On the same day as the Engoron ruling, Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition leader who ran for office against Russia’s President Putin, “died” in the Polar Wolf penal colony after taking a walk. Putin's fiercest domestic critic was already serving a 9-year sentence on fraud and embezzlement charges. In August 2023, Navalny was saddled with an additional nineteen years in prison after the court found he financed and incited "extremist activities" via his defunct Anti-Corruption Foundation. Judges also said Navalny was guilty of "rehabilitating Nazi ideology."
Sound familiar?
The most remarkable thing about the two separate events (Trump and Navalny) is the Western Left’s reaction. Presidents and government officials throughout America and Europe as well as the G7 flooded the airwaves expressing collective outrage at what happened to Navalny. They blame Putin, whom Biden called a “murderous dictator’ and “pure thug.”
However, Biden’s reaction to the Engoron ruling as well as European rulers and the G7 has been a masterclass in irony. The very same freedom fighters are cheering on a legal apparatus that from stem to stern, ignores the rule of law and creates whatever it wants to ensnare the populist candidate and keep Biden—or whatever they replace him with—on the throne. There are major differences between Trump and Navalny but the overlap is they both took on the establishment, sweeping government corruption, and advocated for reforms. This is precisely why both are punished by rulers in regimes hostile to freedom.
Here’s what the highest-ranking elected officials have to say about Navalny. “[It’s] a further sign of Putin’s brutality. Whatever story they tell, let us be clear: Russia is responsible,” says Vice President Harris. "In today's Russia, free-spirited people are sent to the gulag and doomed to death. Anger and indignation. I honor the memory of Alexei Navalny, his dedication and courage”, says France’s President Macron.
“It is obvious that he was killed by Putin,” says Ukrainian President Zelenskyy.
“He has probably now paid for this courage with his life”, says German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
And finally, lacking all self-awareness, Biden chimes in with, “We don’t know exactly what happened, but there is no doubt that the death of Navalny was a consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did.”
We are witnessing in real time an attempt by America's ruling class to Navalny Trump. Navalny was poisoned with a military nerve agent in 2020 and survived. Nevertheless, Navalny returned to Russia in 2021, explaining that "I don't want to give up either my country or my beliefs" and committing to fight the authoritarian system, just as Trump is doing now. For his trouble, Navalny was sentenced to a total of 30 ½ years in hell. Then, he went missing inside Russia's gulag in December. Navalny reemerged in a high-security penal colony in a remote town above the Arctic Circle. Russian authorities say he died of “sudden death syndrome.” He had bruises on his head and chest when his body arrived at the hospital last week.
Granted, unlike Navalny, Trump has not—yet—been sent to the proverbial Gulag. But America's own commissars are certainly trying their best to make that happen. Remember, Trump has been impeached twice. He has been arrested four times. He has been charged 91 times across four criminal cases. These include 44 federal charges and 47 state charges. Trump faces 717.5 years in prison. The latest $355 million judgment is on top of others, including $88 million owed to E. Jean Carroll, who brought up the words “sexy” and “fantasy” when discussing what she said was rape and which no jury found Trump liable.
But here’s why Trump may succeed whereas Navalny succumbed: firstly, America is not yet Russia. We have lived under a Constitution for more than 240 years which was designed to prevent authoritarianism. Yes, the leftist elite is doing its best to maliciously "reimagine" that Constitution in order to target Trump and everyone who supports him, but appellate courts, up to and including SCOTUS, can still theoretically check them, whereas Russia has been governed by an autocracy for most of its history. The safeguards here are being deliberately weakened, yes, but in Russia, they never existed to begin with. That still matters, even if the Left is doing everything in its power to change it.
Secondly, Joe Biden is not Putin. Yes, his phantom administration aspires to the same level of power, but Putin is actually in control of his government, whereas Biden is a withered husk whose failings are obvious to everyone including his handpicked prosecutors. In Russia, if an official were to publicly say of Putin what Robert Hur said of Biden, that official might die of plutonium poisoning. Whereas Robert Hur is still alive and well, and so is Donald Trump. That does not necessarily mean that our tyrants do not have power, but it does mean that for now, they are less brazen about using it.
And finally, Trump is not Navalny, for a very simple reason: Trump actually was president. In fact, it's only because the memory of his four largely successful years in the White House compares so unfavorably to the chaos of the so-far three years of Biden that the Biden squad is chasing him with the determination of Captain Ahab. They know the January 6 committee wasn’t enough, but they hope trying to get Trump for a minimum of 717 years might be. If they were to catch and imprison him, as they hope, and the people were not convinced, then a Navalny-type solution might indeed be in the cards.
But first, they must catch him. And that they have not done. Donald Trump, even if he is hundreds of millions of dollars poorer, is still a free man. God willing, with his help, America will return to being a free country.
