The Bulwark is home to Sarah Longwell, Tim Miller, Bill Kristol, JVL, Sam Stein, and more. We are the largest pro-democracy bundle on Substack for news and analysis on politics and cultureāsupported by a community built on good-faith.
A woman burst onto the set of Russian state TVās flagship evening news program Monday, chanting āstop the warā and denouncing government āpropagandaā ā a striking moment of public protest as the Kremlin cracks down on any criticism of its invasion in Ukraine.
The sign she is holding reads:
āStop the war
Donāt believe propaganda
Theyāre lying to youā
Before her dramatic appearance, Ovsyannikova recorded a video message:
A day after she burst onto a live news broadcast on Russian state television holding a sign denouncing the war in Ukraine, lawyers with human rights groups told The Washington Post they are unable to locate producer Marina Ovsyannikova, more than 12 hours after she was detained.
The leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia traveled to Kyiv on Tuesday to express solidarity toward Ukraine and present āa broad package of supportā from the European Union, in a visit that was kept secret until the last minute as fighting rages around the Ukrainian capital.
A Refresher on Trump/Ukraine
The House Impeachment 1.0 Report is a useful reminder of just how worried Ukraine was that Trumpās actions would embolden Russia. (Hat tip Asha Rangappa)
On August 28, Politico published a story revealing President Trumpās weeks-long hold on U.S. military assistance to Ukraine. Senior Ukrainian officials expressed grave concern, deeply worried about the practical impact on their efforts to fight Russian aggression, but also about the public message it sent to the Russian government, which would almost certainly seek to exploit any real or perceived crack in U.S. resolve toward Ukraine.
On August 29, at the urging of National Security Advisor Bolton, Ambassador Taylor wrote a first-person cable to Secretary Pompeo. This was the only first-person cable the Ambassador had ever sent in his decades of government service. He explained the āfollyā of withholding security assistance to Ukraine as it fought a hot war against Russia on its borders. He wrote that he ācould not and would not defend such a policy.ā Ambassador Taylor stated that Secretary Pompeo may have carried the cable with him to a meeting at the White House.
The same day that Ambassador Taylor sent his cable, President Trump cancelled his planned trip to Warsaw for a World War II commemoration event, where he was scheduled to meet with President Zelensky. Vice President Pence traveled in his place. Ambassador Sondland also traveled to Warsaw and, at a pre-briefing discussion with the Vice President before he met President Zelensky, Ambassador Sondland raised the issue of the hold on security assistance. He told Vice President Pence that he was concerned that the security assistance āhad become tied to the issue of investigationsā and that āeverything is being held up until these statements get made.ā Vice President Pence nodded in response, apparently expressing neither surprise nor dismay at the linkage between the two.
At the meeting, President Zelensky expressed concern that even an appearance of wavering support from the United States for Ukraine could embolden Russiaā¦.
First off, Russia has always claimed its adversaries were the ones using biological weapons when they were about to use them. But they didnāt use it to justify the Ukraine invasion until last week. Putin gave an ambling speech before the invasion. Never mentioned biolabs.
"Biolabs" weren't a talking point until Russia's first line of propagandaāabout Zelensky being a ānaziāāfailed spectacularly. Here's a striking chart from the data company Pyrra, tracking ābiolabsā on 15 influential far-right social networks. That jump? The day of the invasion.
So what made the ābiolabsā conspiracy theory take off on the day of the invasion? It was a Twitter thread from a now-banned account called @WarClandestine. The account was previously a QAnon account that had been evading bans with new names.
WarClandestineās "biolabs" thread spread like wildfire across the right on Rumble and the QAnon forum TheGreatAwakening. It got a massive push by TheDonald, now called PatriotsDotWin. You might remember TheDonald because its users posted literal battle plans before January 6th.
But letās dive deeper into where @WarClandestine got his insider info about the Ukrainian biolabs. Where did he get that map of Ukrainian biolabs for his viral tweet? From an antivaxx Gab user eight days prior. It had 3 comments. It just wasn't part of the talking points yet.
Once @WarClandestineās post took off among right-wing influencers, it was everywhere on the English-language far-right. Pro-Trump and Q forums had been uneasy rooting against Putin. The ābiolabsā allowed them to refocus on their major enemies: the Bidens and Anthony Fauci.
By Tuesday, Chinaās foreign affairs ministry started pushing the conspiracy theory, de facto aligning with Russia. On Wednesday, Tucker Carlson led his show claiming the āBiden administration was funding secret biolabs in Ukraine.ā
After failing for two full weeks, Russian propaganda finally had its line that resonated with the global far-right: The reason they invaded is now the biolabs, despite not mentioning that before invading.
Hereās a jarring chart from Zignal Labs. The ābioweaponsā were an English-language (green) conspiracy theory until last week. Now, most posts about it are in Russian (blue). Russia finally found a pretextāwell, posttextāfor the Ukraine war, a gift from the American far-right.
