To Putin’s Surprise, an Opponent is Rising
Plus: Negative Polarization Is a Heckuva Drug
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CATHY YOUNG: To Putin’s Surprise, an Opponent is Rising.
THE RUSSIAN “PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION” scheduled for mid-March was supposed to be, like the last two votes in 2012 and 2018, a stage-managed event with no surprises: an empty national ritual in which the Russian people affirm their submission to the tsar, while a few well-vetted “rival candidates” (the Communist, the nationalist, the tame liberal) appear on the ballot in a quaint concession to the appearance of democracy. Certainly, no one expected this scenario to be disrupted in wartime, with the last remnants of freedom and civil society in Russia being snuffed out.
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SONNY BUNCH: Negative Polarization Is a Heckuva Drug
Writing in The Atlantic, David Brooks this week highlighted the pervasive pessimism that is coming to define so much of modern discourse. After shifting from a variety of communalism (where people defined themselves by their professions as much as anything else), to a variety of individualism (where everyone pursued their own personal and professional ends, each of us the CEO of “Me, Inc.”), we are sliding back toward a variety of communalism.
But this new communalism is marked by a distinct sense of negativity, of pessimism, of the idea that the game is rigged and everything is terrible. From Donald Trump’s “American Carnage” inaugural (some “weird shit,” as one wise man noted) on the right to the unfounded belief that racism and sexism is worse than ever on the left, there’s a real belief that things are apocalyptically bad.
🚨OVERTIME🚨
Happy Friday! A sad day, as Carl Weathers ventures into the great beyond. RIP.
🎵On the Jukebox…🎵 OPPENHEIMER: Ludwig Goransson's Music Live In Concert.
RFK Jr. Details… How His TikTok Account Commented on Vid of OnlyFans Model (Daily Beast.)
Uncancel Woodrow Wilson… David Frum, writing in The Atlantic: “Despised as a racist by today’s left and a tyrant by today’s right, the 28th president championed a set of values that our politics sorely lack.”
John Oliver Fears For Humanity… While Eating Spicy Wings.
Ohio GOP Senate candidate endorsed by Trump… deleted tweets critical of the former president (CNN.)
Meanwhile, in the Natural State… It was discovered that the parole board chairman in Arkansas was fired from a police department for lying about sexual relations with minor.
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