Biden’s Exit: Views from Moscow and Kyiv
Biden’s Exit: Views from Moscow and Kyiv
Commentators in Russia and Ukraine were quick to draw lessons about democracy itself.
JOE BIDEN’S WITHDRAWAL from the presidential race, and the all-but-certainty of Kamala Harris as his replacement atop the Democratic ticket, dominated Russian television news on Sunday and Monday—and, not surprisingly, conspiracy theories recycled from right-wing American Twitter ran wild.
On Rossiya-1’s leading talk show 60 Minutes on Monday, a great deal of time was spent discussing the possibility that Biden (preposterously called “the instigator of the war in Ukraine” by cohost Yevgeny Popov) may be dead, or that he didn’t actually sign the letter announcing his withdrawal and may not even know about it. Panelist Andrei Isayev, a Duma member, speculated that the reason Biden had not also stepped down as president is simple: The elite cabal that forged his letter probably drew the line at a fake resignation, since that would amount to a coup and “Trump will come and throw them all in the slammer for life.” (Then again, “He’ll throw them all in the slammer anyway regardless of what they do in the next hundred days!” Popov interjected cheerily.)
Another theory floating around was that Biden had been forced to quit via blackmail that, in the words of Rossiya-1 New York correspondent Valentin Bogdanov, might be “related to his many years of shenanigans in Ukraine.” The only thing about which everyone concurred was that there was foul play: As Popov summed it up, “If you believe the conspiracy theories, the Deep State is treating American citizens with utter contempt.” Obviously, such underhandedness contrasts starkly with Russia, where Vladimir Putin—who was originally supposed to complete his last presidential term in 2008—has repeatedly circumvented, twisted, and rewritten the constitution to stay in power.1
ONE STRIKING THING ABOUT political talk shows on Kremlin-run television these days is the extent to which they mirror the American right-wing media ecosystem. Clips of Joe Biden stumbling or looking befuddled? Check. “Laughing Kamala” supercuts and clips of Harris saying things that, at least out of context, sound cringe or inane? Check. Snide references to woke identity politics in the Democratic camp? Check. (When Isayev remarked that Harris’s running mate would have to be “a white male in a traditional marriage,” Popov quipped, “They still have those?”) And, of course, conspiracy theories, including ones that even David Sacks and Tucker Carlson have yet to think of: Both 60 Minutes and Vladimir Solovyov’s Sunday-night program suggested that Donald Trump’s pick of JD Vance as his running mate was a smart insurance policy against another assassination attempt, since Trump’s successor would be “even Trumpier.”
And yet, bromance with Trump and the GOP were noticeably lacking. Isayev argued that when it comes to Russia, Republicans and Democrats alike are “parties of the long Cold War and the arms race” and that Russia cannot rely on anyone but “our heroic fighters in the special military operation” to prevail in the current conflict. Popov grimly concurred that “we can’t expect any pluses from the election of either Ms. Harris or Mr. Trump.” Meanwhile, Solovyov, after making the obligatory snarky remarks about Biden and Harris—and getting some laughs out of an old Izvestia piece about Biden ending his 1988 presidential run, titled “J. Biden gets taken out of the game”—turned his sarcasm to “Donald Frederikovich Trump,” mockingly using a Russian-style patronymic. He derided the ear-bandage fad at the Republican convention: “Good thing he was wounded in the ear, imagine if it had been some other place!” He also remarked, citing actor and Kremlin shill Steven Seagal as his source, that Trump thinks he’s not even God’s representative on Earth but God himself.
Solovyov’s overarching theme was bashing American democracy, supposedly exposed as a complete sham by Biden’s exit from the race, and gleefully predicting American doom. At one point, he played a 2022 clip of the late fascist buffoon Vladimir Zhirinovsky saying that “the 2024 elections in America won’t happen because there won’t be an America.” One could note the ironic fact that today, there is an America, but no Zhirinovsky, but Solovyov’s point was that such a scenario “cannot be ruled out.”
THE VIEW FROM UKRAINE, and from the mostly expatriate Russian dissident community, obviously tended to be very different. On Ukraine’s Freedom channel, Mikhail Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, praised the Biden administration for its support for Ukraine but also had high praise for Biden’s decision to bow out—a “strong move” that not only gave the Democrats a chance to field a more competitive candidate but served as a lesson in democracy’s advantages: “It clearly demonstrates that in a democracy, strong leaders can make such decisions, which of course is incomprehensible for authoritarian or totalitarian countries.” Podolyak even added that the latest developments “underscore the greatness of the United States from the standpoint of the democratic process.” If he says so.
Podolyak was notably diplomatic about Trump, referring to him as the “charismatic and dynamic Republican party candidate” the Democrats would have to contend with; the Ukrainians are clearly hedging their bets.
