Kamala and the World

The Promise of a Harris Presidency Has Forced Putin, Netanyahu and Others to Rethink Their Plans

Imagine you are Vladimir Putin. I know. It’s not easy. But all of us have a little totalitarian dictator in us somewhere. Take your shirt off. Wrestle a bear. Push somebody off a balcony. Eventually, the Putin vibe will settle in.

So, there you are, sitting at your long table in the Kremlin, waiting for your food taster to make sure your favorite dinner of borscht and elk testicles has not been poisoned by one of the millions of Russians who hate you, and you get the latest polling data from the United States. You see that Kamala Harris has opened up a lead on Donald Trump. You read the intelligence report and see that Trump is despondent, losing his grip, rambling uncontrollably when he speaks to the press but largely hiding out in that garish house of his, so over-the-top even your oligarch friends see it as a kind of cathedral of cheese.

“Shit!”, you think. “дерьмо!” “дерьмо, дерьмо, дерьмо!!!”

All of a sudden those elk testicles, even though they are perfectly grilled, just as brown and crispy on the outside and still gooey and chewy on the inside as you like them, don’t look so tasty any more.

Trump was your ace in the hole. Trump was the way to beat those damned Ukrainians. In fact, Trump was the only way to beat those damned Ukrainians and now the fat old pedophile is letting you down at just the wrong moment. You should have known better. He was always a just barely useful idiot and frankly, his insistence on kissing your toes while in private was a little weird.

You make a note to ask Bortnikov if there are balconies at Mar-a-Lago. After all, while JD Vance is slimier and even more spineless than any Lake Baikal nematode but he seems to be even more loyal to the Kremlin than Trump. But, come to think of it, based on his pathetic campaign performance so far, there is no way he could win.

Elections! Such decadent Western wastes of time!

After all this time, after obliterating much of the combat capacity of the Russian Army, after spending hundreds of billions of dollars (billions of rubles), it was all going to be undone by this damned Harris woman! At first, you didn’t know what to make of her, but then, as you watched her develop as vice president, read her speeches at the Munich Security Conference or the Ukraine peace conference, watched her meet with over 150 world leaders, get tough with Netanyahu, work to contain China, something in your gut said she was going to be trouble. Why couldn’t more women leaders be reasonable and pliable and devoid of values like Marine Le Pen and not as tough and smart as Merkel or Clinton or this Harris, this lawyer.

Does she think I am like Trump, just another criminal she can prosecute and put away? Wait. Maybe she does. Maybe she’s right. Even this borscht is tasting strange. “Ekaterina,” you call out to your attendant, “bring me some activated charcoal. I’m feeling sick.”

Because you’re Putin, you go through the usual list of distractions you use when you need to divert yourself from the hardships of being a modern day czar. But none of them, ordering attacks on Ukrainian shopping centers and children’s hospitals, demanding your enemies get a double helping of polonium in their morning cereal, having Ekaterina perform one of her special rhythmic gymnastics routines…none of them seem to work. You’re seething. How did this happen? What do we do now? Does this mean that little Jewish comedian in Kyiv will be getting more weapons? More support? That NATO won’t actually be disbanded and sold for parts as that blubbery orange idiot had promised? What if we start to lose? What if she lets them use weapons against Russian targets and they invade deeper and deeper into the Motherland?

Will I actually have to negotiate? Will I actually have to pull out of Ukraine? Will I have to give Crimea back?!? I loved Crimea. Seizing Crimea was my jam. It was so me, so Putin. And now it is all going to come undone.

You call Lukashenka and then Orban to complain but they both have the same worries. Orban is sounding a little feisty even, like maybe he thinks he picked the wrong side. Come to think of it, you never trusted him either. Xi Jinping won’t even take your call.

Bibi Netanyahu on the other hand talks your ear off in that condescending ponderous style of his. He too was counting on Trump to ride to the rescue. And he too wonders if a Harris-Walz administration may be harder to deal with even than Joe Biden was because Harris and Walz both care about things like “human rights.” (You both sniff in disgust at the same time.)

All this is particularly galling because you have already heard via your network of spies across Europe that leaders are celebrating in private and toasting the health and good fortune of Harris because they believe she not only can stop Trump from destroying the Atlantic Alliance but that she may help finally put a stake through the heart of Trump-Orban-Farage-LePen-Netanyahu right wing autocratphilia.

Damn this woman. Even the Africans and those in South America feel she will likely direct greater attention to them than they have received since Obama or Bush. The Indians are thrilled that a woman with an Indian mother will be the next American president and although Modi is rightly wary she will not be tolerant of his efforts to undermine Indian democracy or promote Hindu nationalism, he also knows her and is aware that she feels the Indian relationship will be essential in counterbalancing China.

Damn. At 1:45 on July 21, the world was heading in the right direction. Although Biden was a pain in the ass, it appeared he was going to lose and all would be well. Now, not even three weeks later, she is showing unbelievable strength, massive crowds are turning out for her, she is building real leads in the polls and I know all our analysts think she is going to win (although they don’t say it because they know that if they tell me the truth I will toss them out the window.)

Shit! дерьмо!