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Lefties Finally and Belatedly Call for an End to School Masking

Lefties Finally and Belatedly Call for an End to School Masking

By John R Guardiano on January 30, 2022

With the scientific evidence clear and irrefutable, the anguished cries of children and their parents finally are breaking through the blue wall of conformity and compliance.

“Progressive” media organs, left-wing journalists, and Democratic Party partisans are belatedly acknowledging that the school masking regime, which has done so much to undermine the education of our children, needs to end.

The reasons: a belated recognition

that children are at very little risk of serious illness if they contract COVID;

that the science behind masking doesn’t exist or is weak at best; and

that masking can inflict real damage on children, especially disadvantaged children with leaning disabilities and cognitive challenges.

We reviewed a variety of studies—some conducted by the CDC itself, some cited by the CDC as evidence of masking effectiveness in a school setting, and others touted by media to the same end—to try to find evidence that would justify the CDC’s no-end-in-sight mask guidance for the very-low-risk pediatric population, particularly post-vaccination.

We came up empty-handed.

Who said that? Some Trump-loving right-winger who is anti-science? No, that was written by Margery Smelkinson, Leslie Bienen, and Jeanne Noble in The Atlantic, an impeccably left-wing media organ.

Smelkinson is an infectious-disease scientist who works at the National Institutes of Health. Leslie Bienen is a veterinarian and faculty member at the Oregon Health & Science University–Portland State University School of Public Health. Jeanne Noble is an emergency-medicine doctor at University of California San Francisco.

“Recent prospective studies from Greece and Italy,” they write,

found evidence that masking is a barrier to speech recognition, hearing, and communication, and that masks impede children’s ability to decode facial expressions, dampening children’s perceived trustworthiness of faces,

Research has also suggested that hearing-impaired children have difficulty discerning individual sounds; opaque masks, of course, prevent lip-reading.

Some teachers, parents, and speech pathologists have reported that masks can make learning difficult for some of America’s most vulnerable children, including those with cognitive delays, speech and hearing issues, and autism.

Masks may also hinder language and speech development—especially important for students who do not speak English at home. Masks may impede emotion recognition, even in adults, but particularly in children.

Forcing students to wear face masks, writes Vinay Prasad, an epidemiologist at the University of California San Francisco, “isn’t a matter of protecting children, their teachers, or their grandparents. It’s delusional and dangerous cultlike behavior.”

Was that published in American Greatness, the house organ of Trumpian conservatism? No, Prasad wrote that in Tablet, “a daily online magazine of Jewish news, ideas, and culture.”

“I think it would be naïve to not acknowledge that there are downsides of masks,” said Elissa Perkins, the director of infectious disease management in the emergency department of the Boston Medical Center.

I know some of that data is harder to come by because those outcomes are not as discrete as Covid or not-Covid.

But from speaking with pediatricians, from speaking with learning specialists, and also from speaking with parents of younger children especially, there are significant issues related to language acquisition, pronunciation, things like that.

And there are very clear social and emotional side effects in the older kids.

“That’s why,” writes far-left New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, “I believe that mandatory school masking should end when coronavirus rates return to pre-Omicron levels.”

Whoa! Knock me over with a feather. Who would thunk it?! Michelle Goldberg and the New York Times now acknowledge that masks may pose a danger to children. Miracles really do happen. Lord have mercy!

Not to be outdone, National Public Radio (NPR) now admits:

Numerous scientific papers have established that it can be harder to hear and understand speech and identify facial expressions and emotions when people are wearing masks…

These are critical developmental tasks, particularly for children in the first three years of life.

The United States is an outlier in recommending masks from the age of 2 years old. The World Health Organization does not recommend masks for children under age 5, while the European equivalent of the CDC doesn’t recommend them for children under age 12.

Manfred Spitzer is a psychiatrist and a cognitive neuroscientist in Germany.

He published a scientific review of evidence on how masking could impact children’s development.

Spitzer says the negatives of masking are particularly clear for very young children. He believes that young children’s caregivers should be unmasked as well.

“Kids need to train up their face recognition,” he says, and they need to see full faces to learn to identify emotions as well as to learn language.

“Babies were never designed just to see the upper half of the face and to infer the lower half; even adults have a hard time doing this.”

…Germany doesn’t require masks for children under age 6.

“When speech no longer happens, when communication is interfered with, I think if that happens for a week, that’s OK,” he explains. “But if that happens for half a year, that’s eternity when it comes to brain development, at a very young age.”

He points out that COVID-19 is usually mild for young children, but it’s a critical period for development.

“If you’ve got compelling medical evidence [for masking students],” that’s one thing,” says Virginia State Senator Chap Peterson, a Democrat who represents bright blue Fairfax County in Northern Virginia.

But the evidence to me is showing the exact opposite… School districts need to define an exit strategy for masking… They need to find a way. We need to find a way… The current policy is not best for kids.

“On Monday,” notes National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar,

the Washington Post published an op-ed from three medical experts calling to end mask mandates in schools. The Atlantic joined in on Tuesday. Today, it’s NPR’s turn and @michelleinbklyn in the New York Times.

The dam is breaking.

The only question is when will Dem political leaders in blue cities/ counties/ states follow suit. In Virginia, because [Republican Governor Glenn] Youngkin stuck his neck out on the issue, they’re going to do it so it doesn’t seem like they’re following the GOP’s lead.

True, it would be nice if lefties and “progressives” admitted that conservatives were right all along to be skeptical about the efficacy of masks and the dangers of masking children.

But as Harry Truman once said, “it is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

Parents and children throughout the United States really don’t care who gets the credit for ending the misguided school masking regime. They just want it to end, and the sooner the better.

Feature photo credit: The Atlantic magazine logo and New York Times’ left-wing columnist Michelle Goldberg, care of The Atlantic Monthly Group and U.C. Berkeley, respectively.

‘Social Distancing’ Will Stop the Coronavirus and Save Lives

‘Social Distancing’ Will Stop the Coronavirus and Save Lives

By John R Guardiano on March 13, 2020

‘Social Distancing’ is said to be the key to combating and containing the coronavirus. What does it mean and why is it important? Well, consider the experience of northern Italy.

“Two weeks ago,” reports Yascha Mounk in The Atlantic,

Italy had 322 confirmed cases of the coronavirus… One week ago, Italy had 2,502 cases of the virus… Today, Italy has 10,149 cases of the coronavirus.

There are now simply too many patients for each one of them to receive adequate care. Doctors and nurses are unable to tend to everybody. They lack machines to ventilate all those gasping for air.

