‘The Glorious Revolution’ is the name usually given to the English ruling class’ overthrow of their King, James II, in 1688. It’s a complex story, but here’s a summary: At that time, most Englishmen were Protestant, and deeply suspicious that James, a convert to Catholicism, would try to make England a ‘Papist’ country again. To forestall that, a clique of the most powerful men in the realm persuaded William of Orange, leader of the Protestant Netherlands and husband of Mary Stuart – James’ Protestant daughter and first heir to his throne, after his young son – to sail, with Mary, to England to depose James, then become co-sovereigns.

This plan succeeded, virtually without bloodshed. When it became known that William and Mary were coming to claim his crown, James’ military command would not support him, nor would many of his most prominent subjects. With no army that would defend his hold on rule, James fled to France. The Presumptors arrived in England to widespread acclaim and approval, and were formally offered co-monarchy – contingent on their accepting several conditions including new, clear limits on their actual powers.

The royal couple agreed to those terms, and it was from this time that the executive supremacy of England’s Parliament over its Monarch began to irreversibly grow: The proto-version of the ‘Constitutional Monarchy’ of King Charles III’s impending coronation.

For in addition to its religious motives, the aim of 1688’s ‘palace coup’ was to preclude royal Absolutism as in France, whose King Louis XIV was virtual autocrat of his nation. England’s upper classes – indeed, most of society – wanted no such possible despotism, so henceforth their sovereign’s governance would be highly circumscribed, with more and more practical control gradually accruing to Parliament’s House of Commons (an elected body, but at the time, only male property-owners could vote). Eventually, the events of 1688 led to the successful version of Britain’s monarchy – with a King or Queen as nominal reporting authority and political backstop of last resort, but not day-to-day leader – that he, or she, is now.

It was indeed a ‘Glorious Revolution’ that such fundamental change happened with so little violent resistance, and led to a robust, durable socio-political framework. The nation’s ruling classes effectively ‘established’ themselves, not the monarch, as having supreme political jurisdiction. This would shift over generations, as literacy and economic influence became more widespread, to ‘majority rule’ with voting rights for virtually all adults.

But my title for this post, ‘Inglorious Revolution,’ alludes to a simmering suspicion regarding events some 250 years later, in 1936, which may still have implications for Charles III. The accompanying photo shows his great uncle, King Edward VIII, speaking into a radio microphone to deliver his abdication speech in that year, announcing to the world that he was giving up his throne to marry his twice-divorced American mistress, Wallis Warfield-Simpson.

At that time, as official head of the Church of England (Anglicanism), a British monarch was not allowed to wed a divorced person, but Edward made the monumental decision to yield his regal stature so he could make Wallis his wife. He was succeeded by his unprepared younger brother Albert as King George VI, father of the late Queen Elizabeth, and King Charles’ grandfather. After abdicating, Edward went into voluntary exile and duly married Wallis, but putting his personal happiness before the great office expected of him caused him to be largely ostracized by his family, disrespected by much of the British public, and to rarely set foot in the United Kingdom till his death in 1972.

Almost since he renounced the crown, there has been a drip of innuendo to suggest that Edward had not been fit to be King anyway. Beyond abandoning his responsibilities, which implied he had no sense of duty, after his abdication (but still before World War II) he and Wallis were public, ostentatious admirers of Nazism. It is suspected Hitler hoped to restore him to the throne and make Wallis Queen, if Germany conquered Britain in the war he was already planning. Worse, British Secret Service records hint that Edward was not unwilling to listen to such overtures from Hitler, an inexcusable disloyalty in one who had once personified his country. And after the War, he was involved in some base business deals that would have been rejected by any ‘man of honor.’

However: If Edward VIII didn’t have a sterling character, neither did many of his royal predecessors. For example, his grandfather King Edward VII had been so lascivious as Prince of Wales he was often referred to as ‘Dirty Bertie.’ And the reckless, tin-eared extravagance of George IV could well have ignited a French-style Revolution in Britain. Besides, many other blue-blooded Brits have famously acted anything but ‘noble.’ Edward’s position, and his antics with Wallis were so prominent and overt that, supposedly, they couldn’t just be discreetly overlooked; yet those of at least two ignoble Kings in the modern era had been.

While I have no reason to doubt that abdicating for personal romance was selfish and indifferent to consequences – upsetting society and threatening the exalted position he was born to hold (and source of all his privilege), the monarchy itself, that his affinity for Nazism, his petulance about his later treatment by his family and the British public, and his vulgar grasping for shady profit, etc. – are all true, there has also been indismissible evidence that his fall was ultimately due to something more than just his attachment to Mrs. Simpson.

