, but blaming him for every little thing that we don't like obscures his actual badness. When InkDrinker posted above about being worried for their Ukrainian relatives, I don't think they meant because of Putin's potential influence on Trump's cabinet picks.
posted by kevinbelt at 5:04 AM on February 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

But Putin is blatantly pushing oil and has an obvious political motive to do so. He is at least partly behind that. Letting him become more powerful now, when the world is crossing the threshold into irreversible cascade effects from climate change, is going to be disastrous, even if that consolidation of power only lasts a few more years.
posted by saulgoodman at 5:19 AM on February 23, 2017

Putin doesn't need to be smart, or "an evil mastermind" in order to create havoc. Contrariwise. We have lots of experience with stupid US presidents starting unnecessary wars or aiding terrorists abroad, just to point to the most obvious. Putin's Russia is a real threat along it's entire Eastern border, and IMO downplaying that threat is at best disingenuous, at worst undermining Western institutions.
posted by mumimor at 6:04 AM on February 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

it's not every day that writing one article in the Guardian brings down western civilization
posted by indubitable at 7:04 AM on February 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

> Something about that piece seems a little suspect to me also. Sure, there may be a tendency in the West to portray Putin as a cartoon villain, but this article on the other hand seems to be trying to show him as not really so bad, in a comparative way at least, by whipping up a bunch of...dust. I'm not a Putinologist, to put it mildly, but I do remember watching a CBC Passionate Eye program that put together quite a convincing case for Putin being involved with the apartment bombings, for example.

Jesus Christ. The lack of reading skills in this thread is really starting to appall me. Seriously, you think an attempt to give people a more complex and realistic picture of Putin is "trying to show him as not really so bad"? Here, let me provide a convenient collection of quotes from tfa:

None of them is entirely wrong, but then none of them is entirely right... Putin got away with it, and he would get away with much more.... Putin has launched violent, deadly wars against Chechnya, Georgia and Ukraine, and I agree with the recent British inquiry that concluded that Putin “probably” approved of the assassination of Litvinenko.... This does not, again, absolve Putin of anything.... When George Stephanopoulos appears on national TV and declares that Putin ordered the killing of Anna Politkovskaya, it makes it that much harder to pin the blame on Putin for things that he did, demonstrably and undoubtedly, do.... The accusation [that he was a thief] had the virtue of being unquestionably true.

But feel free to demand yet another PUTIN: EVIL OR EVILEST??? thumbsucker. And by all means, take the word of "a CBC Passionate Eye program" over that of a guy who speaks Russian natively, knows the country from the inside, and has been immersed in this stuff for years. Just don't turn around and complain about right-wingers only listening to news from sources that coddle their prejudices.

Personal to saulgoodman: Dude, you're taking over this thread with your fears about Putin and Russia. There's nothing wrong with having such fears, but maybe step back and allow a more interesting conversation to happen?
posted by languagehat at 7:17 AM on February 23, 2017 [14 favorites]

Sure thing. There'll be a more appropriate thread eventually. Sorry.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:31 AM on February 23, 2017

Putin's Russia poses a serious problem for the rest of the world right now

Sorry but this is absurd. It is the US that maintains special forces in 120+ countries. It is the US that set up a network of secret prisons. It is the US that killed scores of children by drone strikes. It is the US that started a deplorable war in Iraq. It is the US that fomented and supported the Arab spring, which caused the rise of ISIS and the refugee crisis that led to Brexit. It is the US who wanted to build a missile shield in Central Europe. It is the US that proposed the megalomanic TPP and TTIP treaties to fortify the global hegemony of neoliberalism. It is the US that supported the overthrow of the Ukrainian government. It is the US that elected Trump.

From the perspective of this European, US foreign policy over the past fifteen years has failed and backfired at nearly every turn -- to my disappointment and regret. But it is not unreasonable to look at the results and then to conclude that US policy has been spectacularly reckless and dangerous, and in the final analysis I think this has done more to prop up Putin, as "defender of the Motherland", than anything else.
posted by dmh at 8:10 AM on February 23, 2017 [7 favorites]

"I mean, why else did Trump put a propagandist for the oil industry in charge of the EPA?"

Why did he put sworn enemies of the federal government in charge of most of its agencies? Perhaps because he's the culmination of years of right-wing fantasy - and basically a wannabe kleptocrat himself?

People who live in or care about someone who lives in a country bordering Russia have plenty of reason to worry about Putin, and Trump sure as hell isn't helping that. But all the "Russians have eleven words for political blackmail and none for love" stuff that's going around is dumb (and in fact Russophobic).
posted by atoxyl at 8:47 AM on February 23, 2017 [8 favorites]

I disagree, but respect your opinion. It's just not the time to be dicking around some more with playground bullies instead of tackling global warming.
posted by saulgoodman at 9:51 AM on February 23, 2017

Here's a more nuanced look at Putin and his influence on global climate change policy. Hopefully that's a better contribution and more on topic. If not, sorry for any further cluelessness and I'll just slink away now to worry myself in private.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:41 AM on February 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

Good longread from the FT: Russia mobilises an elite band of cyber warriors
posted by triggerfinger at 12:32 PM on February 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

I do comprehend what the article is saying, I just object to over-intellectualizing and normalizing Putin, as others have mentioned. The man is clearly a menace and what's the point of playing rarified parlour games? The danger of Russia's cyber army is glossed over, and the tone to me still comes across as Putin maybe not being quite that big a threat; partly because the authour dismisses all the different theories without offering any of his own. And speaking of reading skills, I did say that Putin may not be the cartoon villain he's made out... As I said, I don't know that much about Putinology and actually found the article interesting, just not fully persuasive.
posted by blue shadows at 5:27 PM on February 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

Putin lives a fairly modest day-to-day existence. Yes, he has a palace on the Black Sea, built with pilfered funds, but he doesn’t actually live in it. In fact, it is unlikely that he will ever live in it. The palace is, in a way, the most hopeful thing that Putin is building – a promise of his eventual retirement, and under circumstances where he is not torn from limb to limb by a mob that has entered the Kremlin and overpowered his personal guards.