Tragically, because Italian hospitals and medical facilities are overwhelmed, with many more coronavirus-infected patients than they can handle, they must make heart-wrenching decisions about whom to care for and whom to let die. They literally have no other choice.

Social Distancing. “But if Italy is in an impossible position, the obligation facing the United States is very clear,” Mounk writes:

To arrest the crisis before the impossible becomes necessary. This means that our political leaders, the heads of business and private associations, and every one of us need to work together to accomplish two things:

Radically expand the capacity of the country’s intensive-care units. And start engaging in extreme forms of social distancing.

Cancel everything. Now.

This is fast occurring. Maryland, for instance, has closed its public schools and banned public gatherings of 250 or more people because of the coronavirus. Michigan, likewise, is literally shuttering its public schools until April 6.

Moreover, according to CBS Sports:

The National Basketball Association (NBA) has suspended regular season play, indefinitely.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has canceled the 2020 Division 1 men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. No “March Madness,” not this year.
The National Hockey League has put a halt to all of its games.
“Major League Baseball has canceled the remainder of spring training and is pushing back the start of the regular season by at least two weeks.”
“Michigan, Notre Dame and Ohio State have all canceled their spring football games.”

The indefinite suspension of these treasured sporting traditions is, of course, sad and disappointing. But as Mounk points out, “Only one measure has been effective against the coronavirus: extreme social distancing.” So we really have no choice.

Canceling these large indoor gatherings, explain Scott Gottlieb and Caitlin M. Rivers in the Washington Post, “will help mitigate the spread of [the virus], slowing it down and allowing medical facilities to deal with the sickest among us without being overwhelmed.”

To be sure, this will cause significant economic pain and dislocation—look, for instance, at the dramatic collapse in the U.S. stock market—but that is a temporary and short-term phenomenon.

What is most important is averting the calamitous and heart-wrenching tragedy that we see unfolding in northern Italy. And we all have a role to play in that.

Scrupulously avoid large public gatherings, especially those that are indoors or in enclosed environments; try to telework if you can; and remain inside your home—or out in the countryside—away from others to the greatest extent possible.

Most of all: keep your distance. Keep your “social distance.”

Feature photo credit: FlattenTheCurve.com via Jackson Hole News and Guide.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s Public Persona and Historical Reality

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s Public Persona and Historical Reality

By John R Guardiano on January 1, 2023

Like many great public figures, Benedict developed a public persona or image that is wildly at odds with his true humanity and historical significance.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI died yesterday; and, after reading the numerous obituaries, tributes, and denunciations of the man, one thing stands out: There is a stark difference between Benedict’s public persona or image and the real human being known to his students, readers, parishioners, and ecclesiastical colleagues.

The public persona is false and untrue; the human being is authentic and true.

Unfortunately, this discrepancy is not at all unusual. We see it all the time. Leaders in all walks of life often develop a public persona or image that is wildly at odds with who they really are, their essential humanity, and their historical significance.

This discrepancy usually results from political agendas and media biases (typically in a left-wing direction) that badly distort our understanding and misinform the public.

That’s why true historical understanding requires the passage of time. You need perspective, which only time and distance can provide; and you need detachment from the public furies and passions that surround a leader and his historical era.

Journalistic Lies. For this reason, so much of what has been written and said about Pope Benedict is false and misleading.

For example, Benedict has been depicted as a hard-edged reactionary who opposed the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. But in truth, Benedict attended the Council as a theological advisor to Cardinal Frings of Cologne, and contributed to its official documents, especially Dei Verbum, writes Tracey Rowland, Chair of Theology at the University of Notre Dame (Australia).

“One of the greatest misrepresentations of Ratzinger is that he was essentially a reactionary. An hour or so spent perusing his writings is enough to disabuse anyone of that myth,” writes Samuel Gregg, a scholar at the Acton Institute.

“On the contrary,” he explains,

Benedict had no hesitation in acknowledging the achievements of different Enlightenment thinkers. His writings reflect profound appreciation of the nuances of the various Enlightenments.”

Benedict, likewise, has been depicted as “God’s Rottweiler,” a man who reflexively and unthinkingly accepted church dogma, but who was ill at ease with normal, frail and fallible human beings.

But in truth, Benedict was a kind, humble, and pious cleric known for his grace, goodwill, generosity, and humanity.

And far from being dogmatic and unthinking, Benedict instead was one of the most thoughtful and liberal-minded thinkers in church history, an intellectual giant whose work will reverberate decades and centuries from now.

As the author of more than 60 books and magisterial documents, Benedict will be remembered as “one of the six most significant Catholic theologians of the 20th century, along with Karl Rahner, S.J., Yves Congar, O.P., the Rev. Romano Guardini, Henri de Lubac, S.J., and the Rev. Hans Urs von Balthasar,” Rowland writes.

Of course, in recent years, the Catholic Church has been badly sullied by child sexual abuse scandals that have been decades in the making. Critics charge that Benedict was complicit in these scandals by turning a blind eye to them. But as Michael Brendan Dougherty points out:

He was perhaps the sole figure of his era at the top of the church that took on the treacherous responsibility of reform—centralizing the handling of clerical abuse cases in his office and drastically speeding up the process of defrocking criminal priests (a project that has been thrown into reverse by his successor).

Unpopular Truths. Why, then, has Benedict received such a bad press and been depicted in such a negative light?

Simple: because throughout his life, he opposed fashionable changes to longstanding Catholic teachings on faith and morals and, in so doing, incurred the wrath of foes both within and outside the church.

Benedict also, of course, incurred the wrath of the popular and dominant secular media, which was and is hostile to anyone who opposes “progressive,” left-wing “reforms.”

As historian George Weigel observes, Benedict, like Pope John Paul XXIII, saw the Second Vatican Council as a vehicle to renew church teachings in a vastly different and more secular world profoundly shaped by the epic disasters of the 20th Century, World War II and the Nazi Holocaust, most notably.

To the consternation of his foes, however, he did not view the Council as a vehicle to remake the church as it has existed for nearly two millennia.

As Rowland puts it: “There is a hermeneutic of rupture and a hermeneutic of reform, and both St. John Paul II and [Cardinal] Ratzinger/[Pope] Benedict read the [Second Vatican Council] documents with the latter.”

These competing hermeneutics are still at war within the church, and the outcome of this conflict is far from certain. A “state of open theological division” now exists, notes Ross Douthat.