On his Monday stream, Kyiv-based journalist and video blogger Matvey Ganapolsky was full of praise not only for democracy but also for Biden, saying that “Biden has done an incredible thing and truly written himself into history, because it’s certainly not every president who could do that.”
A rather more critical take was offered by exiled Russian oligarch and dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who noted that Biden’s resistance to bowing out after the disastrous debate on June 27 appeared to have been rooted in the conviction that only he could beat Trump:
Even in America, the centralization of power can play a nasty joke on the president. Over the years of his presidency, Biden was supposed to grow a new generation of Democratic politicians. Instead he became an obstacle to this new generation because he came to believe he was indispensable. This is likely to cost the Democrats the presidency and perhaps even the majority in Congress. American democracy, I’m sure, will survive this. But it’s an important lesson for countries with weaker democratic traditions. So, good luck! And what are we going to do? We’re going to envy America its democratic institutions which have finally met the challenge—and make our own conclusions.
For Khodorkovsky, it’s an unusually optimistic take.
NOT SURPRISINGLY, BOTH THE RUSSIAN dissident commentariat and the Ukrainian media tend to have clear anti-Trump sympathies, despite the Ukrainian political establishment’s efforts to build bridges to Trump—exemplified by the amicable Trump/Zelensky phone conversation after Trump officially secured the GOP nomination—and despite diligent engagement of diverse views. On Tuesday, for instance, Khodorkovsky’s YouTube channel featured an interview with Putin-adviser-turned-Putin-critic (and Trump supporter) Andrei Illarionov, who insisted that Trump was more likely to give Ukraine all the weapons it needs to win the war—and bizarrely asserted that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was secretly coordinated with Biden.
Before Biden’s withdrawal on Sunday, this anti-Trump consensus was in a pessimistic mood, mostly resigned to the inevitability of Trump in November—particularly after the July 13 assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. One interesting dissent from this consensus was offered by exiled writer Dmitry Bykov, now living in the United States, who observed on the eve of Biden’s announcement that narcissists like Trump tend to lose restraint and do dumb things when they feel they’re unstoppable. As Bykov put it in colorfully euphemistic terms, “Today, Trump is absolutely convinced that he’s got God by the beard. Generally, in those situations, God quickly lets you know who’s got whom by what.”
Biden’s announcement on Sunday inevitably drew comparisons to Boris Yeltsin’s 1999 announcement of his retirement. (Ganapolsky’s July 22 stream had the memorable Yeltsin quote for a title: “I’m tired. I quit.”) It’s not a very optimistic analogy, since Yeltsin’s retirement set the stage of Putin’s rise to power. But in this case, the mood shifted in a much more optimistic direction, even if some, like Khodorkovsky, still think Trump’s victory is more likely. Russian-American journalist and YouTuber Michael Nacke, on the other hand, not only characterized Biden’s decision as “wonderful news” but opened his July 22 stream with the assertion that “Putin’s bet did not pay off”—the bet being that he could win the war in Ukraine if he dragged it out long enough for Trump to win. While Nacke quickly amended his confident statement to note that it’s too early to say whether it has paid off or not, he felt that the chances of it paying off were now “significantly reduced,” with Trump facing a much more energetic opponent and “caught in his own trap” of making age the dominant issue in the campaign.
Meanwhile, Alexander Nevzorov, the caustic ex-Russian TV journalist who is now a Ukrainian citizen, saw multiple levels of relevance in Harris’s background as a prosecutor. For one thing, he noted, “Together, Trump and Kamala make a fine cinematic pair: the crook and the prosecutor.” For another, Trump’s Ukraine peace plans (“empty noise”) were fatally hampered by his failure to understand that Putin is not a trustworthy negotiating partner:
Kamala at least understands that talking peace to Putin is fundamentally impossible, just as it’s impossible to talk [Russian serial killer Andrei] Chikatilo or John Wayne Gacy out of butchering and raping. Well, Harris has a prosecutor’s experience, she’s had a chance to study guys like Putin. By the way, she was one of the first to bluntly call Putin a criminal. She’s got a well-trained eye.
And we thought her experience mattered only in dealing with guys like Trump!
While Nevzorov’s parallel is morally appropriate, there is no reason to believe that a President Harris would take a firm stance against peace talks in Ukraine—which are now also endorsed by the Zelensky administration. The question is to what extent those talks would be conducted from a position of Ukrainian strength. On a July 23 stream, Ukrainian journalist and popular talk show host Dmitry Gordon made several predictions for the remainder of this year: that there would be a peace agreement, with some compromises but one ultimately acceptable to most Ukrainians; that Zelensky would put it to a referendum; that the “hot” war in Ukraine would end; and that Harris would win the election. Gordon’s credentials? An impressive recent forecasting record: He repeatedly predicted over the last six months that Biden was not going to be the Democratic candidate in November.
And murdered people. Let’s not forget that.