Cultural trauma is a very real thing.
If you’re a Boomer (or older), your cultural trauma was the JFK assassination: you remember exactly where you were when it happened. (I asked my Uncle Larry where he was, and he told me he was sprinting away from the grassy knoll. Then he slow-touched his nose. We don’t talk to Uncle Larry anymore.)
For Gen-Xers and millennials, the cultural trauma was 9/11. We can all recall where we were when we heard the news. And nearly a quarter-century later, it still colors our thoughts, fears, and expectations. We still think about it every single time we go to the airport. (Especially when we’re standing in a long line, playing the “I wonder who the terrorist is?” game in our heads.)
But as awful and tragic as the death of JFK and 9/11 were, other countries carry deeper, uglier scars — the sort of scarring that produces unspeakable generational trauma.
Because, again, as awful and tragic as 9/11 was, the total loss of life was roughly 3,000. And that’s an enormous number! Most of us know people who were personally affected.
Still, it was 3,000 in a nation of 285 million.
In 1939, the Soviet census recorded the population at 170.4 million. And in World War II, nearly 30 MILLION Russians/Soviets died.
And that’s on top of the 1.8 million Russian soldiers who died in World War I, the highest number of military casualties of any nation.
Question: If you think America was traumatized by 9/11, how do you think Russia feels about the wars of the 20th century?
But it’s actually deeper than that, because it precedes the 1900s: Napoleon tried it. (Roughly 400,000 Russians died.) The Mongols tried it. Lots of others have, too.
Russian territory is difficult to defend. Their history books repeat the same damn story: When your borders are vulnerable, your enemies invade you and millions die. So the smartest strategy is to push your borders out as far as you can and secure a more-defendable perimeter.
Kind of like what they had in the days of the USSR.
This is why Russia invaded Ukraine. You can’t understand the war — or bring peace to the region — without understanding Russia’s underlying cultural trauma.
For many reasons, Russians tend to interpret the world through the prism of history books. (A phenomenon that was certainly on full display during the opening screed of Putin’s interview with Tucker Carlson.) And that makes Putin’s reaction to Joe Biden’s recent pardoning of Hunter Biden so fascinating.
Naturally, the immediate Russian reaction was to lampoon Biden’s decision, calling the U.S. “a caricature of democracy.” But until this week, we hadn’t heard Putin’s personal reaction to Hunter Biden’s pardon.
Hilariously, the American media reporting is so sanitized, you can’t really make sense of what Putin meant. Reuters reported: “Putin says Biden’s pardon of his son showed US leader is more human than politician.” The article had only two sentences:
U.S. President Joe Biden's decision to pardon his son Hunter showed that Biden is more human than politician, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, saying he could not reproach Biden for it.
Hunter Biden was prosecuted for tax offences and charges related to the possession of a firearm.
They almost make it sound positive, don’t they!
Fortunately, we also have the RT.com version, which tells a far different story:
Putin was telling the world that Biden was less honorable than Joseph Stalin, one of the most brutal, cold-hearted mass murders in history:
“He is a politician,” Putin said of Biden. “And it is always important what is more in you — a politician or a human being. It turned out that Biden is more of a human being. I would not condemn him for this.”
He’s not saying that as a complement! He’s saying that Biden is corrupt!
Because, as the article explained, Putin went on to cite history (of course he did; he’s Russian), and pointed out that Joseph Stalin once had to make an eerily similar decision.
In 1943, Stalin’s son, Yakov, was a prisoner in a German concentration camp. The Nazis offered to return him — in exchange for German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus.
Stalin refused: “I will not exchange a field marshal for a soldier.”
Yakov Stalin died in a German concentration camp.
“Things were different then,” Putin emphasized.
When Putin said that Biden is “more of a human being,” he was telling the world that Biden put his “human” responsibilities ahead of his presidential obligations. And because of it, he’s more corrupt and less honorable that Joseph freaking Stalin.
January 20 can’t get here fast enough.
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