The vision of continuity and stability that Benedict championed is being pulled apart from both sides—from the left by the idea of Vatican II as a continuing revolution, a council whose work will never end—and from the right by a mixture of pessimism and paranoia, a very un-conservative alienation from papal authority whose endpoint is difficult to foresee.

Benedict’s Legacy. Maybe so, but what is not difficult to foresee is that Benedict’s influence on the church and broader culture will be felt for many generations to come, and the true man will be known to posterity even as he is hidden from us, his contemporaries.

“I predict confidently that he will be one of the only figures of his era to be remembered, celebrated, studied, and beloved in the future,” Dougherty writes.

“His full legacy will be felt across decades or even centuries,” adds Douthat. “Joseph Ratzinger the scholar and theologian and writer, Joseph Ratzinger the champion of a certain idea of Catholic Christianity—well, he has only just begun to fight.”

“If in the future Benedict XVI is canonised and declared a Doctor of the Church,” writes Rowland, “he may be remembered as one of the greatest scholars ever to occupy the Chair of Peter, a master of fundamental theology—but, nonetheless, a man who never lost the piety of his Bavarian childhood and a man for whom the responsibilities that went with holding the keys of St. Peter were truly martyriological.”

Feature photo credit: Pope Benedict XVI with President Bush during his historic visit to the White House, Apr. 16, 2008, courtesy of kdminer.com.

The Scalia-Ginsburg Friendship Should Be Our Political Model Today

The Scalia-Ginsburg Friendship Should Be Our Political Model Today

By John R Guardiano on September 20, 2020

The battle over Trump’s next appointment to the Supreme Court should be heated and intense, but civil and respectful. Justices Scalia and Ginsburg would not have wanted it any other way.

The death of Ruth Justice Bader Ginsburg Friday means that there will be, as the Wall Street Journal rightly notes, a “titanic fight over her successor.” This is fitting and appropriate.

The stakes, after all, are very high: The future direction of the Supreme Court, our essential civil liberties, and the rule of law are all at risk.

Indeed, as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) points out, the Second Amendment right to bear arms is being erased from the Constitution because of the high court’s neglect. And religious liberty decisions typically are decided by a 5-4 margin and on narrow technical grounds that fail to reflect the overriding importance of this essential First Amendment right.

Judicial Power-Grab. Moreover, more left-wing “progressive” justices may well mean that the Court will legislate new and costly entitlements into the Constitution—a “right to healthcare,” for instance.

Sounds farfetched? Maybe. But so, too, did a Constitutional right to homosexual marriage—until it became politically fashionable and the object of a concerted legal campaign.

The result was the Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision that redefined marriage to include same-sex unions—an idea genuinely never contemplated by the American Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution.

So yes, there is a lot at stake with this newest Court vacancy: whether we will remain a free and self-governing people, or whether we will be ruled by nine unelected judges who, increasingly, usurp from us our decision-making authority under the Constitution.

Scalia and Ginsburg. That said, we all can and should learn from the example set by Justice Ginsburg and the late great Justice Antonin Scalia. These two legendary jurists were ideological opposites and long-standing judicial sparring partners; yet they enjoyed a deep and abiding friendship.

Justice Ginsburg, of course, was the leader of the Court’s left-wing “progressives”; Justice Scalia the leader of the Court conservatives.

Their judicial opinions frequently clashed, especially on big, high-profile cases involving the Second Amendment, religious liberty, affirmative action, property rights, and state sovereignty. Yet, these two opposing jurists had great affection for one another and were genuinely the best of friends.

Justice Scalia’s son, Christopher, relays this wonderful and telling story from Judge Jeffrey Sutton during a visit Sutton had with Scalia before the justice’s death in 2016:

The Scalia and Ginsburg families regularly socialized. They celebrated every New Year’s Eve together, for instance. And yet: the two justices never allowed the intensity of their judicial disagreements to ruin or obstruct their personal friendship.

How to Fight. “I attack ideas; I don’t attack people,” is how Justice Scalia wisely put it. Good and wonderful people, he observed, can harbor or espouse very bad ideas. That means they are mistaken; it does not mean they are bad or deficient in character or morals.

In other words, politics is one thing; character is another thing; and, if you cannot distinguish between the two, you are allowing your politics to blind you to the decency and humanity of your fellow citizens, both left and right.

This is something all of us would do well to consider as we prepare for what will no doubt be a pitched political battle involving the next and newest justice of the Supreme Court.

High-Stakes Battle. This battle promises to be highly emotional and deeply felt—on both sides. The intensity and passion will be palpable. Everyone knows that there is a lot riding on this appointment. The next justice may well serve on the Court for 40 years or more.

But let us all strive to be fair-minded, judicious, and even-tempered. Let us all realize that, in the United States of America, our domestic political opponents are not our enemies; they are our friends, neighbors, and family members.

Let us all try to emulate the wonderful and worthy example of Justices Scalia and Ginsburg.

Civility. Let us disagree without being disagreeable. Let us vigorously engage the political debate without engaging in the politics of personal destruction. Let us recognize that, despite our profound disagreements, there is far more that unites us than divides us.

And, when the fight is over, let us come together as Americans who share a common political lineage and a worthy political goal: liberty and justice for all in these United States.

Surely, that is what Justices Scalia and Ginsburg would have wanted. And certainly, that is the example they set in their own lives through a deep and abiding friendship that transcended political and ideological differences.

May their example be our reality.

Feature photo credit: The Kalb Report, YouTube.

Joe Biden Is No Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. His Administration Will Be Much More Radical and Much, Much Worse.

Joe Biden Is No Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. His Administration Will Be Much More Radical and Much, Much Worse.

By John R Guardiano on October 31, 2020

America survived Bill Clinton and Barack Obama because the Democratic Party then was center-left. But America likely will not survive Joe Biden because the Democratic Party has become radicalized and is now a “progressive” or socialist party.

Many center-right voters who don’t like Donald Trump’s obnoxious personality and unpresidential behavior are thinking about voting for Joe Biden. Here’s why, and here’s why that would be a serious mistake.

Point. Their thinking goes like this: America survived Bill Clinton; we survived Barack Obama; and we’ll survive Joe Biden. Clinton and Obama were liberal Democrats, after all, and yet, Republicans lived to fight another day.

The republic did not end. Free-market capitalism endured. America remained free and prosperous. Surely, the same thing will happen if Biden is elected president:

Democrats and Republicans will have their policy disagreements, of course; and sometimes one party or the other will win; but we’ll return, at long last, to a state of political normalcy.

