I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to become a paid subscriber, you can sign up here.
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This is an unspeakable tragedy.
Aleksei A. Navalny, an anticorruption activist who for more than a decade led the political opposition in President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia, died Friday in a prison inside the Arctic Circle, according to the Russian authorities.
His death was announced by Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service, which said that Mr. Navalny, 47, lost consciousness on Friday after taking a walk in the prison where he was moved late last year. He was last seen on Thursday, when he had appeared in a court hearing via video link, smiling behind the bars of a cell and making jokes.
Let’s be clear: Vladimir Putin murdered Aleksei Navalny. This was an assassination of a man who demonstrated otherwordly courage and personal sacrifice in standing up to Putin and his evil regime. Navalny’s heroism is the stuff of legend. He was poisoned with a nerve agent in 2020 by Russian security services, and yet he still returned to the country a year later — knowing full well that he was likely to go to prison. Of course, that’s precisely what happened. In recent months, he was sent to an “Arctic penal colony officially known as IK-3 Polar Wolf, located in one of the most remote towns of Russia and known for its harsh conditions.”
Every word of praise written about him in the next few days will be more than deserved.
This statement from his wife, Yulia Navalny, is incredibly brave. I can’t imagine how she held it together.
From a political standpoint, Navalny’s death will make Russia and Putin’s pariah state status that much worse — though I’m not sure that much more can be done to increase the country’s current isolation. For the already marginalized opposition movement in Russia, this is a gut punch from which it will be difficult to recover.
In the United States, this tragedy will significantly increase the pressure on House Republicans — and, in particular, Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson — to allow a vote on military assistance for Ukraine. In the wake of Navalny’s death, it simply can’t be a comfortable position for House Republicans to maintain their opposition to helping Kyiv, and one might expect a few pro-Ukrainian House Republicans will lead the call for a vote to happen. That doesn’t mean the pressure will work, but from a political standpoint, Republicans are even more on an island on this issue than they were before.
Navalny’s death will also increase the criticism of Donald Trump for his recent statements that he wouldn’t help NATO countries defend themselves from a potential Russian attack. Of course, Trump deserves every one of those attacks. His willingness to look the other way at Putin’s evil acts and throw America’s NATO allies under the bus is yet one more example of his unfitness for the presidency, but also his obvious sociopathy.
Why Do Republicans Do It?
Great question from a reader …
I continue to be puzzled (and grateful) that the Republicans continue to sabotage their own election prospects. They kill the immigration bill that gave them everything they asked for and then impeach Mayorkas. They keep talking up their support for restricting abortion. They keep denying the 2020 presidential election results. They continue to support Trump. They continue to produce a circus in the House. They continue to deny that climate change and mass shootings are problems and continue to kill legislation that addresses those problems. I think a party of Liz Cheneys, John Kasichs, James Lankfords, Lisa Murkowskis, and so on, would win big in 2024. Obviously that party doesn't exist. I guess my question is why.
"A party of Liz Cheneys, John Kasichs, James Lankfords, Lisa Murkowskis, and so on” would not survive a GOP primary in red states or red congressional districts. That’s not mere conjecture. Liz Cheney lost a GOP primary last year by nearly 40 points. Lisa Murkowski ran as an independent in Alaska because she lost an intra-party primary in 2010. Adopting sane policy positions and distancing oneself from Trump is a surefire way for Republicans to lose their job. What this means is that Republicans in safe districts and red states will continue to win elections — and because of the constant threat of a primary challenge — have every incentive to embrace ever more extreme positions.
In blue states and swing states, Republican candidates will have ever-decreasing chances of winning because the stain of the national party tarnishes them — and they are under the same political pressure to adopt far-right policy stances. In fact, the losing GOP candidate, Mazi Philip, in the Third District race was publicly denounced by Trump for trying to distance herself from MAGA world! What message does this send to other Republicans thinking of seeking elected office in swing districts? These candidates are in an impossible position — balancing the need to appease Trump and win over swing voters, independents, and Democrats who can’t stand the former president. I can’t imagine Trump’s comments will help Republicans recruit top-tier House candidates for these races.
Republican elected officials have minimized their chances of winning in swing states and prevailing in national elections in order to hold their seats in ruby-red political environments.
Along these lines, Tennessee Rep. Mark Green, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, announced he is not running for reelection this week. He is the fifth GOP committee chairman to announce his retirement this year. That is not normal.
What this tells me is that a) a lot of Republicans don’t expect to be in the majority next year, and b) being a Republican House member these days is awful. You can’t pass legislation; your caucus is deeply dysfunctional, and the inmates are in charge. Indeed, in his retirement statement, Green said, “Our country — and our Congress — is broken beyond most means of repair.” That is quite an indictment of his own Republican Party, which runs the House.
To keep winning reelection, GOP House members have little choice but to get in line with Trump — or risk facing a primary challenge — and I imagine that for non-MAGA Republicans, the juice simply isn’t worth the squeeze, and they’d rather do something else. The long-term impact of these members leaving is that, more likely than not, far more extreme, pro-MAGA Republicans will replace them.
That means the descent of the GOP into the right-wing fever swamp will only get worse.
What’s Going On
Joe Manchin announced today that he won’t be running for president, which is about as surprising as me announcing that I won’t be running for president. Manchin, as always, was looking for attention.
US officials are saying that Russia has suffered 315,000 casualties in the Ukraine war. Moscow has also spent $211 billion, and the war “has cost Russia’s economy $1.3 trillion in anticipated economic growth through 2026.” These are extraordinary losses — and they highlight how grievous a price Russia continues to pay for Putin’s decision to invade his neighbor.
The informant who had accused Joe Biden of helping his son Hunter’s business dealings with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma was arrested this week for lying to the FBI. I’m shocked, shocked.
Donald Trump had a rough day in court.
Musical Interlude
This comment is sad and shows how far we've skewed to the right: "I think a party of Liz Cheneys, John Kasichs, James Lankfords, Lisa Murkowskis, and so on, would win big in 2024."
I'm from Ohio and vividly remember what Taxin' John "Not a Moderate" Kasich (as I always called him) did to our state. We lagged the country in economic and job growth for his entire term in the wake of the 2008 collapse. Our education rating went from #5 to something like #23, as he shuffled resources to his for-profit charter school buddies. Child poverty exploded. The tax burden was rapidly shifted from the rich to working people. And he was a "pro-life" extremist who passed more anti-choice laws than any governor in the U.S. while Ohio closed more clinics than any state except Texas.
Given the insanity of Trump, it seems no one remembers that cost of what we now see as "sensible" Republicans, those who simply opposed good policies that made a stronger country for ordinary working people as opposed to doing whatever Trump wants, no matter how contradictory to their alleged "beliefs." I'm sometimes surprised when I go back and look at the stuff I saved and wrote back in the 2000s, and recall how much we despised Bush-era GOP policies — a war based on a lie, infecting the public square with evangelical religion, putting roadblocks in the way of reproductive care, and on and on. All of that seems to have washed away in the GOP wave of destructive anti-American fervor based on blind loyalty to the self-serving, self-centered, law-breaking Trump.
We need to keep reminding ourselves that even if people like Kasich weren't caught up in worshipping someone as awful as Trump, they were not good for most Americans. If a party such as the one described "won big in 2024" our country would still be on a rapid backwards trajectory, even if it saved us from fascism and destruction of democratic norms.