Three years ago, I fled Russia because of death threats I received due to my work as a journalist for the last liberal radio station in Russia, Echo of Moscow. The threats came shortly after Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov announced open season on journalists in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris. 700,000 people rallied in Grozny at his summons, in support of Islam and condemning the murdered journalists. On his Instagram account—which was ultimately shut down—he first threatened former Yukos owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky, then Echo’s editor-in-chief Alexei Venediktov, and soon all of Echo’s journalists.
For a split second, there was a moment of ambiguity in how Vladimir Putin might approach the situation. He seemed to be pausing when he didn’t immediately comment on Kadyrov’s actions. There was a sustained public outcry at the time, and it looked like the Russian President might intervene. But he chose not to, and simply stayed silent on the matter. (Needless to say, official Russian human rights institutions kept silent, too.)
Less than two months later, a prominent Russian opposition leader, and one of Putin’s sharpest critics, Boris Nemtsov, was shot dead not far from the Kremlin by Chechen gunmen. Nemtsov, who was an advocate for the passage of the Magnitsky Act, and who counted the late Senator John McCain as a close ally, had been a target of intimidation for years, especially since the 2011-2012 Moscow protests against Putin. While many Americans may have heard of Nemtsov, very few know how the threats started. In the summer of 2011, pro-Kremlin activists threw a toilet bowl on Nemtsov’s car. It happened at night, the car was empty, and no one was hurt. It took less than four years to get from an act of political vandalism to an assassination. Kadyrov, in the meantime, rose to international prominence with his grotesque record of human rights violations (up to and including murder) against the beleaguered LGBT community in Chechnya.
A year ago, a colleague of mine, Tatiana Felgengauer, was stabbed in the neck right in Echo’s offices in Moscow. She miraculously survived. Three weeks before the attack, Russian state TV had run a news piece accusing Felgengauer of being liberal and “working for the West”—that her salary was paid for by the U.S. State Department and George Soros. (Echo, incidentally, is owned by Gazprom.)
These days, we have the head of the National Guard, General Viktor Zolotov, publishing YouTube clips promising to “make mincemeat” of opposition leader Alexey Navalny.
Vladimir Putin did not condemn the attack on Felgengauer, and he hasn’t said anything about Zolotov’s threats. He did comment on the stabbing, however: It had nothing to do with politics, or freedom of speech, he said. It was just the insane act of a sick man.
An authoritarian leader with a natural instinct for political survival and a pinch of smarts, Vladimir Putin has been relying on hatred as his go-to mobilization tool. He legitimized his rule early on the back of the bloody second Chechen war. And when that concluded, he found another group of people to be his chosen enemies: liberals—which is code for anyone who opposes him. (Russia’s “non-systemic” opposition is notoriously divided on many issues, including liberalism, however construed.)
In 2014, Ukrainians were added to the list.
Putin and his propaganda machine have leveraged all manner of invective against Russia’s “liberals”: “enemies of the people,” “paid by the Americans,” “trying to destroy the greatness of Russia.” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov was crystal clear when offering commentary on the 2012 Moscow protests: “Protesters who hurt riot police should have their livers smeared on the pavement,” he said. It played well with Putin’s hard-core base. Much of the broadcast media, some owned by private businesses close to Putin, toed the line. Two years after Peskov’s comments, the hatred routine was well-practiced: The vast majority of Russians quickly approved the invasion of Ukraine after it happened.
Hatred gives easy answers to complicated questions. Politicians know that. Intellectuals should know that.
Trump knows Obama didn’t wiretap him, and Soros didn’t pay the protestors at the Kavanaugh hearing. The Republicans in Congress know that. The conservative media outlet owners and journalists probably know that. Those who know, use hatred for one purpose only: to stay in power.
It’s not that voters are stupid, but it’s that they don’t pay close attention. They sense the mood, and the mood is threatening. And those who can’t tell a lie from the truth, and end up believing all the stories about President Obama, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, CNN, and everyone else in opposition to Donald Trump—well, they know what they have to do, if they’re daring enough.
Thankfully, no one was hurt in yesterday’s pipe bomb mailings destined for prominent opponents of President Donald Trump—or better put, those whom the American President has publicly labeled as enemies, bad people, enemies of the people, and dishonest—wrongfully but purposefully accusing them of things they have never done. But these are not one-off events, and history tells us where all this leads. And President Trump has already shown that he will double down.
Hatred is a universal feeling, and is used as a political tool universally. Many Americans I talk to usually shake their heads when I try to draw parallels between the dangerous tendencies I’ve seen develop with my own eyes in Russia, and what I’m seeing happen here in the United States. They answer me by invoking the “power of institutions” to keep the worst at bay. They say that America is not Russia.
And indeed it is not. But the evil tricks that worked in Russia do work in America, and in the very same way.
It’s true that the shooting attack on Republican lawmakers last year came out of this same atmosphere of hatred. Words and gestures, especially when wielded by leaders, have enormous consequences. No politician should call for violence. But since Trump and the Republicans hold all three branches of government at the moment, yesterday’s attack is fully their responsibility: the overall tone in the country is of their own making. And if that tone leads to leftists shooting Republicans, the end result is the same: Violence against the party in power ultimately benefits the party in power.
Make no mistake, all leaders know how these things work. They act with purpose. Those of us who do understand what is going on should look to Russia’s experience. And believe me when I tell you, you don’t want to live in a country like Russia.