thenation--2020-09-02--The Sitting President Has No Climate Plan. Why Isn’t That Headline News?

This article is adapted from “ The Climate Beat , ” the weekly newsletter of Covering Climate Now , a global journalism initiative strengthening coverage of the climate story .
The author is Covering Climate Now ’ s deputy director .
The president of the United States has no plan to address the climate crisis .
This is not a partisan observation ; it is a fact , supported by Donald Trump ’ s own statements and the Republican Party platform , which , as in 2016 , outright dismisses the climate threat and ridicules efforts to mitigate it .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Republican National Convention , the president ’ s team released a bulleted list of Trump ’ s priorities for a second term .
The word “ climate ” did not appear once .
Given the unparalleled and scientifically incontrovertible threat that climate change presents , this is shocking , though it is not a surprise .
Too often , the press meets the president on his terms—and , in doing so , fails to interrogate something that is unacceptable from the nation ’ s leader , no matter one ’ s political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plan on this issue ?
a journalist asks .
Of course not , goes the answer .
Who would be fool enough to ask ?
And so the issue goes undiscussed .
During the Conventions , the Media Needs to Be Treating Climate Like the Emergency It Is Will Climate Break Through in Big Media ’ s Elections Coverage ?
More in this series The effect , however inadvertent , is that journalists are giving a pass to the president on an issue of supreme and urgent importance to the country ’ s—and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The public , meanwhile , is left woefully uninformed about the magnitude of the climate crisis and the necessity of a policy response .
In fairness , there ’ s a lot on the media ’ s and the public ’ s collective plates right now : historic protests for racial justice and horrifying , devolving violence in city streets ; a pandemic that has taken the lives of 183,000 Americans and counting ; an economic crisis , with joblessness to rival the Great Recession .
These are all matters of pressing concern @ @ @ @ @ @ @ journalistic rigor they ’ ve been given .
Each is also closely intertwined with the climate emergency , however , so there ’ s really no excuse for skipping over it .
Even when nature itself delivers an opportunity to discuss climate change , many in the press let it slide .
Last week ’ s Hurricane Laura escalated with a startling quickness , making landfall as one of the strongest storms on record to hit the Gulf Coast .
The damage was not as catastrophic as initially feared , but the storm @ @ @ @ @ @ @ power—meaning no air conditioning , even as a nasty heat wave then brutalized residents—and sparked a worrying chemical fire at an industrial plant in Louisiana .
Yet , as Laura bore down on the Gulf Coast , and as the Republican National Convention commenced , a combined 50 segments on the hurricane broadcast by NBC News , CBS News , and ABC News did not connect the storm to climate change or to Trump and the Republicans ’ policies , according to analysis by the research organization Media Matters for America .
Other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ digital platforms , fared better , and a few leading print outlets , including The New York Times , the Associated Press , and The Guardian , did make the climate connection .
At CNN , climate correspondent Bill Weir published a comprehensive survey of extreme weather that climate change is driving around the world and observed that “ you ’ d never know that ” from watching the Republican National Convention .
And CNN ’ s Dana Bash drilled Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Peter Gaynor on whether he accepts climate science @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the United States .
“ I ’ m not a scientist , ” Gaynor repeatedly demurred .
It is disappointing that Bash ’ s strong line of questioning feels so rare .
In truth , getting this story right doesn ’ t take high-level math—just the normal journalistic commitment to present information in proper context .
Climate change and the failure of political leaders to address it are matters of fundamental context , both when it comes to extreme-weather stories and the broader story of this election cycle .
Credible journalists would not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deaths without noting the Trump administration ’ s halting , often unscientific response .
Nor would they report on clashes in the streets between right-wing militias and Black Lives Matter protesters without noting the president ’ s own incitement of the violence that has ensued .
So why do mainstream outlets repeatedly skip over the context—a crisis and no plan whatsoever to answer it—when it comes to climate change ?
Conversely , the media has given a fair amount of attention to former vice president Joe Biden ’ s $ 2 trillion clean @ @ @ @ @ @ @ name calls for a Green New Deal and is by far the most ambitious climate action plan to ever accompany a major party platform in the United States .
The key tension in stories about Biden ’ s plan , however , is often whether it will be judged as sufficient by the progressive wing of his party or whether Biden will be able to translate his plan into votes .
This is a worthy subject , but surely the greater tension is between a nominee with a workable plan and a nominee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ journalists overemphasize Biden ’ s plan , and potential progressive discontent with it , it leaves audiences with the impression that Biden ’ s plan is more controversial than the president ’ s , which of course is not the case .
Journalists must do better in the weeks between now and Election Day .
