Trump, Putin, Netanyahu

Rule and Ruin

Heading into 2024, I anticipated “The Year of the Bully,” referring to Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu. Now that we are halfway through 2025, using a schoolyard epithet to describe the rulers of the United States, Russia, and Israel was very far short of who they have proven to be.

Their world, which is also ours, is enmeshed in wars, vengeance, and repression, and this trio of leaders are at the center and, in many respects, the cause of it all. The ceasefires they announce — in Ukraine, Gaza, and now between Israel and Iran — do not solve problems. Instead, they provide cover for whatever mayhem will come next, because none of these deeply rooted issues has been resolved.

Next year, the United States will be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. As a comparison of then and now, it is worth considering who was in charge of the U.S., the Soviet Union, and Israel on the 200th anniversary, in 1976.

The United States was led by an unelected president, Gerald R. Ford, the inheritor of Watergate and the humiliation of the U.S. in the Indochina conflicts. He was on his way to defeat in November by Jimmy Carter (only recently “Jimmy who?”).

At the helm of the USSR was Communist Party General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, already doddering after a stroke or two and destined to lead the Soviet Union until 1982, as it meandered towards its implosion in 1991.

Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin would have to resign in 1977 because of a financial imbroglio involving his wife, only to return to power fifteen years later as a peacemaker. He was assassinated by an Israeli right-wing activist in 1995.

The current version of political dominance in all three countries has transcended the boundaries of restraint in pursuit of their nationalist self-interested objectives: territorial expansion, trouncing the opposition, and overturning the rule of law.

Trump has breezed past impeachments, indictments, business bankruptcies, and an assassination attempt, reveling in his power with ALL CAPS diatribes on his personal social media account, backed by an administration that follows his dictates and goes largely unchallenged by demoralized and fractious Democrats.

When the Russian mercenary mogul Yevgeny Prigozhin launched a march on Moscow in 2023, his days of life were numbered, a message to anyone in Russia (or elsewhere) with an inclination to take Putin to task, let alone take him down.

Netanyahu, on what seems an endless trial for corruption, has made the Jewish state a source of relentless violence against enemies and the civilian populations with the misfortune of being anywhere in juxtaposition to them. Not even Russia’s invasion of Ukraine aroused the antagonism of so many Americans as did Israel’s assault on Gaza, which has inspired notable increases in anti-Semitism.

The instincts motivating these regimes increasingly resemble Germany, Italy, and Japan at the start of World War II — with one very important difference. That was before the nuclear age; Trump, Putin, and even Netanyahu has the capacity to demolish civilization almost completely without sending troops into battle.

In that 2024 bullies piece, I thought it unlikely that the U.S. election cycle would end with President Biden running against former President Trump. But what happened was arguably worse. Vice President Kamala Harris, a person of color and a woman, was defeated, and Biden was derided as feeble mentally and physically (before he was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer).

Yes, it does seem overwhelming.

There are so many pronouncements of emergency, crises, and declarations of doom that the impact is numbing. It is now summer, and the instinct of people to want a rest competes with cataclysms they do not and cannot control. Even seasonal screen blockbusters — Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, for example, — features themes aligned with those blockbuster bombs on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

So, where does this aggregation of tumult culminate?

History is a succession of eras, involving turmoil (the American Revolution, the Civil War, the world wars, the rise and fall of empires) followed by the survivors’ recovery. Germany, Italy, and Japan were defeated. The Soviet Union imploded, the U.S. went through periods of disarray (most recently in the 1960s), followed by peace and prosperity sufficient for the country to endure — and, it can be said, enjoy — the spectacle of a president being impeached for a dalliance with an intern.

The factors that have brought these times to their present perilous state have antecedents in the pursuit of power in all its forms, which is an immutable human trait. This era, as have all those that preceded, will inevitably come to a close.

Then the consequences will have to be managed by whatever and whoever emerges in charge.

There is no ready political formula for navigating past the influences of Trump, Putin, and Netanyahu except the full assertion of popular will, bringing to mind the hoariest of clichés: “prepare for the worst and hope for the best,” with every one of us taking responsibility for our own role, however limited.

Agency — the capacity of individuals to shape outcomes with action, from protest, to defiance and for those eighteen and over, the vote — does persist. A ponderous bromide for sure, but worth remembering. The urge not to be overcome with angst is strong in vacation months. At the least now, we should recognize how serious matters have become.