Epshtein is the chief executive officer of the Renew Democracy Initiative and chairs the Peace & Dialogue Leadership Initiative.
From our brief interaction, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny probably thought I was — generously speaking — naive.
I met Navalny in 2010 when he was a Yale World Fellow and I was an undergraduate. Over coffee, I asked him if I could work for him in Russia over the summer. Influenced by my Soviet-born, anti-communist parents, and shielded from harm by my American hubris and passport, I had grown up with the romantic notion of a swashbuckling life combating dictatorship.
Navalny patiently, perhaps with some amusement, informed me that what he was doing was illegal and not particularly conducive to a summer internship for an American college student. His underlying point was more direct: If you take a vacation from democracy, you might not return. Russia isn’t the sort of place where an 18-year-old American kid could just drop in for eight weeks, agitate against the leader, have some kvass and then come back stateside for the fall semester.
Now I’m safely writing from Virginia with a cup of coffee in my hand and Navalny is dead in an Arctic penal colony, murdered by Vladimir Putin. The Russian state will not even allow his mother to conduct a proper burial.
Perhaps most tragically of all, Putin had help, not only from his cronies in the Kremlin but from useful idiots, tankies, and cynical self-promoters in the West who offered him the legitimacy and impunity he needed to silence the press, invade his neighbors, and kill one of his most prominent opponents. Every handshake with a Western leader, every call for Ukraine to offer concessions, every cynical justification offered for Putin’s actions was another nail in Navalny’s coffin. The actions (and inaction) of Western leaders have real consequences for those living under the heel of authoritarianism.
Change in countries like Russia can only come from within but it can be supported (or thwarted) from without. When Western leaders treat Putin as a respected peer, they legitimize him in front of his own people. Justifying his actions and claiming that they are no worse than perceived U.S. misdeeds undermines the Russian dictator’s domestic opponents by overshadowing their harrowing and true tales of oppression. It may well be no accident that Navalny’s death followed so closely on the heels of Tucker Carlson and Putin’s puppet show earlier this month. After all, if a “leading American voice” is willing to come to Moscow and meekly submit to Putin over the course of a two-hour “interview” at the same time that the speaker of the House reflexively dismisses support to one of our closest allies in Eastern Europe, then is it such a stretch for Putin to conclude that free societies are too divided to actually hold him accountable?
How many times over the last century have we learned that dictators never stop – that they are stopped? Sensing the West’s weakness, division and lack of resolve, Putin saw an opportunity and he took it. At a panel in Dubai, Carlson was asked why he didn’t bring up the plight of Navalny and the other regime critics Putin had already assassinated.
“Every leader kills people,” Carlson blithely retorted. “Leadership requires killing people.”
It could very well have been a preemptive justification for an action Tucker intuited Putin might take soon. His callous and cynical response offers an incredible contrast in style, substance and spirit to the bravery that Alexei Navalny demonstrated. Nearly three years ago, Navalny was in Berlin having narrowly survived a poisoning attempt by Putin. He could have remained there, ensconced in the relative (but not foolproof) security that distance and democracy provide. Yet he chose to return to Russia, hoping that his example might spark a movement of people fed up with Putin’s dictatorship. And thousands of people did take to the streets, but they were mercilessly suppressed by Putin’s thugs. While Tucker was welcomed with open arms on his pilgrimage to Moscow to pay tribute to his political idol in the Kremlin, Navalny was arrested and imprisoned immediately upon his arrival.
And he isn’t the only one. There are countless people filling dictators’ prisons and body bags who refused to back down – who took upon themselves the incredible risk that comes with fighting for a better future for their children while living in a dictatorship. Considering how many people in the free world abuse their freedom to carry water for dictators, it’s worth asking what motivates the incredible individuals who put everything on the line to confront them.
My friend and Renew Democracy Initiative colleague Evan Mawarire faced a similar dilemma to Navalny’s back in 2017. Evan, a pastor, had launched a protest movement against Zimbabwe’s strongman ruler, Robert Mugabe, and was imprisoned shortly thereafter. He was forced to flee — but ultimately chose to go back to Zimbabwe, consigning himself to more time in a maximum security prison, to more hours being tortured by a dictator's goons.
After Navalny famously stepped off the plane in Moscow, Evan reflected on the reasoning behind his own decision to return: “To send a message simultaneously to both dictator Mugabe and the people of our nation, that a new generation of freedom seekers was no longer prepared to run from the regime.” For those living under the yoke of dictatorship, fighting for freedom is not only a full-time job, but one for which you may have to be willing to give your last full measure of devotion. Navalny refused to ask a naive American college kid to take that risk, but he didn’t hesitate to take it himself.
That is why he went home.
An Independent Voter's Perspective on Current Political Divides
In the column, "Is Donald Trump Right?", Fulcrum Executive Editor, Hugo Balta, wrote:
For millions of Americans, President Trump’s second term isn’t a threat to democracy—it’s the fulfillment of a promise they believe was long overdue.
Is Donald Trump right?
Should the presidency serve as a force for disruption or a safeguard of preservation?
Balta invited readers to share their thoughts at newsroom@fulcrum.us.
David Levine from Portland, Oregon, shared these thoughts...
I am an independent voter who voted for Kamala Harris in the last election.
I pay very close attention to the events going on, and I try and avoid taking other people's opinions as fact, so the following writing should be looked at with that in mind:
Is Trump right? On some things, absolutely.
As to DEI, there is a strong feeling that you cannot fight racism with more racism or sexism with more sexism. Standards have to be the same across the board, and the idea that only white people can be racist is one that I think a lot of us find delusional on its face. The question is not whether we want equality in the workplace, but whether these systems are the mechanism to achieve it, despite their claims to virtue, and many of us feel they are not.
I think if the Democrats want to take back immigration as an issue then every single illegal alien no matter how they are discovered needs to be processed and sanctuary cities need to end, every single illegal alien needs to be found at that point Democrats could argue for an amnesty for those who have shown they have been Good actors for a period of time but the dynamic of simply ignoring those who break the law by coming here illegally is I think a losing issue for the Democrats, they need to bend the knee and make a deal.
I think you have to quit calling the man Hitler or a fascist because an actual fascist would simply shoot the protesters, the journalists, and anyone else who challenges him. And while he definitely has authoritarian tendencies, the Democrats are overplaying their hand using those words, and it makes them look foolish.
Most of us understand that the tariffs are a game of economic chicken, and whether it is successful or not depends on who blinks before the midterms. Still, the Democrats' continuous attacks on the man make them look disloyal to the country, not to Trump.
Referring to any group of people as marginalized is to many of us the same as referring to them as lesser, and it seems racist and insulting.
We invite you to read the opinions of other Fulrum Readers:
Trump's Policies: A Threat to Farmers and American Values
The Trump Era: A Bitter Pill for American Renewal
Federal Hill's Warning: A Baltimorean's Reflection on Leadership
Also, check out "Is Donald Trump Right?" and consider accepting Hugo's invitation to share your thoughts at newsroom@fulcrum.us.
The Fulcrum will select a range of submissions to share with readers as part of our ongoing civic dialogue.
We offer this platform for discussion and debate.