With the country embroiled in so many immediate crises , it may seem wrongheaded to insist on the climate story .
But storms like Hurricane Laura , the raging wildfires in California , and the derechos that devastated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the climate crisis is not some far-away threat .
It ’ s here now , and it demands a swift and comprehensive political response , no matter your political allegiances .
That Trump offers none is an outrage .
It should be headline news .
Journalists must say so , with all the tenacity and drive they have brought to the other stories of this historic moment .

This article is adapted from “The Climate Beat,” the weekly newsletter of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism initiative strengthening coverage of the climate story. The author is Covering Climate Now’s deputy director.
The president of the United States has no plan to address the climate crisis.
This is not a partisan observation; it is a fact, supported by Donald Trump’s own statements and the Republican Party platform, which, as in 2016, outright dismisses the climate threat and ridicules efforts to mitigate it. On August 23, the eve of the Republican National Convention, the president’s team released a bulleted list of Trump’s priorities for a second term. The word “climate” did not appear once. Given the unparalleled and scientifically incontrovertible threat that climate change presents, this is shocking, though it is not a surprise.
Too often, the press meets the president on his terms—and, in doing so, fails to interrogate something that is unacceptable from the nation’s leader, no matter one’s political sympathies. Does the president have a plan on this issue? a journalist asks. Of course not, goes the answer. Who would be fool enough to ask? And so the issue goes undiscussed. Covering Climate Now How to Stop the Spread of Climate Disinformation Erika Seiber and Michael Khoo A Soundtrack for the Climate Emergency Mark Hertsgaard Can Gen Z Save the Midterms for Democrats? Mark Hertsgaard
The effect, however inadvertent, is that journalists are giving a pass to the president on an issue of supreme and urgent importance to the country’s—and, indeed, humanity’s—future. The public, meanwhile, is left woefully uninformed about the magnitude of the climate crisis and the necessity of a policy response.
In fairness, there’s a lot on the media’s and the public’s collective plates right now: historic protests for racial justice and horrifying, devolving violence in city streets; a pandemic that has taken the lives of 183,000 Americans and counting; an economic crisis, with joblessness to rival the Great Recession. These are all matters of pressing concern, and they deserve every ounce of journalistic rigor they’ve been given. Each is also closely intertwined with the climate emergency, however, so there’s really no excuse for skipping over it.
Even when nature itself delivers an opportunity to discuss climate change, many in the press let it slide. Last week’s Hurricane Laura escalated with a startling quickness, making landfall as one of the strongest storms on record to hit the Gulf Coast. The damage was not as catastrophic as initially feared, but the storm nevertheless left nearly 1 million people without power—meaning no air conditioning, even as a nasty heat wave then brutalized residents—and sparked a worrying chemical fire at an industrial plant in Louisiana. Yet, as Laura bore down on the Gulf Coast, and as the Republican National Convention commenced, a combined 50 segments on the hurricane broadcast by NBC News, CBS News, and ABC News did not connect the storm to climate change or to Trump and the Republicans’ policies, according to analysis by the research organization Media Matters for America. Current Issue View our current issue
Other components of these networks, including their digital platforms, fared better, and a few leading print outlets, including The New York Times, the Associated Press, and The Guardian, did make the climate connection. At CNN, climate correspondent Bill Weir published a comprehensive survey of extreme weather that climate change is driving around the world and observed that “you’d never know that” from watching the Republican National Convention. And CNN’s Dana Bash drilled Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Peter Gaynor on whether he accepts climate science and considers climate change a threat to the United States. “I’m not a scientist,” Gaynor repeatedly demurred.
It is disappointing that Bash’s strong line of questioning feels so rare.
In truth, getting this story right doesn’t take high-level math—just the normal journalistic commitment to present information in proper context. Climate change and the failure of political leaders to address it are matters of fundamental context, both when it comes to extreme-weather stories and the broader story of this election cycle. Credible journalists would not, for example, report on coronavirus deaths without noting the Trump administration’s halting, often unscientific response. Nor would they report on clashes in the streets between right-wing militias and Black Lives Matter protesters without noting the president’s own incitement of the violence that has ensued. So why do mainstream outlets repeatedly skip over the context—a crisis and no plan whatsoever to answer it—when it comes to climate change?
Conversely, the media has given a fair amount of attention to former vice president Joe Biden’s $2 trillion clean energy plan, which in all but name calls for a Green New Deal and is by far the most ambitious climate action plan to ever accompany a major party platform in the United States. The key tension in stories about Biden’s plan, however, is often whether it will be judged as sufficient by the progressive wing of his party or whether Biden will be able to translate his plan into votes. This is a worthy subject, but surely the greater tension is between a nominee with a workable plan and a nominee with no plan at all. If journalists overemphasize Biden’s plan, and potential progressive discontent with it, it leaves audiences with the impression that Biden’s plan is more controversial than the president’s, which of course is not the case.
