The State of the Republican Party in the 21st Century

Between Performative Politics and “Partisan Terrorism”

As I heard surprisingly positive remarks about Biden's SOTU speech, I gave it a listen and must say that given the circumstances in which he now has to legislate in accompaniment of a crucially divided Congress, it was a solid speech and some solid proposals, although I agree with the Libertarians who are concerned about the protectionist measurements for foreign policy and trade policies¹. What one needs to understand, of course, are two things:

Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire

 Russia is Descending into Authoritarianism--again

In less than one more month, we are going to commemorate the first anniversary of the Russian war aggression against Ukraine, and much has happened since then. As we currently observe a stalemate in terms of conquests and losses of territory in Eastern Ukraine, even though the Wagner Group claims to have vanquished villages around Bakhmut[1], Ukraine was able to regain territory that was occupied by Russia before the initiation of the war[2]. In the meantime, Putin solemnly signed declarations manifesting the annexation of the occupied territories of Луганск & Донецьк[3]. Even before this annexation, there were valid claims stating that those so-called 'separatists' were actually Russian invaders who conquered the land with the plan to incorporate the two territories into the Russian Federation. Recently, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) underscored those claims by mentioning that those territories had been in the hands of the Russian government since 2014, when the first 'separatists' invaded them[4]. Under normal circumstances, separatists have been citizens of the country they want to separate from, anything different therefrom would constitute a régime change wherein infiltrators function as proxy agitators.