This bit gave me pause, and gave me some hope for the future. I remember Ghadafi's end, and the frightful pleasure it brought me that this is what you get, this is how evil dictators should end up. Like Mussolini, all dignity stripped from them and turned into meat to be raged against by the people.

In a truly just world these people would face the ICC or similar, but the world is not just, and at least there is a sliver of justice in mob justice. Here's hoping Putin never gets to retire to his palace.
posted by Meatbomb at 5:47 PM on February 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

Good heavens, he's not "writing off" the KGB connection, he's explaining it's not the simple MINION OF ULTIMATE EVIL gotcha that people use it as.

Yes, he spends a lot of time tilting at straw men, doesn't he?
posted by Mental Wimp at 6:29 PM on February 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

About this palace on the Black Sea coast and the just fate for dictators: Isn't it better, in general, if a dictator leaves his job being dictator at some point to enjoy a peaceful retirement? This means he hasn't been set on being "president for life", that he recognizes some higher value for his country than his own personal rule, and that there has been some sort of peaceful transfer of power -- a necessary, though not sufficient element of (eventual) democracy. If he's figuring on retiring at some point, it also means he's not ruling with such an iron fist that giving up power would surely be a death sentence for him.

I mean, best not to have the dictator at all. But if you've got one, better to have one who is imagining a peaceful exit from his role than one who knows he has to hang on to the job forever at all costs.

(How many dictators do actually get to retire? I can only think of Castro, and Primo de Rivera, maybe.)
posted by bertran at 7:17 PM on February 23, 2017

(Or maybe also Pinochet, who would probably be an counter-example to my point -- my ignorance of Chilean history prevents me from forming a considered judgement...)
posted by bertran at 7:26 PM on February 23, 2017

> I do comprehend what the article is saying, I just object to over-intellectualizing and normalizing Putin, as others have mentioned. The man is clearly a menace and what's the point of playing rarified parlour games?

Yes, trying to get at actual facts (as we used to call them) rather than settling for simplistic cartoon images is definitely "playing rarified parlour games." You've got me there.
posted by languagehat at 7:27 AM on February 24, 2017 [5 favorites]

Glad you mentioned facts. That was actually what I didn't get enough of, hence my questioning. Anyway, feel free to throw around as many sarcasm bombs as you like without contributing anything much new.
posted by blue shadows at 8:53 AM on February 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

(How many dictators do actually get to retire? I can only think of Castro, and Primo de Rivera, maybe.)

You don't get to be a dictator by trusting in the institutions of your nation. You get there by believing, deeply in your heart, that you are the only person who can hold your nation together.
posted by Etrigan at 9:06 AM on February 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Photo Op: Take another look at "...Putin and his dog, Connie, with the canine-fearing Angela Merkel."

Study Putin's face for a moment. His expression could cover a lot of ground as,

1) a man who wishes Angela to be friends with his dog, or,

2) a man with a flair for metaphors (observing a bug on a pin, as he casually snips off its legs joint by joint).

Anyhow, it's a portrait with depth.
posted by mule98J at 12:02 PM on February 24, 2017

Having more time to think and write, this isn't so much over-intellectualizing Putin as it is strawmen and assertions (and the thread in which I got admonished about nuance in all caps).
posted by blue shadows at 12:22 AM on February 25, 2017

Trump, Putin and the New Cold War
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:15 PM on February 26, 2017

Masha Gessen in The New York Review of Books: "Russia: The Conspiracy Trap."

What’s so terrible about Russia? Serious question.

Among the things that unite President Trump and his cabinet picks is their propensity for lying. ProPublica recently offered a list of lies made by Trump nominees in confirmation hearings in Congress, mostly under oath. Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt lied when he claimed not to have used a private email account as Oklahoma attorney general (Vice President Mike Pence used one too, as governor of Indiana); Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price lied about a suspect stock purchase; Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin lied about his firm’s history of profiting from the housing crisis; Education Secretary Betsy DeVos lied that she was not involved in her family foundation, which has supported anti-LGBT causes and funded a variety of conservative think tanks and colleges, though tax filings show she has been its vice president for seventeen years. And, as we now know, Attorney General Jeff Sessions lied about contacts with the Russian ambassador.

Lying to Congress is a criminal offense. But Pruitt was confirmed in a 52-46 vote, with two Democrats voting in favor; Price got confirmed 52-47; Mnuchin’s tally was 53-47; and even DeVos, whose utter lack of knowledge about public education led two Republicans to vote against her, squeaked through with a 50-50 vote broken by Vice President Pence. These affirming votes took place despite the fact that it was clear before the decision that the candidates had misled Congress—and despite the fact that each of them supports policies that are deeply threatening to large numbers of Americans.

Lies about Russia are a different matter. Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Flynn, was forced to resign less than four weeks into the new presidency after it emerged that he had lied to Pence about meeting with the Russian ambassador; and Sessions, under bipartisan fire for having lied to Congress about the same thing, now faces calls to step down.

I am, of course, merely pretending not to know what makes Russia so special. For more than six months now, Russia has served as a crutch for the American imagination. It is used to explain how Trump could have happened to us, and it is also called upon to give us hope. When the Russian conspiracy behind Trump is finally fully exposed, our national nightmare will be over.

posted by Rustic Etruscan at 1:46 PM on March 6, 2017 [1 favorite]