Twenty Years Ago Today

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Democrats like to bleat that Ronald Reagan couldn’t be elected in today’s GOP.

It’s rubbish – watch “A Time For Choosing” and ask what he’d have to change today – but I’d answer in response that Paul Wellstone would either have trouble getting endorsed in today’s DFL, or would have to displace hard to the left to stay viable.

It’s exceptionally hard to believe that it was 20 years ago today Wellstone died:

The crash – which DFLers of my acquaintance spent years was a hit job carried out by an RNC sniper – handed the election to Norm Coleman.

The Coleman/Wellstone race was, in fact, what put this blog on the map (checks notes) twenty freaking years ago: covering the DFL’s bizarre, often antisemitic attacks on Coleman, and another prominent Minnesotan’s clod-footed assault on Coleman, got me the Instalanches that launched this blog from 5 hits a day into the 3-4 digit range.

129 thoughts on “Twenty Years Ago Today”

  1. Musk just paid $44bn for a business that makes $5bn in ad revenue, in a declining ad market?

    Taking the average of Snap and Meta’s market cap loss since he announced his takeover, suggests Twitter should be worth $15bn (65% loss). With a $12.5bn debt load it’s looking like a distressed asset out the gates (interest coverage <0.65x and LTV @ 85%).

    Maybe Morgan Stanley will be the majority owners in a couple of years.

    FWIW Also no matter how much Musk critics dislike the idea of Musk owning it, they’ll never hate that fact as much as he does…

  2. The US could be stable with a nationalist governing philosophy for the same reason that Australia could be stable with a nationalist governing philosophy. That is because both nations are geographically isolated, resource rich, and do not have significant remnant populations.
    The US has a strong sense of national identity and weak, dependent neighbors. A nominally nationalist United States of America would really be a sort of Empire, but an empire that does not rub shoulders with another empire. It could work.
    Nearly all of the nations in Russia’s prison house have significant ethnic Russian populations, as do ex-soviet satellites like Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, etc. Stalin hated nationalism so he uprooted and moved whole populations to break their identification with their native soil. So you have Ethnic Russian enclaves in Poland and Polish enclaves in Siberia.
    We know what happens when you create nations with significant foreign populations within their borders because we saw it in Europe 1918-1938: the foreign populations are denied full citizenship and are deported or are politically repressed and forced to assimilate. Why, to use a current example, should ethnic Russians influence how the Ukrainian people govern themselves?

  3. George Orwell insisted in 1945 that nationalism (a belief in national superiority, giving nations the right to impose their rule on others) not be confused with patriotism. Of the latter, he says, “By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.’ ”

    Seems a useful distinction for Americans to bear in mind.

  4. Orwell wrote at a time when nationalism and fascism were seen as identical. Orwell did not distinguish between Italian fascism, Spanish fascism, and German fascism, although (obviously) they are very different sorts of fish. Franco’s nationalism, and Pinochet’s nationalism, were not the same as Hitler’s nationalism, though all were clearly attachment to a particular place and a particular way of life.
    Orwell was an interesting character. He was an unreliable narrator of his own story and he hinted that he knew that this was so. Sometimes more than hinted.

  5. Oh, yes, a silver (or lead) bullet could be a great solution here; specifically to Putin’s head or heart. Probably a few more bullets than that would be required to give Russia lasting peace, but the junta that rules isn’t that big.

    Really, what’s going on here is that the world,hopefully soon including the Russian provinces, is learning that the Russian army is a paper tiger that can be defeated by the good use of a very moderate amount of NATO weapons. They’ve got a choice of going out in a blaze of shame by deploying their nukes, going out in a whimper by being destroyed by the men of their ethnic republics who finally figure out they don’t want to die for Russia, and changing their tune.

    And since the elites aren’t terribly interested in ruling a sea of glass where no one can go in, that indicates the likely choices they’ll make are either the 2nd or 3rd. Hopefully they’ll choose that dacha in San Francisco Bay instead of the Ipatiev House.

  6. Putin is using it to launch an external war against Ukraine. But the Ukrainian struggle against Russia is a struggle for Ukraine’s sovereignty and against imperialism, no matter the latter’s form and content.

  7. I am astonished, bikebubba, that you think that whoever follows Putin will be “better” than Putin.
    Give me a name. Who do you believe is ready to step into Putin’s shoes and withdraw Russia from all of Ukraine, including Crimea?

  9. According to Emery, every escalation is bringing us closer to peace!

  10. NATO has no strategy other than to keep the pressure on Putin and Russia and hope that he will be deposed by a liberal, pro-Western democrat who will be dovish enough to give all the disputed territories, including Crimea, back to Ukraine, yet hawkish enough to keep the Russian Federation from fracturing along religious and ethnic lines.
    I have asked, again and again, for Ukraine supporters to explain exactly how this will work.
    No coherent response yet. Instead I get the laughable response that Putin is so uniquely a dangerous and pathological personality that it is hard to believe Putin replacement could be worse.
    Never for a moment forget that Russia controls the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, and that this nuclear arsenal (unlike China’s) was designed to be an immediate strategic counter to the US nuclear arsenal. Until two and a half years ago our astronauts had to hitch rides on Russian launchers. I cannot take seriously any claim that we do not need to fear Russian missiles and nukes because they are so badly maintained that they will not be usable.

  11. Oh, yes, UMMP, there is clearly no history of leaders who led eastern european nations into disaster being deposed. Kruschev died in his sleep as premier of the Soviet Union, as did Gorbachev, Honecker the same as chancellor of East Germany, Ceaucescu as dictator of Romania, and of course, Nicholas 2 died in his sleep, still Tsar of Russia, at the ripe old age of 75.

