Will It Matter? An Ongoing Series

 One of the defining hallmarks of the Age of Trump is that normally career-ending events have less impact than they should. The Access Hollywood tape, the naked racism, being twice impeached, bungling a pandemic response, rank criminality and incompetence...it's a really remarkable run. 

This has led the Vicious Spawn of Trump to assume that saying or doing anything simply doesn't matter. Marjorie Traitor Greene speaks at a white supremacist klavern? Whatevs. Ron DeSantis kills a bunch of Floridians with aggressively stupid pandemic responses? Guess he's the frontrunner.

The current moment with Ukraine, and the Far Right's embrace of Putin, is a fascinating case study in whether anything really "matters" anymore. Dan Nexon (at the link) notes that European Rightists were given the space to operate because the Soviets were gone. They took aid and comfort from Putin, but if he starts behaving like the Brezhnev Doctrine is still in effect, then those Western norms and values start looking pretty good. Orban and Erdogan have both staked serious positions against Russia.

In the US, however, we have the putative head of the Republican Party who simply can't help but praise Putin while attacking America's current leaders. Tucker Carlson - vying with Trump for the World's Worst Person - is starting to edge away from Russia, after it has become clear that what Putin has done is simply egregiously wrong. Plus, the sanctions have to hurt those who have been getting money under the table from Moscow for years. 

My hope against hope is obviously that Ukraine inflicts a massive defeat on Russian troops in the next few days, and the Russian army balks at wanton destruction. Rather than escalate into a mass bombings of civilian areas, the army simply says "fuck off" to Putin. It was the army, largely, in 1917 that brought down Tsar Nicholas; perhaps they can bring down Tsar Vladimir.

If that does happen, I hope every single tie with Russia gets exposed. At this moment with everyone except Belarus, Trump and Glenn Greenwald turning on Putin, if we can out all the dirty underground connections, perhaps we can drive a stake through the heart of Trumpist admiration for reprehensible dictators like Putin is and Trump wants to be.