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On this special emergency edition of Texting, ironically dubbed “Sympathy for the Devil,” Tomek and I dissect Tucker Carlson’s recent interview with Vladimir Putin. My co-host and I are both expats from the States who consider ourselves neither Putin puppets nor NATO stooges, but whereas I am a self-described “dumbass American who loves Dostoevsky and Tolstoy and hates Rocky IV,” Tomek actually lives in Russia, is married to a Russian national (of Tatar ethnicity), and is half-Polish on the maternal side, so his perspective on the current “text” is particularly valuable. Press play above to hear our entire unfiltered discussion and then tell us whether we succeeded at recording “a talk show or a serious conversation.”
The video version of the pod, although currently unlisted lest Tomek mysteriously fall out of a window, is up on my YouTube channel as well. You can watch it here:
Show Notes
The music at the beginning of the audio version is Modest Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain:
Here’s the imposing figure of Rurik, invoked by Putin during his “history lesson” at the beginning of the interview:
If you haven’t seen Oliver Stone’s interviews with Putin, I recommend them. Check out this trailer:
Seymour Hersh’s Substack post “How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline” is unfortunately behind a paywall, but the title alone speaks volumes, does it not?
Wikipedia considers the “Golden Billion” to be a “conspiracy theory”—which leads me to believe there may be some truth to it.
Here are Lech, Czech, and Rus, the brothers who according to legend founded the nations of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Russia respectively:
Remember this monstrosity?
We thought it would be good to get at least one take on the Tucker-Putin interview from an actual Russian, so here’s Tomek’s friend Fyodor’s reaction:
I want to start by saying that this is truly a historical interview. After all, this was the first interview with American media since the beginning of the war. In my opinion, the interview will have a significant impact on the global community. Many people on the Internet say that Putin has already said everything stated in the interview at various speeches, and that this interview brought absolutely nothing new, and therefore it is futile. It is true that Putin said almost all of this at other speeches. But here everything is brought together, and as philosophy tells us: “The whole thing is always more valuable than the sum of the parts taken separately.” Therefore, the interview will influence people. Many people say that Putin's strategy will only weaken his ratings. “Putin is burying himself, because those who did not like him before, because of the start of the war, only strengthened their opinion, as well as the fact that those who were for Putin began to root for him more.” It is a big mistake to think so linearly. The situation of changing plus to minus or minus to plus is not described here. I would take 4 groups of people: for/against Putin, for/against the war: Group 1. Those who did not like Putin and were against the war stayed the same. Group 2. Those who did not like Putin, but, for example, having more authoritarian views than group 1, could support Russia’s military policy, and therefore would change their opinion about Putin to a positive one. Group 3. Those who were for Putin, but against the war changed their opinion about him to negative. Group 4. Those who were for Putin and supported him in the military operation also strengthened their support for the president. In addition, now, right before the elections, a very big question arises: who will take the helm? Some believe that we shouldn’t bring this war operation to completion, and that a sudden change of leader will provide a chance to stop all this. But what happens next? A sharp decline in sanctions? I don't think so. Abrupt friendship between other countries and Russia? No. The machine is already running. Other, in my opinion, intelligent people understand that only the one who started it can complete the work started. And here there are clearly more guarantees of stability. You should agree that a double change in policy (at first starting the war, and then a sudden end, in fact a “white flag”) of a country leads to much greater instability than a single change. I recently read Jurassic Park. It said: “Flaws in system will now become severe”. In this iteration, since the beginning of the war, Russia has experienced many difficulties. But if there is a next iteration - a sharp change in policy (to quit the war), then the book gives another good quote: “System recovery may prove impossible.” So, I consider Putin’s re-election the best and most rational option.
Sympathy for the Devil