Quiet. “The first thing you’ll notice [in a Biden presidency] is the quiet,” writes New York Times columnist David Brooks.

There will be no disgraceful presidential tweets and no furious cable segments reacting to them on Inauguration Day…

It will become immediately clear that in a Biden era politics will shrink back down to normal size. It will be about government programs, not epic wars about why my sort of people are morally superior to your sort of people…

It will also become immediately clear that in a highly ideological age, America will be led by a man who is not ideological.

“I’m sure there are Republicans and independents who couldn’t imagine crossing over to support a Democrat,” said former Ohio Governor John Kasich, Republican, during his Democratic National Convention speech endorsing Biden.

They fear Joe may turn sharp left and leave them behind. I don’t believe that. Because I know the measure of the man—reasonable, faithful, respectful. And you know, no one pushes Joe around.

Counterpoint. Brooks and Kasich are wrong. The idea that a Biden Presidency would be a garden-variety, center-left Democratic administration is badly mistaken and wishful thinking.

To believe this, you have to ignore all of the political and cultural forces that, in the past decade, have been relentlessly driving the Democratic Party further and further to the left:

Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, George Soros;
Black Lives Matter, reparations, defund the police;
the public option, Medicare for all, amnesty, open borders;
end the filibuster, abolish the Electoral College, pack the Supreme Court;
ban fracking, end fossil fuels, enact the Green New Deal;
D.C. statehood, Citizens United, Modern Monetary Theory;
Critical Race Theory, intersectionality, the 1619 project, et al.

In short, the Democratic Party today is far more radical than it was when Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992 and significantly more radical than it was when Barack Obama ran for reelection eight years ago in 2012.

Clinton ran for election as a “New Democrat” from the South, and he eschewed the liberal fundamentalism that had dominated his party for more than a generation.

Obama, meanwhile, campaigned as a non-ideological Democrat who rejected labels while espousing “hope and change.”

More importantly, Clinton and Obama ran in a Democratic Party whose center of gravity was well to the right of where it is now.

Today, by contrast, the intellectual ferment and activist energy lies entirely within the “progressive” or socialist wing of the party.

Biden is not a socialist, but that doesn’t matter: He is a weak and physically frail politician who will accommodate the progressive left because he knows no other way and has no other choice. As the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board explains:

What evidence is there today that Mr. Biden will restrain his increasingly radical party? Across his long career he has been the consummate party man, floating right or left with the political tides.

As a presidential candidate this year he has put no particular policy imprint on the Democratic Party—not one. The party has put its stamp on him.

Little wonder, then, that Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and “The Squad” are among Biden’s most fervent supporters. They know he will do their bidding.

Biden, in fact, has tacked left since winning his party’s nomination. Thus last summer he signed a 110-page “unity” manifesto with Bernie Sanders.

The manifesto “envisions the socialism of an all-encompassing welfare state, with virtually every need a right, and every right guaranteed by taxpayer funding,” writes economist (and former Texas Senator) Phil Gramm.

Sanders “may not sit in the Oval Office next year,” notes the Journal, but Mr. Biden will be implementing Bernie’s dreams.”

If the Republicans controlled Congress, or even one branch of the Congress, they might serve as a useful check on a Biden presidency that is otherwise preordained to swerve sharply left. But the reality is that if Biden captures the White House, the Democrats almost certainly will gain control of the Senate.

Our politics have become too polarized for much split-ticket voting. And the Dems are expected to retain control of the House of Representatives.

Clinton and Obama, by contrast, had to contend with a Republican-controlled Congress for six of the eight years that they each were president.

The bottom line: if Biden wins, his administration will be staffed by hardcore progressives working in tandem with the socialist left, both in and out of Congress, to pursue what the Journal rightly calls the most left-wing policy agenda in decades.

Irreversible Socialist Change. Bad public policies, of course, typically can be changed or reversed legislatively by future presidents and future congresses. But if Biden and the Dems take over, that may not be an option.

That is because the progressive left is hellbent on instituting structural “reforms” that will make it impossible for a future Republican president or congress to reverse their radical policy agenda.

D.C. statehood, for instance, would add two very liberal senators to the Senate, thereby giving Democrats an all-but-guaranteed lock on that legislative body for at least a generation.

Ending the filibuster would mean that, unlike in our nation’s past, major reform legislation no longer would require bipartisan support and cooperation.

Instead, the Dems could steamroll the Republicans while enacting new and costly tax-and-spend redistribution schemes, including reparations.

Packing the Supreme Court with “progressive” justices who legislate from the bench would allow Democrats to create new and permanent “rights” for favored classes and reciprocal political and financial obligations for less favored and ostensibly “privileged” Americans.

Repealing Citizens United would pave the way for the worst legislative and regulatory assault on free speech in American history.

Unprecedented. That is why this election is not like past elections; and it is why electing Biden as president would yield a very different result than what happened when Clinton and Obama were elected. This time, to a real and worrisome extent, America itself is at risk.

Indeed, when the Democrats are done, there likely will be no going back: A dynamic, diverse and freewheeling commercial republic will be replaced by a sclerotic and slow-growing statist democracy with fewer jobs, less opportunity, and more bureaucratic constraints.

Basic Constitutional liberties, such as freedom of speech, religious worship, and the right to bear arms will be under sustained assault. And our national memory and understanding of our political inheritance will wither away as the activists who have toppled statues now implement bureaucratic decrees that erase our nation’s history.

A Defeated Nation. Sure, all of this may happen quietly, as Brooks and others hope or expect. There will be no juvenile, cringe-inducing tweets from a President Biden, as there are too often from President Trump.

But the quietude will reflect the dull and subdued resignation of a tired and aging nation burdened with an entitlement state that it cannot long support and lacking the economic dynamism and cultural wherewithal needed to sustain and support its people.

Moreover, far from making politics a less invasive force in our lives, as Brooks hopes, a Biden presidency instead will extend the reach and influence of Washington, D.C. That, after all, is what the Democrats’ progressive base demands: a more assertive, domineering, and activist federal government.

This will be the “new normal” ushered in by the “progressive” or socialist Democrats who will dominate a Biden presidency. Be careful whom you vote for, we just might get it.

Feature Photo Credit: Political twins Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders (Elise Amendola, Associated Press, courtesy of Citizens Times).

The Truth About Voter Fraud in the 2020 Election

The Truth About Voter Fraud in the 2020 Election

By John R Guardiano on November 11, 2020

The media are wrong: Republicans have good reason to be concerned about voter fraud. Electoral shenanigans, however, do not explain Biden’s lead over Trump.

