Alexei Navalny—whose body had to be almost wrested from the hands of the Russian state—was mourned by thousands during an orthodox ceremony on Friday (which several churches refused to officiate), before being borne to a nearby Moscow cemetery and finally laid to rest. Though he started his career as a nationalist in Russian politics, and railed for and against all the jingoistic, insular and misoxenostic (or, less accurately, ‘xenophobic’) policies that nationalists tend to, he ended it as a crusader who lost his life for the love of his country—its hopeful, democratic future and people—and for refusing to disengage in his fight against its despotic, murderous, purely undemocratic leader. It was also very likely at the direction of that leader that Navalny was sentenced by Russia’s puppet judicial system, and ultimately had his life taken from him in a Siberian penal colony some 1,200 miles away.
In retrospect, his life compares unquestioningly to others who fought against tyranny or social injustice in their homelands, and paid for it with either a loss of life or personal liberty. Some notables include Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mohandas K. Gandhi.
One name that will never, ever, in a million years make a list like that is Donald J. Trump.
And while Trump will, over an infinite number of lifetimes, compare himself to an Alexei Navalny over and over and over again ad infinitum—and, likely over that same infinite period, other sycophants and coat-riders will do the same because they not only want a basically immortal incarnation of Trump to be elected as the figurehead of their nefarious platform over and over again, but because they, themselves, want to be a part of it, too—a surface comparison of Navalny to many American politicians today yields a far different result.
One look at the exodus of congresspeople from their posts this coming year already says a great deal about it.
Navalny fought, with his words and his deeds. Contrarily, nearly every congressional retiree/ship-jumper is confessing the same sentiment, likely with a shrug and one eye on their next job beyond the revolving door: “Things are broken. Nothing I can do. This ain’t what I signed up for. Things are too hard these days.” You have a man who was willing to die for what he believed about the right to a fair and open government, and you have these folks, who showed up to collect a paycheck, maybe help a few influential people here and there, get big on Twitter and then bail when the going got tough.
The only members I see in Congress fighting hard for anything are those d—s in the Freedom Caucus—basically, the type of people against whom a political body always needs a substantial buffer or shield, if it wants to call itself fair and open.
Not to mention the shadow army of tens of thousands being vetted and amassed behind the scenes by Trump allies, armed with the “scholarship” (and funding) of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. All these jokers want less a government for all than one which exclusively caters to and legislates toward their own Eurocentric, exclusionist, plutocratic and average-citizen-contemning ideals.
There’s a reason most of the meanest, intranationally violent and repressive regimes in contemporary world history have been aligned with the political right. Nazism. Fascism. Military juntas. Autocracies. Anything involving White Supremacy or ultra-nationalism. Not to mention the inspiration and carte blanche that’s been given for domestic lethal violence and vigilante justice. It’s not a coincidence that Project 2025 or their “Mandate for Leadership” bears much of the same early-stage footprint as those regimes, tweaked for a nominal democracy such as America.
The remaining voices in the Republican party—even some the architects of the current, repressive state of affairs who cared more about retaining power behind the scenes and helping the rich than giving plastic surgery to the face of the nation today—are almost entirely endorsing Trump and his Agenda 47, despite being worried about the direction their party is headed on the political spectrum.
Except Mitch McConnell, of course. He’s finally jumping ship, too.
McConnell is now 82; his reasons for abandoning his party’s helm (he’ll be officially retired in early 2027) aren’t the same as, say, the Kyrsten Sinemas or Lauren Boeberts of Congress. There was a report that came out, however, about his team and Trump’s team getting together to discuss an endorsement of the former president. After all the sh— that’s been slung at him by Trump (and all he’s feebly tried to pick up and sling back), I would bet a Mitch McConnell on his way out would view posterity deeming him less of a turd-covered, mummified political corpse in supporting Trump than if he remained in the Senate. But, really, what does he care? He got what he wanted out of his time in federal government. It’s also people like Mitch McConnell, up and down generations, that will never be harmed by the agenda for which Trump stands.
So who will? Anyone not strongly aligned with the growing extremist ideology of the party. Which, when I say it out loud…
