Attention to the Unseen

The Guardian reports: Donald Trump’s continuing lavish praise and support for Vladimir Putin are fueling alarm among former intelligence officials and other experts who fear another Trump presidency would benefit Moscow and harm American democracy and interests overseas. Trump praised the Russian president as a “genius” and “pretty savvy” when Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, and has boasted he would end the war in a “day”, sparking critics’ fears that if he’s elected again Trump would help Russia achieve…

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CNBC reports: Donald Trump’s reelection campaign has begun to see warning signs that the small-dollar donors who fueled his last run for the White House have slowed their support to the former president this year, according to people familiar with the matter. Since late last year, members of Trump’s team have been warned by Republican Party advisors that their small-dollar donor base could be shrinking, said the sources, who were granted anonymity to discuss internal campaign matters. Some have even…

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The Washington Post reports: Linda Wenhold closed her eyes, bowed her head and offered a prayer. “Lord, let us see that the further we move from biblical truth, the further we move from our liberty and freedom,” she began. The 60-year-old grandmother stood at the front of a modest stone church in this former steel town just beyond the exurban sprawl of Philadelphia. About a dozen people had turned out on a cold February night for the fourth week of…

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Timothy Snyder writes: Quite a few Americans like the idea of strongman rule. Why not a dictator who will get things done? I lived in eastern Europe when memories of communism were fresh. I have visited regions in Ukraine where Russia imposed its occupation regime. I have spent decades reading testimonies of people who lived under Nazi or Stalinist rule. I have seen death pits, some old, some freshly dug. And I have friends who have lived under authoritarian regimes,…

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Anna Nemtsova writes: Not even the most passionate supporters of Vladimir Putin are pretending that the results of this weekend’s election are in doubt: Putin, Russia’s longest-serving leader since Joseph Stalin, is about to embark on his sixth term. And so, with no electoral politics to debate, both pro-Putin and liberal Kremlinologists in the Russian-language mediasphere have been focusing instead on changes at the very top of Russia’s power pyramid: the new elite that is coming to replace the old…

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