“Progressives” and other lefties are feigning dismay at the fact that, as Politico reports, “70 percent of Republicans don’t think the [2020] election was free and fair.”

“Republicans have declared war on democracy itself,” exclaims Washington Post columnist Paul Waldman.

“Because the facts are not on Trump’s side, his campaign only has conspiracies and disinformation to make their argument,” insists CNN’s Oliver Darcy.

“This is what happens when lies and baseless allegations go unchecked,” writes communications consultant Brian Wagner.

Hypocrisy. This is rich coming from the same media and political partisans who, four short years ago, were eagerly sowing doubt about the legitimacy of Trump’s election. The president-elect then, we were told, won because of “Russian interference.”

American voters, we were told, were duped by the Russians; and Trump himself, it was not-so-subtly implied, was perhaps a Russian agent or willing accomplice.

It was only much later that we learned the much-vaunted “Steele Dossier,” upon which most of these allegations were based, was, in fact, a complete hoax “paid for by the Democrats to dig up dirt on Trump.”

As Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put it:

Let’s not have any lectures about how the president should immediately and cheerfully accept preliminary election results from the same characters who just spent four years refusing to accept the validity of the last election.

Truth. Of course, consistency and fairness have never been the hallmarks of our political and media class. The operative question is: are Republican voters wrong to suspect that foul play and voter fraud affected the outcome of the election?

The truth is: yes and no. Multiple things can be true—and in this case are true—simultaneously:

There is voter fraud: it is a real, if overstated, problem.

“Voter fraud exists—even though many in the media claim it doesn’t,” wrote John Fund and Hans A. von Spakovsky two years ago before the 2018 mid-term elections.

“Significant risks of potential abuse exist in many states’ election systems, as I detailed in a report in August,” wrote Cato Institute scholar Ilya Shapiro just days before Nov. 3, 2020, election.

A primary risk is ballot harvesting, which involves third parties collecting and delivering absentee ballots on voters’ behalf.

Newsweek reports: Ronna McDaniel, the Chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, told Fox News commentator Sean Hannity “that she has 234 pages containing 500 sworn affidavits alleging 11,000 incidents of various types of voter fraud.”

“Contrary to the claims of many liberals,” explains the Heritage Foundation, “the problem of voter fraud is as old as the country itself.

As the U.S. Supreme Court noted when it upheld Indiana’s voter identification law, “flagrant examples” of voter fraud “have been documented throughout this nation’s history by respected historians and journalists.”

Historically, Democratic political machines in big cities and large urban areas such as Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York have been cesspools of electoral corruption. This is a political and historical fact that Republicans have learned the hard way.

Indeed, as Jim Antle recounts in The Week:

Republican lore is full of stories about dead people voting and big Democratic political machines stealing elections since the days of Tammany Hall.

Fifty years before today’s fights over Pennsylvania, Michigan and beyond, [and] 40 years before Florida’s hanging chads, Richard Nixon was narrowly defeated by John F. Kennedy—thanks, many to this day maintain, to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and the Cook County Democrats’ malfeasance…

Republicans have at the rank-and-file level become the party of voter ID because to them it is axiomatic that if you let an election get too close, the big-city liberals will steal it.

By all accounts, voter fraud does not appear to have affected the outcome of this election. Trump lost too many close states by too large a margin for fraud to have caused his loss.

“Most of the theories of election misconduct, even if proven, would not change the vote totals enough to overturn the outcome,” writes National Review’s Dan McLaughlin.

Trump, he notes, would have to flip three or four states where he is trailing Biden by tens of thousands of votes and for fairly explicable reasons that have nothing to do with voter fraud—e.g., Trump’s under-performance with suburban voters.

“There is no precedent for anything like this,” McLaughlin observes,

requiring a shift of over 47,000 votes to change the outcomes in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin and send the election to the House, or over 74,000 to flip Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.

The margin in Michigan alone is a daunting 146,137 votes, a far cry from the 537-vote margin in Florida in 2000.

Trump and his toadies are exaggerating the extent to which voting fraud was a problem in the election.

“People will not accept this rigged election!” tweeted President Trump. “Watch for massive ballot-counting abuse,” he added.

“I don’t care what state you’re in, bellowed Lou Dobbs, “this computer voting system is wide open to fraud and intervention.”

Of course, it is one thing to acknowledge the reality of voter fraud. It is quite another thing altogether to insist that voter fraud was so widespread and rampant that it “rigged” the election.

There is simply no evidence to support this charge. The New York Times, for instance,

contacted the offices of the top election officials in every state on Monday and Tuesday to ask whether they suspected or had evidence of illegal voting.

Officials in 45 states, [both Democrats and Republicans], responded directly to the Times. For four of the remaining states, the Times spoke to other statewide officials or found public comments from secretaries of state.

None reported any major voting issues [emphasis added].

Nonetheless, all allegations of voter fraud should be thoroughly investigated and, if found to have merit, prosecuted under the law. This is important because it will help deter voter fraud in the future and help preserve the public’s faith in our democracy.

To investigate and expose voter fraud is not to “attack democracy.” To the contrary: exposing corruption is the vital and necessary means by which we strengthen our democracy and restore the public’s faith in our political and electoral institutions.

We have ample time to investigate and resolve allegations of voter fraud. States have yet to certify their election results; the Electoral College does not meet until Dec. 14; and the Presidential Inauguration is not until Jan. 20.

Thus the media to the contrary notwithstanding, there is absolutely no need now to declare Biden the president-elect or Trump the president-reelect.

Let the electoral and legal processes run their course. When these processes are completed, we will have a legitimately elected president.

Equally important, partisans on both sides will know that the election was conducted fairly; and that allegations of voter fraud were not ignored and swept under the rug.

To the contrary: such allegations, they will know, were taken seriously and addressed properly.

In the meantime, Trump and his team should work cooperatively with Biden and his team to ensure a smooth transfer of power should Biden be declared the president-elect.

This means sharing critical national intelligence and providing access to information and officials, so that a Biden administration is ready and prepared Jan. 20.

Unfortunately, Trump’s team reportedly is refusing to work with Biden’s team until the election outcome is completely and officially resolved. That’s unacceptable, unhelpful, and unAmerican. We the people deserve better from our leaders.

The bottom line: voter fraud is a real problem that must be uncovered, exposed, and addressed; however, it simply does not explain Biden’s apparent victory in the 2020 presidential election.

And partisans on both sides do the nation a great disservice when they either pretend that voter fraud doesn’t exist or grossly exaggerate its electoral significance.

