Is Vladimir Putin Setting the Stage for His Own Self-Destruction?

One of the problems with dictatorships is that eventually they believe their own propaganda even as their subjugated public often begins to recognize that they have been spoon fed lies while news outlets disseminating the truth are stifled.  It happened under some of the Tsars, most certainly in the later days of Nazi Germany, obviously under the regime that ruled the former Soviet Union, and to a lesser extent in China today.  The problem is that sooner or later, objective reality and inconvenient facts - the truth, if you will, show the lie that has been perpetrated on the subjugated public.  The reckoning can be severe and fatal.  Ask Mussolini.   Andrew Sullivan speculates that Vladimir Putin has created a nightmare scenario for himself that offers no gracious exit notwithstanding Putin's pandering to right wing extremists in Russia and to the leaders of the Orthodox Church (I hope Sullivan is correct) .  Here are highlights:

 

There’s always a moment – sooner or later – when a regime propped up by lies will have to account for an empirical reality that refutes it and threatens to bring the entire edifice down. That’s the potentially game-changing significance of MH17, it seems to me.

Here’s Putin’s strange 13 minute address to Russians today on foreign policy – after his deeply weird televised address at 2 am. He’s visibly panicking; and the faces of his colleagues are quite a study: . . . .   Notice the petulant raging at Ukraine and then the litany of paranoia and isolation: “we know what’s really going on.” No wonder the Russian population had to be talked down from widespread panic at the thought of an imminent invasion by the West! That’s how far Putin had ratcheted up the hysteria – a very dangerous place for a leader with nukes to be in. A reader who has been monitoring the Russian Internet writes:

As you can imagine, the last few days have been a rollercoaster ride on the runet. The first reaction to the downing of MH17 was panic. They were trying to shoot down Putin’s plane! Two doubles took off from Amsterdam at the same time, one filled with corpses who all had new passports and totally new Facebook pages!

The second wave of the pro-Putinists was despair – “It is all over now! The only thing standing between us and slavery to Western interests is our beloved Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin!”

Now, already, it seems that they are quickly realizing that “everything has changed.” The anti-Putin journalists and posters are becoming much more courageous than they have been in recent months about opposing Putin directly. Here is a piece from Slon.ru, the Russian version of Salon:

“The nighttime address to the nation was something unprecedented, and even more unprecedented was its content, in the sense that there was no content in this speech at all. Why did Putin call up his press service, cameramen, make-up artists, and internet site workers and many others at 2 in the morning? Just to repeat once more that there would have been no tragedy if there hadn’t been any war in the Donbass, to call for peace negotiations and inviting ICAO aviation experts to the site of the crash? Couldn’t these two and a half points waited until the morning?”

The pro-Putin people have seen their arguments fall to pieces against the reality of the situation. Putin is being portrayed as in a total panic. The anti-Putin forces are worried about what he might do in such a state, but he is no longer being seen as the magician in control.

Today, the Europeans finally approved of a host of new sanctions, yet to be implemented. That may give Putin some room to climb down. But it won’t be easy. That’s the look on Putin’s face. It’s called rattled.

In his own dangerous way, Putin is just as insane as Adolph Hitler and one does need to worry about what he might do now that his little adventure in Ukraine is unraveling.  Meanwhile, if the Russian people want the future that they deserve, the first step is to drive Putin and his cronies from office and replace him/them with people who give a damn about average Russian instead of enriching themselves, stashing money in secret foreign bank accounts and satiating their own megalomania.