It has been suggested that Edward’s insistence on marrying Wallis, a supposed deal-breaker that meant he absolutely could not remain King, could have been ‘finessed’ somehow. For example, Parliament might have devised some legal dispensation for him to marry his American divorcée, but instead, Wallis got used as a convenient pretext to get rid of him in as little unseemly a manner as possible.

In this interpretation, he actually was, in effect, deposed because his approach to kingly duties had alarmed some powerful domestic interests. His outlook, temperament and pleasure-seeking lifestyle were the opposite of those of his arch-respectable father/predecessor George V, and not only did he embrace far looser etiquette, he showed overt disdain, even contempt, for the petrified rituals of the royal court, much affronting Britain’s ruling caste.

But more crucially, as Prince of Wales during the early 1930’s – the Great Depression – and during his short reign after the death of his father early in 1936, Edward had been visible (and fairly candid) in suggesting that the government was not doing enough to help people who had lost their jobs, homes, or were otherwise still suffering in the aftermath of the economic turmoil.

Edward, who had always been rich and privileged, presumably had no idea of the intricacies of public financial and employment policy needed to provide such help. But he could see that many of his common people were enduring privation, while those who might have known how to fund social relief – the government, and especially the business community – didn’t want to raise taxes to aid their fellow citizens, or otherwise further complicate their own affairs at such a challenging time. So even if Edward wasn’t especially virtuous, in that instance he appeared to be aware of and empathic to the distress of his many suffering subjects.

Which was far more than could be said of many members of Britain’s higher social strata – both hereditary and ‘in trade’ – at the time. But for them, some of his public deeds and statements came too close to forbidden royal meddling in politics; and worse, to outright populism. His perceived ‘socialist’ sympathies made him a favorite of a great deal of the public, even when he was no longer King; and thus a lingering anxiety for Britain’s ‘Establishment’.

Much criticism rightly attaches to his later visits as a private citizen to Nazi Germany and personal meeting with Hitler. But the reality may be a bit more nuanced; one reason Edward (like a great many other people of all classes in Britain and elsewhere) felt Nazism couldn’t be all bad was because under it, Germany had virtually solved its unemployment problems, and generally appeared more efficient, dynamic and forward-looking than the Democracies, still struggling with the effects of the Depression.  Besides, Hitler was a stout foe of Communism, which was then the primary nightmare of both middle class citizens, and the economic elite of the UK. (No doubt, including some of those who had contrived or approved of Edward’s downfall.)

I don’t know if the Duke of Windsor (the title Edward was given after abdicating) realized how much of the Third Reich’s prosperity was due to Hitler’s accelerating rearmament program in violation of the Treaty of Versailles at the end of the Great War. In that, along with other public works programs, millions of unemployed Germans found jobs. Thus, if one averted one’s eyes from Nazism’s ghastly facets – especially its violence against Jews (if Edward was ‘anti-Semitic,’ like a great many Englishmen, it was likelier to be stodgy social bias than murderous hatred), but also its egocentric pro-Aryan racism, its overt preparations to plunge Europe into war again, and any number of other less visible criminal intents – it might indeed appear to be ‘successful’ in ways that Democracy, encumbered by elections, rule of law, respect for individual rights, the search for political consensus, etc. – did not.

Such obstacles are easily, if inconclusively, overcome in any nation run by a dictator unanswerable to elected representatives or the citizenry. At the time, Mussolini, head of Fascist Italy, also got a lot of admiration, like Hitler, as a ‘doer,’ rather than a ‘talker.’ (A grim lesson; if strength is all you value in a ruler, you will eventually get savagery, when strength alone cannot overcome the practical complexities of rule.)

In this version of events, the real reason the ‘Establishment’ decided Edward had to go was not so much about Wallis – though her being a flippant, irreverent divorced American was indeed a problem for many of them – as about the prospect of a charismatic, seemingly open-minded king, whose office and aura might give him standing to insert input into official policy. As far as such people were concerned, Constitutional monarchs were not supposed to draw attention to themselves by word or deed in ways that created difficulties for the government (or other influential parties). For them, Edward, possibly oblivious to the depth of antagonism he was provoking, presumably crossed a line to unacceptability. As to the politicians, they may have feared that much of the populace might start to look to a genuinely concerned king for guidance, rather than to Parliament, jeopardizing their monopoly on political dominance.

