Eventually, everything becomes normal
A lot of autocrats are just hanging on, hoping one day they'll seem like the norm
Happy Friday!
People are still asking me about yachts, and this time I happened to be able to pick up a hard copy of the article.
If you’d like to read the article (it’s in French), you can find it here.
Class 8 of my Foreign Influence Operations course is up. If you listen to the audio, you get a special treat. Also, you should definitely check it out just to see the bear I created on AI.
ALEX’S WEEKLY RANT
Eventually, anything can seem normal. The longer we remain in certain conditions, the more those conditions set the standard for what we can expect.
Autocrats seem to be hoping they can hang on long enough for us to accept them as the norm.
The world made steps in that direction this week.
First up, the Arab League voted to allow Syria and its dictator, Bashar al-Assad, back into the organization. Assad had been frozen out for more than a decade, after he decided he would not go the way of most other North African and Middle East dictators who found themselves tossed from their perch during the Arab Spring. For a trained ophthalmologist, he had a hard time seeing what was right in front of him: a population that doesn’t like him.
Instead, he cracked down on pro-democracy protesters, setting off a civil war that has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and the displacement of half the Syrian population.
And now, despite opening the jails to free jihadists, using chemical weapons on his own people, and the fact that he looks like the muppet Beaker, he has been welcomed back into the Arab League.
Lessons Learned and Not Learned
The lesson to autocrats seems to be: if you hold on long enough, we’ll start to see you and the terrible situation you created as normal. And other autocrats are taking it to heart (to their cold, cold heart).
Vladimir Putin has already seen dividends on his allowance of only the most choreographed democracy in Russia. Remember when he won his most recent “free and transparent” election by 77 percent? In the meantime, he’s been tossing people in jail for holding up signs that say, “Peace,” taking a 13-year-old girl away from her father after she drew a sketch that said “No to War,” and absconding from eastern Ukraine with children to be indoctrinated in Russia. (That’s only a partial list, by the way.)
Yet, there is a chorus of voices calling for negotiations with him. Maybe if we just give him eastern Ukraine and Crimea he’ll be happy. They seem not to understand that Vlad will fight to the last Russian (well, the next to last Russian, because he won’t sacrifice himself), in hopes the current situation in Ukraine eventually seems normal.
Then there is Donald Trump, our homegrown autocrat. The man helped incite an insurrection, tried to overturn a legal election, and currently is facing several criminal investigations (I lost count, but we’ve got: 34 felony counts in the Stormy Daniels case; the Special Counsel investigating attempts to overturn the election, attempts to incite an insurrection, and the retainment of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago; the Georgia investigation into Trump pressuring election officials to “find” votes; a civil inquiry in New York about Trump inflating or deflating asset values for tax and loan purposes; and the case in which he was just found liable for sexual assault and defamation. Forgive me if I missed something, I only have so many fingers to count on).
Tell me what other candidate for president we’d accept this from? And yet…
The New Normal
CNN had Trump at its Town Hall this week. Despite assuring critics they’d be able to fact-check Trump in real time, he proved (once again) that none of that matters. He doesn’t care if you say he’s lying. That’s where his power lies. He lies, everyone knows he lies, and they still show up to watch him. Truth doesn’t matter. What matters is what he says is the truth. He gets to create the truth. He creates the new normal that eventually we will all come to accept.
Hoping for checks and balances?
The media haven’t learned how to cover him. They think they are supposed to cover “both sides,” meaning two political sides. But, in fact, a free press was created to check authority in order to protect democracy. The media seem to have forgotten that (or don’t care, because ratings). I already ranted about this a few weeks ago, when 60 Minutes gave fluffy coverage to Marjorie Taylor Greene.
We haven’t (fully) lost the judiciary (yet), but if Trump wins the GOP nomination, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Turtle) has made it clear he will support him. We’ll be past the tipping point if he is reelected.
It’s not likely any of the criminal cases will proceed fast enough that Trump might end up in prison. But I suppose President Trump running the country from Club Fed would eventually seem normal, too. The press pool would gather outside his cell and ask about his infrastructure plan (again). It would be a great opportunity for Kim Kardashian to discuss prison reform. 60 Minutes’ Leslie Stahl would stroll around the prison grounds with him, discussing how nice the facilities are. Trump’s secret service detail would be on cots in the cell next to him. The White House chef would work out of the prison kitchen (I’m just kidding, of course; KFC will be allowed to deliver to the prison).
And why not? If we never hold those in power accountable, their actions eventually seem normal.
THE WEEK’S LINKS
A roundup of stories you should be reading
(Note: I reserve the right to rant in depth about any of these at a future date)
RUSSIA
Luxury Imports to Russia Take a Detour Around Sanctions — Through Dubai (NY Times)
AMERICA LOSING HER MIND
Texas Bill Would Train Children in Trauma Wound Care (Parents)
7 countries with travel bans against the US (Miami Herald)
YOUR FEEL-GOOD STORY OF THE WEEK
First Payment of Russian Oligarch Cash for Ukraine’s Rebuild (Kyiv Post)
Alex Finley is a former officer of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, where she served in West Africa and Europe. She writes and teaches about terrorism, disinformation / covert influence, and oligarch yachts. Her writing has appeared in Slate, Reductress, Funny or Die, POLITICO, The Center for Public Integrity, and other publications. She has spoken to the BBC, MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, France24, and numerous other media outlets. She was also invited once to speak at Harvard, which she now tells everyone within the first ten seconds of meeting them. She is the author of the Victor Caro series, satirical novels about the CIA. Before joining the CIA, Alex was a journalist, covering Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and the Department of Energy. She reported on issues related to national security, intelligence, and homeland security. Did she mention she was invited to speak at Harvard?
You’ve earned an unfollow. If I want warmed over conventional wisdom in easily digestible pablum, I know I can find it here. I’m off to spend my time with writers who look a little deeper than orange man bad. I’m no bitter clinger to guns and religion, but I identify with those people much more than members of the commentariat who have absolutely no clue about ordinary people and care even less. What’s worse among the smart people class is the complete lack of any kind of clue about what is really going on in the halls of power here or anywhere else. Assad bad! That’s what passes for insight these days? Meanwhile we’re there on their soil taking the oil and justifying it with some feel good neocolonial claptrap about how good we are. Bleach. Well, at least you won’t have to hear my comments again. Waste of time.