The good news is that we have the legal mechanisms in place to fairly address and adjudicate allegations of voter fraud and other electoral irregularities—and we have plenty of time to let the legal process work and run its course before either Trump or Biden are inaugurated Jan. 20, 2021.

Legitimacy. This is important because public faith in our political and electoral institutions depends on free and fair elections. And free and fair elections, of course, depend on holding officials accountable to the rule of law and prosecuting those who break the law.

The American people are watching, and they expect and deserve no less.

Feature photo credit: WKYT.

To Save Ukraine, Call Out Germany

To Save Ukraine, Call Out Germany

By John R Guardiano on January 23, 2022

German-Russian collusion was a problem in the 1930s and it is a problem today.

One would think that, after starting two world wars and planning and executing the genocide of European Jews and the mass murder of millions of non-Jews, Germany would feel a sense of moral obligation toward the Ukrainians and East Europeans now threatened by Russian military imperialism.

But alas, one would be wrong. Germany, in fact, has been working to appease Putin’s Russia:

first by pushing ahead with the planned opening of its Nord Stream 2 Russo-German gas pipeline, even as Putin has mounted troops and military equipment on the Russian-Ukraine border; and

second, by blocking Estonian arms exports to Ukraine, which would help that embattled country defend itself against a hostile takeover by Russia.

In truth, Germany has a soft spot for Russia and is especially soft on Russian military imperialism and tyranny.

This Germanic weakness dates back to at least the 1930s, with the signing of the notorious 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, in which Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany sanctioned each other’s imperialist ambitions.

This axis of evil, if you will, resulted in Russian and German military invasions of Poland, Finland, parts of Romania, and the Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. With the exception of Finland, these countries then were enslaved for decades by the Nazis and the Communists.

Germany Today. Of course, Germany today is not the same country that it was when Adolf Hitler ruled. It is a free and democratic country. And while Russia is not free, it is a far cry from the Soviet totalitarian state that it was under Joseph Stalin.

Still, for countries as for people, old habits die hard. Russia still harbors a desire to subsume Ukraine and to dominate its neighbors. Germany, meanwhile, maintains a disconcerting moral indifference to the plight of other European countries.

Shame Germany. What should the United States and other freedom-loving countries like Great Britain do? Simple: call out and shame Germany. Call a spade a spade. Tell it like it is. Be publicly frank and blunt.

Let every nation know: Germany is actively facilitating the Russian military conquest of Ukraine. Germany cares more about Russian oil and gas than it does about the the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other European countries.

Germany is not a good or reliable ally. Germany is morally obtuse and indifferent.

Redeployment. And then immediately announce plans to redeploy all 34,000 U.S. military troops from Germany into Poland and the Baltic states, where they are most needed, most welcome, and will do the most geo-strategic good.

Then and only then might we avert a Russian military invasion of Ukraine.

Feature photo credit: from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a photo by the Associated Press: “(Left to right:) German diplomat Friedrich Gaus, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, Sovet leader Joseph Stalin, and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov in the Kremlin on August 23, 1939.”

What the Korean War Can Teach Us about Ending Russia’s War on Ukraine

What the Korean War Can Teach Us about Ending Russia’s War on Ukraine

By John R Guardiano on August 5, 2023

In Ukraine, President Biden is drawing exactly the wrong lessons from President Truman’s mishandling of the Korean War in 1951.

Opponents of American aid to Ukraine often tout the Korean War as a model for ending the war in Ukraine. The United States, it is argued, wisely refrained from “escalating” in Korea, instead signing an armistice that ended the conflict, thus allowing for a cold but endurable peace.

The Communists retained control of North Korea, but failed to achieve their objective of conquering all of Korea.

In the same way, argue the opponents of American aid to Ukraine, Russia should be allowed to retain control of Crimea, the Donbas, and other parts of southeastern Ukraine nominally or firmly in its control.

This will allow a free, sovereign, and independent Ukraine to coexist alongside Russian-occupied Ukraine—just as free, sovereign, and independent South Korea has coexisted for decades alongside Communist North Korea.

Then and only then, they insist, can the war end and peace be realized or achieved.

In fact, the Korean War is instructive to American policymakers, but not in the ways that opponents of American aid to Ukraine think.

The Korean War is an example of American self-deterrence that needlessly prolonged the war and the horrific human cost of that war. The United States eschewed a relatively quick victory for a bloody and prolonged stalemate or tie.

For this reason, the Korean War is a cautionary tale of what America should not do when aiding and abetting a country fighting for its survival against a tyrannical foe.

For starters, the war dragged on for three long, inconclusive, and interminable years in which American casualties mounted. Why? Because U.S. President Harry Truman refused to pursue victory out of a misguided fear of “escalation” and “World War III.”

Truman and Biden. Most historians today laud Truman’s caution and restraint in Korea—just as most observers today laud Biden’s caution and restraint in Ukraine. But Truman was wrong then and Biden is wrong today.

Truman is seen as wise because he is juxtaposed against U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who failed to anticipate the Chinese intervention in Korea, and whose insubordination and bellicosity subsequently resulted in his dismissal by Truman.

Biden, likewise, is seen as wise because he is juxtaposed against Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Putin and his henchmen often intimate that he might use nuclear weapons. Zelensky, meanwhile, is constantly beseeching Biden to send Ukraine more and more advanced weapons.

For this reason, Biden is often seen as wiser and more sober-minded than Putin and Zelensky. Truman, too, is typically remembered as more rational and level-headed than MacArthur.

Limited or Total War? But the choice between a prolonged war of indecision on the one hand and a global nuclear conflagration on the other hand is a silly and fallacious choice that did not exist then and does not exist now.

“Between the extremes of Truman’s restraint and the possibility of global war,” write Rep. Michael Gallagher (R-Wisconsin) and Aaron MacLean, “numerous options existed.

Truman’s decision to renounce nuclear threats and to restrict combat operations to Korea and its airspace prolonged the war and, paradoxically, extended the period in which it could have escalated.

In truth, shortly after MacArthur had been relieved of his command by Truman on Apr. 11, 1951, the United States was well on its way to routing the Chinese and North Koreans, reuniting the Korean peninsula, and ending the war with Korea wholly free and intact.

However, Truman and his military appointees on the Joint Chiefs of Staff put the kibosh on Lieutenant General James Van Fleet’s May 28, 1951, request “for a major offensive into North Korea to complete the destruction of the Chinese Armies,” reports Robert B. Bruce in Army History magazine (Winter 2012).