A Monarch of England has the legal rights and duties ‘to be consulted, to advise, and to warn’ the regime of the day, which nominally derive their legitimacy as His or Her government. But any trend to actually impact, if not control, public policy, was something many of those in whose interests the country was really being run were determined to prevent. Especially, one suspects, if it meant government interference in the pitiless functions of the Free Market, and re-distribution of wealth to rescue the less fortunate.

But the politicians, bluebloods and lucre-men dared not expose the real reason for their disapproval of Edward: As King, he would have a preeminent platform from which to chasten them to do more for their dispossessed fellowmen (though no right to command them to do so). And he had already shown that he might make use of that podium. Thus, the religious implications of his desire to marry ‘the woman I love’ were used as a less blunt guise to maneuver him out of the way (facilitated by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, and the hidebound Archbishop of Canterbury Cosmo Lang).

Support and personal affection for Edward were apparently broadly felt among common Britons, so if this analysis of the forces that stealthily led to the loss of his crown is true, it was the most blatant case in modern times of the ruling class overriding the wishes of a vastly larger number of the ruled to get their preferred outcome: Edward gone, replaced on the throne by his pliable, tradition-loving younger brother as King George VI under a cynical aegis of ‘propriety.’ A tacitly, tastefully executed Coup d’état.

Let me make that clearer: The powerful got huffy that a King might violate the nation’s Democratic spirit by getting political – even as they, themselves, disregarded the apparent will of many, if not most Britons that Edward remain on the throne. So who was violating the supposedly sacrosanct ‘Democratic spirit’ more? A Sovereign who felt, and sometimes showed, actual concern for Britain’s downtrodden? Or its most comfortable, prosperous folk, invoking that spirit – while ignoring broader public opinion – because they didn’t want their yachts rocked? So much for the Establishment’s devotion to any Principle other than self-interest.

Events like the abdication frequently lack a ‘smoking gun,’ which makes definitive conclusions elusive.  Thus, no one can know for sure if the forces noted above were truly decisive in forcing the issue, or were most or only some, part of it.  I am no ardent apologist for Edward, who seems to have often acted, privately and publicly, like a clueless, spoiled teenager. Further, if he sincerely grasped how much hope ordinary people were putting in him – and had the character to put his duty to them first – he might have sacrificed his passion for Wallis and stayed King, so as to be a voice for his less fortunate subjects when they most needed one.

It may never be possible to assess for sure if this is why he was told he had to give up either Wallis or his crown – in the expectation/hopes that he would choose her – so that the ‘insiders’ would be rid of him and his incipient, ominous popularity. But if they were, the covert power-centers of the United Kingdom would likely have an interest, even today, in concealing whose wishes ‘matter’ and whose don’t, even as reminders of Edward’s genuine flaws are allowed to trickle out. 

And it would have been the ‘Inglorious Revolution’ of my title. ‘Inglorious,’ as in a sordid, shadowy, self-serving ruse of an ousting: More ‘revolting’ than revolutionary.

Now, as longtime Prince of Wales, Charles, like his great uncle Edward VIII, also publicly expressed opinions that upset some strong quarters. If he does any such as King, and discreet whispers start to circulate that he is unfit for his office – despite decades of preparation for it – and perhaps should be nudged aside in the interests of ‘protecting democracy,’ please remember: It might not be the first time a King of England got driven out, theoretically due to personal failings, but in fact because he peeved some literal powers behind the throne.

I don’t pretend to have expert knowledge of British history and law, but am aware that, as to the parameters of 21^st Century ‘Kingship,’ George V, who died 12 years before Charles was born, was a fairly hands-on sovereign, even called ‘an ideal constitutional monarch.’ During his reign (1910 – 36, including World War I), circumstances required him more than once to make practical political decisions reserved to the monarch such as use of royal assent, constitutional interpretation, etc., when events led to paralysis in the national government, or other potential crises.

His granddaughter, the late Elizabeth II – possibly sensing, or pointedly warned of, what actually brought down her uncle Edward VIII – was relatively passive for most of her 70 years as Queen. Legally, she really didn’t have many prerogatives of actual rule, but presumably had the same ones as George V, but seemingly rarely used them. Perhaps that was due to her training to reign, to a docile personality, because analogous issues to George V’s never arose for her – or perhaps she practiced utmost caution, having seen the friction her uncle’s overstepping the sensibilities of the powerful caused, whether or not it had directly led to his undoing.

