I Cry for Stalin
I recently watched for the nth time, The Death of Stalin and found it hilariously tragic or perhaps tragically hilarious. It is fun to imagine that powerful men might be the bumbling yet funny idiots that the Politburo of 1953 appears to be in this movie. The scene of them discovering and then moving Stalin’s non responsive body into his bed may be one of the funniest scenes in movie history. The brilliance of the writing and directing is in making evil men seem funny and sympathetic. They are humanized as only the reality of President Lyndon Johnson talking to aides while on the toilet could portray. Imagine authorizing the bombing of thousands of Vietnamese by Operation Rolling Thunder while he did a little thunder rolling all his own.
I think this all falls into the category of laughing instead of crying. We are at a similar point with our democracy. The Soviet Union was dead man walking in 1953 and yet they sputniked their way to the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union, which technically only happened in 1991 even though most us us think of it as happening with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Stalin autocratically ruled the Union from its inception based on the idealism of Lenin. I like to think of it as Trump standing on the shoulders of Washington/Jefferson/Lincoln/Kennedy. The movie shows the absurd farce of the Soviet Union in 1953. By that time it bore little resemblance to the communist principles of Marxism and was little more than a personality-driven autocracy. I fear that the United States is now becoming a similarly absurd farce where democracy has been replaced by a form of autocratic capitalism that can best be called Trumpism.
Trump does not recognize the authority of Congress as a counter-balance to his omnipotence. He only likes the Judiciary when he thinks the fix is in with his appointees. If it’s the Ninth Circuit or some judge that issues a FISA warrant or sentences a Trump acolyte, then forget it. Trump is the petulant child that picks up a toy army tank and uses it to win a cowboys and Indians game. Don’t like the idea of being impeached by Congress? Say you will take it to the Supreme Court. Easy, even if it makes no sense constitutionally. Make your own rules up as you go, just to be sure you always win. Don’t want to respond to Congressional subpoenas? No problem, just stamp your feet and say no.
As I watched the movie I found myself replacing all the Politburo members with members of Trump’s inner circle. I can’t say his cabinet, because that seems to change too often. But Pence, Mulvaney, Kavanaugh, Conway, Huckabee-Sanders, Miller, Ross, Mnuchin and others would fit right into a rewritten screenplay of The Death of Stalin. I can’t quite figure out who is Nikita, Beria or General Zhukov, but the kids are easier. Ivanka would be Svetlana, with her inane comments and loyalty to her father. Don Jr. and Eric are credible Vasily and Yacov substitutes with their callous idiocy. The kids are people who the world would ignore as jokes were it not for Dad. In fact, the advisors are equally ridiculous on their own merits. With Ross trumping up his net worth, Mnuchin acting like he understands finance and Conway pretending that she believes the drivel she spews on the bosses’ behalf, it’s hard to decide which of them would be less credible out in the world on their own.
I am now starting to wonder what’s next for our country. We have eighteen months until the next election. The cable news pundits love to debate the merits of the pragmatism of ignoring Trump’s flagrant abuses (including the Mueller Report) so as to keep political focus on winning the election, versus the righteousness of taking Trump to task via impeachment so that future leaders don’t think they can just stall and wait out their terms while doing anything they choose. Phew, that’s a mouthful, but it’s what I see on TV every night now. As I debate myself on this issue (is self-debating a sin?) I want more than anything for Trump to be out. I honestly do not think I can suffer another four years of his evil abuses. And yet, I get more incensed by the day at Trump’s arrogance. I cannot stomach his rampant disregard for everything I hold sacred politically, socially and humanely. What to do?
Back to Stalin. Between his Great Famine and Great Purge, he presided over the deaths of millions of Soviets. That ranks him quite competitively with General Robert E. Lee, who Trump just declared to be the greatest general of all time despite his traitorish annihilation of his own countrymen. Joseph Stalin was skilled at mass repressions, ethnic cleansing, and deportations as well. I know the Charlottesville incident, which Trump has recently reaffirmed as a proud moment, implies that Trump is very Nazi-like, but I find that less accurate than suggesting that he is more like Stalin than Hitler. Much of the Russian world still reveres Stalin much as the South reveres Lee and the red parts of our country will likely revere Trump after he’s gone. Sad, but true.
Is there anything to take from all these reflections and revelations? I think there is. I see how fearful people were of Stalin even though they recognized his evil and wished it to end. That fear (and a well-armed military and a World War) kept the Soviet people at bay and at Stalin’s mercy. Trump does not have the military and so far, despite his best efforts with North Korea and Iran, we are not at war. But you would never know that based on the fear that Congressional Republicans have shown. And the red electorate is kept back by the “look at all the good things he has done for the country and how horrible Hilary was” mentality.
Do you remember the book about South Africa called Cry the Beloved Country? The author, Alan Paton, cries for the moral death of his country under Apartheid. I too cry for my country. As a kid growing up as an expat first in Latin America for six years and then three years in Italy, I wanted nothing more than to live in my beloved country. As I contemplate our dilemma now, I wonder if I would leave during a second Trump term and all that it would bring to the demise of our country’s moral fiber. I’m willing to risk that in order not to ignore Trump’s abuses. I realize there are people who will cry for Trump just as they cried for Stalin. But, nonetheless, I cry for my beloved country as I cry for impeachment.