    The latest thing which has “provoked” Russia is an alleged drone attack on their Baltic Sea fleet, safely (?) docked at Sevastapol. Probably no attack or a self-attack in reality, and if I were a British diplomat, I’d simply say “If we’d been involved, you’d have a few ships sunk.”

    Just another lame excuse for Russia to continue waging war on civilians, really, and that illustrates how desperate Putina is. He knows he’s going either to Alcatraz or the Ipatiev House.

  12. Bikebubba, What do you think the chances are that your peaceful vision will come to pass? 50-50? Higher? Lower?
    And how did you determine that number

  14. So more escalation. This will lead to Russia’s defeat and then peace, right, Emery?

  15. Russia creates misery wherever it raises its head. Torture, rape, summary execution and forced deportation of civilians, in Ukraine, Chechnya, Georgia, Syria (and as far back in history as the eye can see). Forced mobilization and battlefield losses for its own citizens (with second line soldiers killing everyone who dares to retreat). And famine and economic hardship for families all around the world, now disrupting food supplies.

    A whole country committed to destroy what others have or are trying to build up. We cannot appease this mindset — only resist and fight it to affect change.

  18. UMMP, my take is that Russia is offering battle in Eastern and southern Ukraine, and if that battle is won, they will soon offer battle in western Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, as Putin’s written works clearly demonstrate. So what we’ve got is the best thing we can hope for at this point.

    And again, the supposed “massive attack” of a couple dozen drones in Sevastapol on legitimate military targets justifies actions that could starve millions? Let’s get some perspective here. This is a dying gasp of an evil regime. Keep the pressure on.

    Dullee; your link is as good as your thinking, which is of course to say it’s useless. Yes, people who are impoverished by evil regimes sometimes traffic their children. Maybe let’s deal with the evil regime, the one whose capital is “Moscow.”

  19. MP, you are a masochist but then there is nothing wrong with that if that’s what turns your crank since you are not hurting anyone but yourself.

  20. UMMP, my take is that Russia is offering battle in Eastern and southern Ukraine, and if that battle is won, they will soon offer battle in western Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia
    Lafvia, Lithuania, and Estonia are members of NATO.
    Ukraine is not.
    Bikebubba, how likely is your goldilocks scenario likely to occur? That’s the scenario where Putin is depose and the ruler that takes his place is liberal enough to return all of Russia occupied Ukraine (including Crimea), but ruthless enough to keep the rest of Russia from collapsing into half dozen or so nations that are very poor but have nuclear weapons?

  21. I am entertaining myself, JPA.
    Also testing my own reasoning.
    Emery, of course, is a joke.
    Bikebubba, I hope, would realize that it is ridiculous to say both that Russia’s army is so poorly trained and supplied that it cannot penetrate more than a few dozen miles into Ukraine, and that Putin is going to use that army to attack NATO members Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.

  22. There are still tough times ahead, but for now it is a pleasure to read the frustrated comments here from Russian sympathizers.

  26. UMMP, regarding whether Putina would take on NATO for the Baltics, my take is that he showed himself to be quite out of touch with reality already when he invaded Ukraine with an army with bad tires and morale, ignoring the fact that NATO had been training the Ukrainians for the better part of a decade, and that for a few years, Ukraine had been receiving some NATO weaponry.

    So why would I assume he’d be smarter regarding Latvia, Lithuania, or Estonia? My take on Putina is that he assumed that the Biden of this spring would be the same Biden who refused to give Ukraine weapons back in 2014 when he first invaded, just like Brezhnev figured that the Carter he faced regarding Afghanistan would be the same Carter that had failed to do much in Iran.

    Really, the parallels between the 1980s, especially the Reagan administration, and today are pretty good. Reagan intervened in Grenada, Afghanistan, El Salvador, Libya, with Solidarity in Poland, and more. Poking the bear, if you will. Ukraine is a bigger war, yes, but Russia is far weaker than in 1989. I dare suggest it can work again.

  27. Woolly appears to be saying that leaders suffering from delusions of a mythic past for their country must be given what they want. So you would have let the Nazi party in Germany hang on to the Sudetenland and let their mythic Arianism dictate the fate of the Jewish people and the rest of Europe?

    Putin’s problem is that he cannot see, or does not want to acknowledge, the devastating results of invading neighboring countries as demonstrated by Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland and the Sudetenland. Of course Soviet Russia joined Germany in the invasion of Poland but was then invaded itself with devastating consequences. Putin may not be mad but he suffers from higher levels of delusion.

  28. On the light side, I had to admit that I was amused to see the USSR’s, I mean Russia’s, objection to Latvia’s removal of Soviet era monuments, pointing to the Soviet Union’s “rescue” of Latvia in WW2. Lost in their statement was the fact that without the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, Latvia would not have been invaded in the first place. “Yeah, guys, you rescued us from the Nazis after exposing us to them….”

  29. Russia rejoins U.N. deal to ship grain from Ukraine, easing food insecurity concerns
    https://www.npr.org/2022/11/02/1133486064/russia-returns-un-backed-grain-deal-ukraine

    Turkey stood up to Russia and escorted the ships out of Odesa. Putin wasn’t going to attack Turkish ships when it came to it. So he was forced to back down. It’s been said before, but the only thing Russia understands is strength.

    Turkey’s role in this whole saga is the most intriguing. Playing both sides; antagonizing both sides and somehow remaining fully engaged with both sides.

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