King Charles may decide that, within the legal limits of English Kingship’s sphere – indeed, in the essence of his coronation oath to care for the well-being of all his people, not just the wealthy and prominent – he will be more engaged in setting the tone of national life than his late, beloved mother. If so, he might want to study his great-grandfather George V’s actions, if he hasn’t already, as a model for his own, to try to make his reign more useful to his nation than just a pageant, tourist attraction or platinum-handled rubber stamp.

As an American, I am not habituated to monarchy, and certainly couldn’t approve of the antique model of it, in which random birth leads to supreme rulership; there must be a better mechanism than that. Only after affirming that, will I say that neither do I sneer at Kingship as simply a perverse anachronism, for any nation with that tradition, current or recent. Elizabeth II showed that the office could still be unifying and stabilizing, as well as immeasurably coloring the lives of, and giving a sense of national purpose and community to, people who have, or perceive, few other sources of such benefits: The Disregarded.

Speaking of whom, it appears that many of the Westminster class, the elected Members of Parliament, are in danger of forfeiting (if they have not done so already) the ‘Democratic mandate’ which they piously intone validates their jurisdiction above a hereditary King or Queen. Britain’s long-ruling Conservative/Tory party’s claims to represent all citizens have worn so thin, they are now largely codswallop. It rules much as its American cousin, the Republican party, does: Protecting, increasing and entrenching the wealth, privilege and security of those who are already wealthy, privileged and secure – and hoping the mass electorate doesn’t notice. Assertions that they also govern in the interests of lowlier voters must appear a cynical charade, given how poorly they generally serve those constituents any time their wishes conflict with that of their actual ‘base’: The Mighty.

Further, I would point out that popular election led – in a semi-comical case in point – indirectly to the accession of the buffoonish Boris Johnson (a Prime Minister is ordinarily the head of whichever party has a majority in the House of Commons); hardly an example in popular election’s favor. Nowadays, Tory politicians may seem to be scarcely veiled shills for the affluent citizens of the UK, for whom the public apparatus of monarchy mainly serves as a decorous fig leaf of respectable pretense for their coarsely self-serving conduct of national policy.

That being the case – and having lived for 4 years under the Presidency of a man vividly unfit by experience, temperament and intellect for such responsibilities, but made so by ‘popular election’ (actually, the Electoral College) – my faith in its superiority as a mechanism for selecting leaders is no longer absolute. While I would never advocate Kingship in the U.S., for Britain – sometimes referred to as a ‘Royal Republic’ – a modestly more engaged Sovereign, adroitly calling attention to the (tactfully styled) ‘inadequate policies’ of those claiming to lead by right of election, however squalidly won or retained, might be genuinely helpful to a great many Britons.

At one time, ‘the Commons’ really did need to check royal overreach. But now, Britain may have come to the point where a wise, temperate ‘Carollus Rex’ might be able to contribute meaningfully to implementing the chivalrous substance of his sacred oath for his sacred office, to serve, protect and defend as much as possible the well-being of his people. All of them.

Because the Tories have sure as Hell shown – again and again, posturing brazenly all the way – they can’t be trusted to govern for the ‘well-being of his people’ in terms of shifting taxes, slicing public services, ad nauseam.

(I fantasize about drafting a mock coronation oath in which the feigned paternalistic care is stripped out, and the King curtly pledges to reign in – not to ‘rein in’ – the interests of the Grandees of the City of London’s financial markets and all other plutocrats, domestic and foreign: Arab, Russian, etc. It would drop the alleged concern for regular, left-behind Britain, where incomes are shrinking along with public services eroded by tax-slashing Conservatives. It would also include a firm reproof to his subject ‘proles’ not to press their tiresome hopes for a secure, First World standard of living, if providing such might disturb the Elysian comfort of their betters.)

In their virulent self-regard, too many in that ‘ruling caste’ seem to presume the Monarchy is mainly there to perform an edifying ceremonial role, and otherwise irrelevant. But they may be proved wrong.

Therefore, if King Charles III actually tries to have legitimate (‘advising and warning’) influence on what priorities ‘His’ government might focus on – to not just act as an ornamental bulwark of a Status Quo beloved by those who benefit most from it – be on the lookout. Scandals about, for example, his past romantic improprieties, may suddenly start to twitch again, questioning his worthiness for his exalted station. Or possibly the dominant cabal will even toy with dispensing with monarchy itself, if they decide it has finally become more trouble than it is worth, encumbering, rather than sustaining their primacy – national identity and the sensibilities of millions among the lower orders be damned. But here is some advice to those privileged beneficiaries: Your lot may have dispensed with the callow Edward VIII when people were less informed and likelier to believe whatever ‘authority’ said. But don’t assume you’ll get away with a second ‘Inglorious Revolution,’ shoddy, shadowy, shameless, and anything but patriotic.