Romneyās Warning
Via CBS:āIn private speech, Romney warns of "extraordinary challenge" to preserve American democracy.ā
At Monday night's event, which raised over $526,000 for Cheney, Romney framed the survival of American democracy as a battle on two fronts, with the possibility of significant erosion unless leaders are vigilant.
Abroad, he said, it faces threats from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is following an authoritarian playbook "rehearsed time and time again, over the many thousands of years of world history."
At home, Romney said, "what has kept us from falling in with the same kind of authoritarian leader as Vladimir Putin are the strengths of our institutions, the rule of law, our courts, Congress, and so forth."
"People of character and courage," Romney said, "have stood up for right at times when others want to look away. Such a person is Liz Cheney."
The former presidentās foray into the Palmetto State again demonstrates that he aims to build a party of sycophants parroting whatever line comes down from Mar-a-Lago. His speech was, as always, focused on himself. In his telling, he won the 2020 election and his personality is what kept the United States out of war. His beefs with the supposedly renegade Reps. Nancy Mace and Tom Rice have nothing to do with policy. He opposes them because Mace strongly criticized him over the Jan. 6 riot he instigated and Rice voted for Trumpās impeachmentā¦.
But Rice and Mace are standing their ground and firing back ā and they have a real shot to win.
Trump is taking a massive gamble this cycle by spreading his political capital far and wide. Heāll have his share of wins, but failing to knock off high-profile targets such as Mace or Rice would do significant damage to his standing. Russiaās stalled military campaign in Ukraine shows that if you try to seize all your objectives at once, you risk not getting any of them. Trumpās reckless, spite-filled intraparty campaign might just suffer the same fate.
[The] WSJ poll breaks down which party voters think would best handle a variety of important issues. On almost all of themāsave health care, Covid, and prescription drug costsāRepublicans are favored over Democrats often by double-digit margins: +8 on having a better economic plan to make life easier; +8 on keeping children in school; +13 on rebuilding the economy; +15 on holding the line on taxes; +17 on getting inflation under control; +20 on reducing crime; and +26 on securing the border.
Democrats cannot expect to hold Congress, or even keep their losses reasonable, if Republicans are viewed as better on nearly every issue of concern to voters. Biden is doing relatively well in votersā minds on the war in Ukraine, even as Republicans maintain an edge on which party is best able to handle the situation in Ukraine and foreign policy generally. But other domestic issues centered on the economy and inflation are more immediate concerns for voters.
If the President and Democrats in Congress canāt put aside other legislative desires to rebuild trust on the national economy and household costsāand connect the state of the economy to wider geopolitical conflict in a credible mannerāvoters will likely turn to a Republican Party that is not wildly popular by any means.
3. Putin Killed Trumpās āAmerica Firstā Movement
Got two issues for on this one, Charlie. First, Matt Lewis, while a smart guy, is not someone who has any sense in terms of what anyone wants. He's perpetually wrong, not because he's not smart, but because what he wants always guides what he sees. 'America First' isn't dead, not by a long shot. What it's going to pivot to, mark my words, is that the rest of the world perpetually draws in the US to fight their battles and their wars. They might not talk up Putin as much, but as lockdowns in China increase inflation, expect them to increasingly describe the world as an anchor around America's neck. America First isn't dead, because America First is just a name we give a general sensibility about things; it's neither a coherent political movement nor a coherent ideology.
The second one is bigger. What exactly do you want Democrats to do? I ask this, because you say that democrats need to put aside their pet projects. You know what "put aside other legislative desires to rebuild trust on the national economy and household costs" looks like? It looks like passing something like Build Back Better, something you opposed! In fact, you spend the majority of it cheerleading Sinema and Manchin, who torpedoed the entire thing.
I've said this before, but there's really only two sides now, the Trumpist GOP and the Democratic Party. Because if you want the former to fail, you have to want the latter to succeed, since the latter failing results in the former succeeding. I know this is hard for a lot of conservatives, but that's the state of play we're currently in. There's no outcome where the Democrats fail and the old GOP returns. We know this, because despite Romney and Cheney crowing about how much they hated Trump, they voted and supported all his initiatives. In other words, they were more than happy to let him succeed.
The core challenge for the Democratic party is that voters don't seem to have any clear idea about what they want or what causes what. They seem to trust the GOP on the economy, despite the past two presidents of the GOP left their terms with the country in a downward spiral. Bush gave us the Great Recession, and Trump gave us the covid recession, because he refused to take it seriously. Obama and Biden, whatever their personal quirks you dislike, ended their presidencies with great economies.
But for some reason, people think that we're in a recession when the economy is great right now. If you want a job, there are more jobs than workers. Inflation is growing, but this is because of Covid, and it's going to be the new normal. The only way to actually handle this problem is either to raise the minimum wage to like $15 an hour, something which would obviously have lots of down stream effects, or you have to ride it out until demand decreases. But there's no way to actually combat these problems without either letting the economy implode or asking for more direct action in the market by government.