Instead of military victory, the United States pursued a negotiated solution in Korea and thus gave Communist forces a sanctuary in North Korea. As a result, the war dragged on for two more long years and at a horrific human cost.

In Ukraine, Biden, too, has called for a negotiated solution, while deliberately withholding from Ukraine advanced weapons—including, for instance, long-range precision artillery, tanks, jets, and aircraft, which would allow the Ukrainians to more quickly and aggressively attack Russian positions and drive Russian forces out of Ukraine.

Biden also has refused to use U.S. air and naval forces to safeguard the shipment of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea. The reason: he fears “escalation” and “World War III.”

But in truth, Russia is exhausted militarily and is in no position to “escalate” its war on Ukraine.

Sure, Russia has nuclear weapons, but the use of tactical or battlefield nukes serves no military purpose and gives Russia no battlefield edge other than shock value.

Korea 1951. And the same was true of Chinese and North Korean forces in June 1951. They were exhausted, militarily, and did not even possess nuclear weapons. Russia, a North Korean ally and supporter, did have nuclear weapons, but in numbers dwarfed by the United States.

Moreover, although Russian leader Joseph Stalin conceived of the Korean War as a way to expand Communist influence and control, internationally, Russia was not directly involved in the Korean War and had no intention of becoming involved, as its focus was on Europe.

Ironically, as Gallagher and MacLean note, the Korean War ended only when former World War II Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president (in 1952) and “contemplated and discussed the possibility of escalation, even approving the development of war plans that involved the use of nuclear weapons.”

Then, too, Stalin died on Mar. 5, 1953. This was significant because Stalin was the foremost obstacle to peace in Korea. He had “insisted that the war continue despite the misgivings of Chinese and North Korean leaders,” writes Mark Kramer.

Putin, likewise, is the foremost obstacle to peace in Ukraine. Thus his death, resulting in regime change in Russia, certainly would greatly enhance the prospects of a peace agreement.

The bottom line: President Truman’s mismanagement of the Korean War 72 years ago does, indeed, hold lessons for President Biden as he manages the war in Ukraine today. But those lessons teach Biden what not to do.

Unfortunately, our president is drawing the exact opposite conclusion and the result is a needlessly prolonged war of indecision at a horrific human cost to innocent Ukrainians.

One of the chief lessons of the Korean War is that the fear of “escalation” against a weak and exhausted military enemy is a catastrophic mistake. In truth, the risk of “escalation” rises if the war is allowed to drag on and the enemy is permitted to regroup.

Ditto “World War III”. That was not a realistic concern in 1951 and it is not a realistic concern today, in 2023. However, by allowing the North Korean regime to survive, Truman increased the risk of World War III significantly in the intervening decades.

Likewise, in Ukraine. If Russia is not clearly and explicitly defeated, militarily, and expelled from all of Ukraine, it will regroup and resume its fight in Ukraine at a later date when it is better prepared. “World War III” then becomes more likely.

In short, there is no substitute for victory and there is no reason not to pursue victory. That was true in Korea 1951 and it is true in Ukraine 2023.

Feature photo credit: President Biden (L), courtesy of the Associated Press and President Harry S. Truman (R), courtesy of Harry S. Truman Library and Museum, published in NPR.

Don’t Blame ‘Racism’ and ‘Inequality’ For Alleged Racial Disparities In the Coronavirus

Don’t Blame ‘Racism’ and ‘Inequality’ For Alleged Racial Disparities In the Coronavirus

By John R Guardiano on April 11, 2020

Does racism and a lack of access to healthcare explain why African Americans are allegedly suffering disproportionately from the coronavirus?

Or instead, do lifestyle choices—including diet, exercise, and obesity—explain this alleged disparity? What about the fact that certain disease (sickle cell anemia, for instance) affect blacks more than whites, and for reasons that have nothing to do with racism?

And does race even matter? Is it a good way or prism through which to understand and address COVID-19?

Sadly, there is no shortage of media reporting, editorializing, and political pontificating purporting to blame “racism” and “inequality” for alleged differences in how the coronavirus is affecting black and white communities.

Political Agendas. So-called progressives and other leftists in the media and Democratic Party are eager to use and exploit whatever crisis they can to advance their left-wing agenda, and this pandemic offers an especially appealing vehicle right now.

“Progressives” and leftists are eager to blame racism for all manner of problems: because then they can use said racism as an excuse or justification to push for racial reparations and government wealth redistribution programs that they claim will benefit African Americans, but which really will give the government more power and control over our lives.

But as Zaid Jilani observes at National Review:

We are still in the early stages of this pandemic, and the research on this topic is as novel as the virus itself. [So] it’s difficult to draw hard conclusions about the causal factors that explain who gets the virus and who succumbs from it.

Exactly. Relatively few Americans, in fact, have even been tested for the coronavirus. The United States has administered fewer coronavirus tests per million people than Germany, Italy, Canada, and South Korea, Vox reports.

Yet, the New York Times published an article Tues., Apr. 7, 2020, arguing that “Black Americans Face Alarming Rates of Coronavirus Infection in Some States.” But as Jilani points out,

Ironically, on the same day the New York Times published [this] article… New York City revealed age-adjusted numbers showing that Latinos, not African Americans, had the highest age-adjusted coronavirus death rate.

Perhaps this will bring about calls that the Times have should have reframed its article around Latino death rates rather than black ones. Maybe another newspaper op-ed will call the virus a “Latino plague,” at least in New York City.

The city’s data also showed that, despite claims from New York City’s Public Advocate that “New Yorkers of more color” are disproportionately at higher risk, the Asian-American death rate is actually lower than that of whites.

One way to look at this data would be to scramble the racial hierarchy being assembled by liberal activists and the news media—Latinos actually have it “worst,” and Asians, another ethnic minority—have it “best.” But that would simply replace one form of distorted thinking for another.

Moreover, even assuming that racial disparities exist—which, again, is a premature conclusion, given that we don’t yet know enough about the prevalence of the coronavirus nor its effects within different demographic groups—it is far from clear that such disparities are caused by “racism” and “inequality.”

Correlation, after all, is not causation. Consider, for instance, sickle cell anemia. As M. Laurence Noisette, M.D. writes:

Sickle cell disease, an inherited disorder of the red blood cells, is more common in African Americans in the U.S. compared to other ethnicities—occurring in approximately 1 in 365 African Americans…

“Sickle cell trait,” likewise, “is an inherited blood disorder that affects approximately 8 percent of African-Americans,” notes the American Society of Hematology.