Such people’s cynicism corrodes the respectable regal institution they rely on to dignify and camouflage their none too well-concealed self-interest. And thereby, they rely on a man about to take an oath – before God and the World – that he will reign for the welfare of his entire nation. But also a man whose judicious guidance might help moderate the disenchantment of a growing segment of the ‘United’ Kingdom, those exploited but otherwise ignored by entitled magnates, public and private, who still don’t grasp that Brexit may have been just a warning tremor of an Earthquake of gathering discontent beneath their feet.

Thus, God save the Kingship.

CONTEXT: Today marks one year since ‘Operation Barbarous’ – the criminal (in multiple senses), cruel invasion of a peaceful sovereign state, Ukraine, by a larger overbearing neighbor – began. Russia, the aggressor, is led by Vladimir Putin, a man who seems to be guided by a bizarre blend of KGB cynicism and 19th Century Czarist national Chauvinism. By an arrogant megalomaniac who cannot accept that Might does Not make ‘right.’

Beyond the perennial horrors of war and the anachronistic indifference to (along with outright targeting of) civilians and their well-being, this state-sponsored felony has been both a terrible spectacle and an economic shock for a world still reeling from a Pandemic. But my post below finds optimism that we are not wholly unable to learn from the mistakes and tragedies of the past; at least, not if we have wise, proportionate leadership. Something Russia has now been lividly proven to lack; and not for the first time.

President Biden’s age is often cast as a liability, but at the moment, its accompanying frame of reference may prove to be a priceless advantage.

Born in 1942, he can have no memory of the Munich Conference of 1938, from which the accompanying black and white image of British Prime Minister Chamberlain comes. But Biden grew up in world a still shattered, reeling and heartbroken from World War 2, set in motion in no small part by wishful thinking like Chamberlain’s, of believing that a palpable brute like Adolf Hitler could be ‘appeased’ by capitulating to his outrageous blackmail in forlorn hope that he would refrain from further, and worse ones.

But ruthless men, like Hitler, Stalin and now Putin – seemingly closer in nature to wild animals than to humans – will, like wild animals, interpret appeasement (mercy, kindness, generosity, moderation, etc.) as signs of weakness and/or irresolution, and exploit them savagely.

In the famous image here, Chamberlain waves a piece of paper signed by himself and Hitler, on which the latter promised he has ‘no further territorial ambitions in Europe,’ in return for the British and French having just ceded him Czech territory (that was not theirs to give). In any case, Hitler’s promise was a cynical lie, and his ‘territorial ambitions in Europe’ were just getting started. A few months later, in March 1939, Hitler would absorb the rest of Czechoslovakia, in sneering contempt for his vow not to do any such thing.

After caving in at Munich, the western democracies began to prepare madly for war, but the Nazis had too great a head-start on them. Besides which, military conquest was by then the main preoccupation of German society, industry and economy, a focus that any peace-loving and sensible people – like the French or British – would be loath to accept. 

In September of that year, Hitler invaded Poland, finally provoking the western democracies to declare war on Germany.  He could have been stopped with relative ease when he re-occupied the Rhineland in 1936, had the French and British governments of the day recognized, or admitted, what a fiend they were dealing with. Several other such brazen tests of will were committed later, but after the Czech Sudeten Crisis was ‘resolved’ at Munich in 1938, it was no longer possible to ignore Hitler’s actual doctrine: ‘Winning’ is all that matters, and justifies any evil done in its pursuit. 

(Chamberlain gets a partially bum rap on appeasement; he was not just some foolish sap who couldn’t see what Hitler was, as simplistic versions of these events imply. But he didn’t want to divert revenues from civil functions to massive war preparation until it was unmistakable that Nazism was an existential threat to Britain, for every penny spent on rearming had to be taken from needs like roads, education, hospitals, etc.; proper priorities of any regime serious about serving its citizens. Besides; only a madman, like Hitler, would Not move Heaven and Earth to avoid another war like the 1914-1918 nightmare.)