Which, if you're a conservative, you're going to have to ask if you're okay with that. Which brings me back around again to asking: do you actually want democrats to succeed? Because their success is directly linked to Trumpism failing. If you don't want them to succeed, then you want the GOP to succeed, because those are the only two options. And if you want the democrats to succeed, you need to stop cheerleading people like Manchin and Sinema, two people who have done more to torpedo the democratic agenda, which would do things like stabilize the economy, than anyone else.
I'm not calling you out for being a conservative, Charlie. I'm calling you out for being incoherent. You can't be like 'Democrats have a problem! they need to succeed!' and then turn around and argue against everything they try to do, because they don't match the GOP's desires. If you truly believe, as I do, that the only way to stop Trumpism is for Democrats to succeed so that Trumpism fails, then you have to actually want them to succeed. You can't both want Trumpism to fail and for Democrats to fail, because that's not an option. That leaves you with Trumpism succeeding.
This biolabs conspiracy is a textbook encapsulation of the rot in the rightwing media ecosystem today. A loony theory pops up on the fringes of the rightwing dark web, it gradually propagates itself to the daylight as more mainstream rightwing outlets latch on to it, and throughout its improbable journey no one along the line attempts to fact check, vet, or debunk it, everyone just rolls with it because it speaks to something that, deep down, they just know has to be true. It's how so much daft rubbish ends up on Tucker Carlson; there are no guardrails in rightwing media. It's all a rotten, stupid propaganda factory meant to stoke those who are predisposed to believe the worst about those with whom they disagree.
Got two issues for on this one, Charlie. First, Matt Lewis, while a smart guy, is not someone who has any sense in terms of what anyone wants. He's perpetually wrong, not because he's not smart, but because what he wants always guides what he sees. 'America First' isn't dead, not by a long shot. What it's going to pivot to, mark my words, is that the rest of the world perpetually draws in the US to fight their battles and their wars. They might not talk up Putin as much, but as lockdowns in China increase inflation, expect them to increasingly describe the world as an anchor around America's neck. America First isn't dead, because America First is just a name we give a general sensibility about things; it's neither a coherent political movement nor a coherent ideology.
The second one is bigger. What exactly do you want Democrats to do? I ask this, because you say that democrats need to put aside their pet projects. You know what "put aside other legislative desires to rebuild trust on the national economy and household costs" looks like? It looks like passing something like Build Back Better, something you opposed! In fact, you spend the majority of it cheerleading Sinema and Manchin, who torpedoed the entire thing.
I've said this before, but there's really only two sides now, the Trumpist GOP and the Democratic Party. Because if you want the former to fail, you have to want the latter to succeed, since the latter failing results in the former succeeding. I know this is hard for a lot of conservatives, but that's the state of play we're currently in. There's no outcome where the Democrats fail and the old GOP returns. We know this, because despite Romney and Cheney crowing about how much they hated Trump, they voted and supported all his initiatives. In other words, they were more than happy to let him succeed.
The core challenge for the Democratic party is that voters don't seem to have any clear idea about what they want or what causes what. They seem to trust the GOP on the economy, despite the past two presidents of the GOP left their terms with the country in a downward spiral. Bush gave us the Great Recession, and Trump gave us the covid recession, because he refused to take it seriously. Obama and Biden, whatever their personal quirks you dislike, ended their presidencies with great economies.
But for some reason, people think that we're in a recession when the economy is great right now. If you want a job, there are more jobs than workers. Inflation is growing, but this is because of Covid, and it's going to be the new normal. The only way to actually handle this problem is either to raise the minimum wage to like $15 an hour, something which would obviously have lots of down stream effects, or you have to ride it out until demand decreases. But there's no way to actually combat these problems without either letting the economy implode or asking for more direct action in the market by government.
Which, if you're a conservative, you're going to have to ask if you're okay with that. Which brings me back around again to asking: do you actually want democrats to succeed? Because their success is directly linked to Trumpism failing. If you don't want them to succeed, then you want the GOP to succeed, because those are the only two options. And if you want the democrats to succeed, you need to stop cheerleading people like Manchin and Sinema, two people who have done more to torpedo the democratic agenda, which would do things like stabilize the economy, than anyone else.
I'm not calling you out for being a conservative, Charlie. I'm calling you out for being incoherent. You can't be like 'Democrats have a problem! they need to succeed!' and then turn around and argue against everything they try to do, because they don't match the GOP's desires. If you truly believe, as I do, that the only way to stop Trumpism is for Democrats to succeed so that Trumpism fails, then you have to actually want them to succeed. You can't both want Trumpism to fail and for Democrats to fail, because that's not an option. That leaves you with Trumpism succeeding.
This biolabs conspiracy is a textbook encapsulation of the rot in the rightwing media ecosystem today. A loony theory pops up on the fringes of the rightwing dark web, it gradually propagates itself to the daylight as more mainstream rightwing outlets latch on to it, and throughout its improbable journey no one along the line attempts to fact check, vet, or debunk it, everyone just rolls with it because it speaks to something that, deep down, they just know has to be true. It's how so much daft rubbish ends up on Tucker Carlson; there are no guardrails in rightwing media. It's all a rotten, stupid propaganda factory meant to stoke those who are predisposed to believe the worst about those with whom they disagree.