Unlike sickle cell disease, in which patients have two genes that cause the production of abnormal hemoglobin, individuals with sickle cell trait carry only one defective gene and typically live normal lives without health problems related to sickle cell.

Granted, COVID-19 is caused by a respiratory virus, the coronavirus; it is not an inherited blood disorder. So it seems very unlikely that genetic or biological factors would explain any racial disparities in either its incidence or effects.

But the point is that correlation can be explained any number of factors—including but by no means limited to the fact that different diseases sometimes affect various racial and ethnic groups differently.

Thus, seizing upon “racism” and “inequality” as explanations for alleged disparities is bad, sloppy, simplistic, and politicized thinking. And this is especially true when there are other legitimate and plausible explanations.

For example, as we reported here at ResCon1, and as the Washington Examiner’s Tina Lowe observed, “new data seems to indicate that obesity is itself a risk factor” for dying from the coronavirus.

Why does this matter? Because, according to the U.S .Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health:

African American women have the highest rates of obesity or being overweight compared to other groups in the United States. About 4 out of 5 African American women are overweight or obese.

In 2018, non-Hispanic blacks were 1.3 times more likely to be obese as compared to non-Hispanic whites.

In 2018, African American women were 50 percent more likely to be obese than non-Hispanic white women.

From 2013-2016, non-Hispanic black females were 2.3 times more likely to be overweight as compared to non-Hispanic white females.

People who are overweight are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, high levels of blood fats, diabetes and LDL cholesterol—all risk factors for heart disease and stroke.

In 2018, African Americans were 20 percent less likely to engage in active physical activity as compared to non-Hispanic whites.

Underlying health conditions that make the coronavirus more dangerous and more fatal—hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease, for instance—also are more prevalent within the African American community; and these, too, are caused in large part by obesity.

Does “racism” and “inequality” explain these disparities? I suppose to the racially obsessed, the answer is always yes.

But assuming that this overly simplistic explanation is even partially true, the reality is that, whatever racism exists, all of us—black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Jew, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, et al.—make daily choices in diet and lifestyle that dramatically affect our likelihood of being obese and of contracting high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease.

Disempowerment. And that is the biggest problem with obsessing over “racism” and “inequality” as politically convenient excuses for bad health outcomes: Doing so disempowers each of us and denies us agency over our own lives.

The truth is that all of us are in this together. We all face a pandemic that is truly international in scope, and which seriously threatens our very lives and economic well-being.

Dividing us up along racial lines to score cheap and unwarranted political points, while advancing a bad political agenda, is shameful and wrong. And it’s unsupported by the weight of the scientific evidence and data.

The coronavirus doesn’t discriminate; but all of us, certainly, should be more thoughtful and discriminating when it comes to blaming “racism” and “inequality” for the prevalence and effects of COVID-19 within different racial and demographic groups.

Feature photo credit: Data for Chinese COVID-19 deaths as of Feb. 11, 2020, Ruobing Su/Business Insider.

Why the West Mustn’t Give Putin an ‘Off-Ramp’ or a ‘Face-Saving’ Way Out

Why the West Mustn’t Give Putin an ‘Off-Ramp’ or a ‘Face-Saving’ Way Out

By John R Guardiano on March 1, 2022

Defeat and discredit Putin so that a new Russian leader and a new Russian leadership class can emerge.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine had barely begun when the councils of caution warned that we must tread carefully and give Putin an “off-ramp” or a way that might allow him to “back down while retaining some semblance of face.”

It sounds so reasonable and so judicious—especially after Putin intimated that he might be prepared to use nuclear weapons. But in fact, this is exactly the wrong approach.

Giving Putin an “off-ramp” and allowing him to “save face” will allow him to retain power in Russia. It will inspire and motivate like-minded Russian politicians who wish to inherit his mantle of political authoritarianism, military imperialism, personal plunder, and misrule.

It will mean that Putin will live, politically, to fight another day and to continue menacing Europe, America, and the West.

Thus the only wise and acceptable course of action is to defeat and discredit Putin: so that he is replaced by a new Russian leader who respects international norms, international law, and the territorial sovereignty of free and independent states.

The Russian Elite. This is achievable. Russia, after all, is not Iraq or Afghanistan. Despite its myriad problems, Russia has a well-educated elite that can assume the reins of political power and exercise political authority.

But this will not happen, and it cannot happen, unless and until Putin is defeated and thoroughly discredited in the eyes of his countrymen, especially the Russian elite.

As we have noted, Putin serves at the pleasure of a rich and cosseted Russian mafia oligarchy. If and when this oligarchy finds that Putin is bad for business, it will force him from power.

But that won’t happen if we insist on creating a safe space for Vladimir and a zone of comfort in which he can “save face.”

As for Putin’s brandishing of nuclear weapons, perspective is needed.

First, nuclear saber rattling is nothing new for the Russians. During the Cold War, the Soviets often intimated that they might use nukes, or that a nuclear conflagration might result should America and the West not accede to their demands. So take their latest threat with a big grain of salt.

Second, as Russia’s poor military performance in Ukraine thus far is amply demonstrating, the Russian military is subpar.

Their conventional military units are formidable on paper, but surprisingly weak in battle. Nuclear weapons and cyber warfare capabilities are about all the Russians have to intimidate and frighten the West. So of course they play that card diplomatically and in communications designed for public consumption.

But in truth, as Alexander S. Vindman points out:

Despite Putin’s bluster, the rules of great-power competition and confrontation have not changed since the beginning of the Cold War. But we have forgotten how to confront a belligerent, saber-rattling Russia.

A previous generation of policymakers would have managed tensions while standing up to intimidation and calling out incendiary rhetoric. In truth, Russian leaders have no interest in a nuclear war or a bilateral conventional conflict that they would certainly lose.

The West has far more room to maneuver than it appears to grasp.

In other words: nuclear saber-rattling by Putin is a reflection of Russian weakness, not Russian strength.

The bottom line: America and Europe need a new Russian leader and a new type of Russian leadership. We need Russian leaders who, at a minimum, respect international norms, international law, and the territorial sovereignty of other states.

But this objective never will be achieved if we insist on accepting Putin’s misrule as inevitable and as something that we must recognize and accommodate.

“Off-ramps” and “face-saving measures” for Putin are inimical to achieving the West’s desired end state: a Russia free of Putin and Putinism.

Feature photo credit: Associated Press photo of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin (L) and jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny (R) courtesy of Sky News.