So now, President Biden, having grown up in a world that had just paid a ghastly price for not confronting villains before their power peaked, has the experience, wisdom and resolution to recognize Hitler-like deeds and attitudes when he sees them, only this time, coming out of Moscow. And to reject Chamberlain’s well-meaning, but catastrophic strategy of yielding to a thug, hoping he’ll stop acting like a thug. Why would a jumped-up gangster do that, when ‘thuggery’ keeps getting him what he wants?

‘Sieg Heil’ translates to ‘Victory, Hail,’ and lying is the least of the crimes someone like Hitler would commit to come out on top. Brutes in suits like him think ‘Just weaklings and fools will play by the rules.’

(A rarely-voiced observation: Too many business people have parallel ‘win-no-matter-how/rules-are-for-suckers’ attitudes. I consider that mindset ‘Fascism lite.’ They may seek cash instead of conquest, but slow poison is still poison, warping our world.)

Much later, Churchill said of prewar efforts to indulge Hitler, ‘The malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous.’ I cannot consider attributes like mania to avoid repeating the horror of the Great War – as any sane, righteous person would do – as ‘weakness.’ However, I will grant that the danger Nazism posed should have been recognized much sooner than it was.

Moreover, the likes of Hitler, Stalin and Putin, in addition to exploiting any decency and rationality of their opponents, had another advantage, whose import we should never underestimate:

The wicked don’t give a damn who gets hurt. The righteous must do so.

Thus today, Putin is just fine with sacrificing the lives of his own soldiers and Ukrainian ones (as well as civilians) because, as always for such feral personalities, self-interest and ‘saving face’ are far more important than preserving lives. In this, Putin has more in common with his idol Stalin than with Hitler, for whom German blood was sacred, to be spent sparingly (though of course, he felt other peoples’ blood was worthless).

In contrast, Stalin, after Hitler invaded the USSR in June of 1941, threw masses of Soviet youth into the gears of the monstrous Nazi war machine to slow, and eventually jam it, with Asiatic callousness. Soviet victory came at a profligate price in lives – 20 million at least, soldiers and civilians – that no free society would have tolerated (although this toll was kept secret for decades). Especially because prewar miscalculations by Stalin, like his paranoid purging of his best army officers, had made his land look, to the Nazis, so temptingly vulnerable. As indeed it was.

Sadly, the Russian populace today still seems to assume heartlessness, brutality and criminal pride are, and should be, how rulers think and act.

Fortunately however, one thing Hitler and Putin don’t have in common are capable armed forces. Whereas by 1939, the German Wehrmacht was the best-led, most efficient, technologically advanced military in the world, ambient Russian culture today seems to allow the most beast-like men to attain power, less by brains or competence than by willingness and cunning to crush rivals.

This mindset is incompatible with successfully running a 21st Century nation, or economy – or army. Those activities now demand finesse, forethought, abstract conceptualization – all things that Monomakh-niacal apes like Putin grasp barely, if at all. Let alone practice expertly.

This is being written immediately after President Biden’s surprise 2/22/23 visit to Kyiv, shown in the bright color photo adjacent to the one of Chamberlain. Biden made this determined gesture to demonstrate America’s practical and spiritual solidarity with Ukraine’s sacred task of thwarting the Counter-Evolutionaries – Putin firstly, but all who assume the rest of us should just bow to them like we are lesser wolves and they are our bigger, fiercer Alphas – of the world. And by defending and saving their nation, preserving, in the largest sense, a path forward for our whole species, rather than our reversion to rule by brute force alone; as Hitlerist dogma advocated.

It should be born in mind that Kyiv at the time Biden went there was by no means entirely safe from sudden assault by (civilian/ infrastructure targeting) Russian missiles, so such a visit took considerable personal courage. Regardless of what risk mitigation strategies were used to protect him, Biden had to walk into a place still liable to ferocious, indiscriminate attack. Fortunately none materialized, but there could be no guarantees against them.

Perhaps Biden was willing to accept such a hazard because – having grown up with the consequences of not pushing vicious tyrants back – he decided that helping to protect America and the West (both by his brave gesture and by providing Ukraine first class military hardware) was his duty as unofficial ‘Leader of the Free World.’

A duty worth compromising his own security, and if need be even losing his life. In that case, remembering that his sacrifice was made trying to help achieve a world in which peace, not the exercise of raw power, is the Status Quo would be his finest memorial.

Putin is furious at getting the kind of forceful pushback Hitler never got till after Munich, by which time he was already too powerful to be defeated except at unspeakable cost. So now we are watching while he writhes in outraged pride. And it is Biden’s mature, equitable version of ‘manhood’ that may help save us from domination by Putin’s primitive, violent variety of it.