Tucker, Putin & Navalny

Tucker Carlson’s interview of Vladimir Putin was an embarrassment in an otherwise stellar career. Even more so after the death of Putin opposition leader Alexei Navalny on February 16th. Alexei Navalny has tragically died at the age of 47 in a former gulag labor camp just ten miles north of the Arctic Circle. His crime or crimes? I won’t lie to you and even dignify the false charges by repeating those heinous trumped up charges in this blog. They are politically motivated. 

It seems I am on a jag of sorts and Russia is the topic. Last week, I discussed Russia and as I almost had the finishing touches completed on a post about Tucker Carlson’s interview of Vladimir Putin, the death of Alexei Navalny was announced. With just about one month left before the Russian Presidential election there are so many things going on it has my head spinning.

We have the Interview. We are marking the 2nd anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and now the death of a Putin opposition leader. None of this seems accidental. Let’s start with Tucker Carlson. For a man with a history degree, he let Vladimir Putin get far afield of historical facts without a redirect. Putin’s views on Poland, Hitler and WWII were delusional. 

It crossed my mind, as Vladimir Putin droned on and on, that Tucker did not interrupt the dictator because he was afraid he might go to jail in a place like Navalny was just in. Maybe he was afraid of being tortured and tormented as Navalny was. Did he know enough Russian history to understand that? I refuse to refer to Putin as the President in this post because I believe Russian elections don’t count for much. 

A short time before his death, Alexei Navalny said that the elections were rigged and he called on the Russian people to arrive noon at the polls on March 17th to do a protest vote. Simply take your ballot and leave with it, he said. Or, vote for anyone else but Putin, he suggested. What if every Russian wrote in Navalny on their ballot. What would happen? A simple review of Russian history teaches the possibilities

Tucker Carlson gave a brutal dictator the podium to spew lies and propaganda to a large audience. This at a time where Putin is not free to travel in the West due to the possibility of being arrested as a war criminal. No problem, Tucker will get your message out for you. Tucker Carlson fawned over Russian subways and supermarket prices without the scrutiny that would have served to unmask the dirty little secrets beneath the facade. His interview was not journalism it was propaganda at its’ best. This was not the Tucker that I once knew. Has he traded sides? If it walks like a duck, it might just be a duck.Tucker’s interview sounded like any other RT ( Russia Today TV network) report. 

To recap, Tucker Carlson gave Vladimir Putin a chance to defend his invasion of Ukraine to a huge world audience without any opposition from the usually competitive and feisty debater. He laughed at Putin’s jokes like a besotted teenager. While the dust was settling from that train wreck of an Interview, the cars were arriving at one of the remote Russian prisons in the Arctic Circle that Alexander Solzhenitsyn so palpably described, to disable the cameras and do the dirty deed of killing Navalny. 

The 1,162 year history of Russia that Putin forgot to mention was the total eclipse of freedoms’ light and the brutal repression of opposition that has without abatement continued to haunt and revisit the Russian people on a periodic basis. A long line of people have died hideously in a place devoid of light, warmth or hope. Millions of people have died the way Alexei Navalny has and that was the ugly elephant in the room with Tucker Carlson and Vladimir Putin. 

Stalin would sign death orders on the opposition every night before bed. It was like a little night cap before sleep. As Carlson interviewed Vladimir Putin, he had already ordered Navalny’s death as he has with so many others. The Putin Death count is in the thousands. I think he planned this interview for three reasons. 1. To rally the Russian people to continue their support of the war. 2. To divide the West with the ultimate goal being the withdrawal of support for Ukraine. 3. For re-election purposes.

Navalny was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok in 2020, just four years ago. There is a reason substances such as these are banned by international consensus, they induce terrible symptoms and often result in painful death or lasting physical ramifications. Navalny faced the choice of staying in the west or returning to Russia. One of the rules of exile from Russia is that your influence and contribution will be cancelled. 

Navalny wanted change to happen and had amassed the organization to be able to promote change within Russia. He could never do that from the outside. He went back knowing that Putin wanted him dead. To many people, he went like a lamb to the slaughter. A lamb sacrificed for the possibility of freedom. What will happen next? In a now famous video that Navalny filmed in 2021 when he left Germany to return to Russia, he said, “My message if I am killed is very simple, don’t give up!”