Journalists must do better in the weeks between now and Election Day. With the country embroiled in so many immediate crises, it may seem wrongheaded to insist on the climate story. But storms like Hurricane Laura, the raging wildfires in California, and the derechos that devastated the Midwest just weeks ago show that the climate crisis is not some far-away threat. It’s here now, and it demands a swift and comprehensive political response, no matter your political allegiances. That Trump offers none is an outrage. It should be headline news. Journalists must say so, with all the tenacity and drive they have brought to the other stories of this historic moment.


thenation--2020-09-02--The Disturbing Story Behind the Beirut Port Explosion

Hidden behind the tragedy of the deadly explosion earlier this month in the port of Beirut is a dark and pervasive travesty that began in 2013 and explains how the 2,750 tons of explosive ammonium nitrate ended up in a portside warehouse .
This backstory sheds light on the deeper problem of maritime abandonment of ships , seafarers , and cargo , and the factors that make it so easy for vessel owners and operators to walk away from their responsibilities , usually with impunity , often with life-or-death consequences for the crew that gets left behind .
Lebanese investigators @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cause of the explosion : Fireworks stored nearby ignited the flammable dunes of the powdery chemical that was housed in Hangar 12 , triggering a massive shock wave that leveled buildings and shattered windows throughout the city .
Killing at least 190 people , injuring more than 6,500 , and leaving some 300,000 others homeless , the blast was so powerful that it created seismic waves equivalent to a magnitude 3.3 earthquake , and was reportedly heard and felt in Cyprus , nearly 150 miles across the eastern Mediterranean .
But the deeper @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and less dramatic factors : corporate negligence and political corruption , anemic enforcement by shady flag registries that are supposed to hold shipowners accountable , tightened immigration controls that routinely trap stranded crews on decrepit ships , lax rules and a maritime bureaucracy designed more to protect anonymity and secrecy of ship owners than to enable oversight and transparency of the industry .
After the Beirut Blast , Hezbollah Almost Went to War This broader story begins on a barely seaworthy , Russian-owned ship flagged to Moldova called the Rhosus that in 2013 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ odorless crystalline substance from Georgia to Mozambique .
Manned by 10 Ukrainians and one Russian , the rusty freighter was stopped by Lebanese port authorities , who deemed the vessel unsafe to continue its journey .
Refusing to answer urgent calls from the crew or port authorities , the ship ’ s owner , a Russian man named Igor Grechushkin , was soon confronted with heavy fines , including roughly $ 100,000 in back wages and port fees .
In response , Grechushkin did what many shipowners do .
He cut his losses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , abandoning his workers , the dilapidated ship , and its deadly cargo .
That Grechushkin could disavow his duties so easily is a consequence of the loopholes in maritime law and opaqueness in the law ’ s administration , as well as the distinctly transient and transnational nature of the industry .
Lebanese authorities were hard-pressed to arrest Grechushkin or seize his property , since he lived not in Lebanon but in Cyprus , and his shipping company , Teto Shipping Ltd. , was registered on the Marshall Islands .
Meanwhile , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ themselves in a bind that is surprisingly common for seafarers around the world .
Lacking clean water , fuel , or food , not to mention cell phone service , legal help , or the ability to speak the local language , these men had no money to help them get home , or even the immigration papers allowing them to disembark .
On any given day , hundreds of ships and thousands of seafarers are in the same situation .
Port officials like those in Beirut have little power to repatriate abandoned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ behind .
Usually cargo gets sent to its rightful owner because it travels with insurance , but the men who work on board are rarely as lucky .
The plight that befell the crew of the Rhosus is illustrative .
After several weeks stuck in port , the majority of the men were safely repatriated .
But the captain and three of the crew members were forced to stay aboard and , for the next year , they were stuck , since immigration restrictions prevented them from heading home .
While they waited @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ship ’ s cargo posed a serious safety risk to them and the public .
On September 14 , 2014 , the final Rhosus seafarers made it home , with help from their lawyers and the International Transport Workers ’ Federation ( ITF ) , which is the largest global seafarers union .
The problem of abandoned ships rarely gets public notice .
But over the past six years , while reporting on crimes at sea , I ’ ve stumbled across hundreds of these dire predicaments .
Take , for instance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Zoya 1 , a supertanker that in April 2018 had been trapped off the coast of the United Arab Emirates for over a year and were owed more than four months ’ salary .
Languishing on board a ship overrun with vermin , the men slowly fell apart , physically and mentally .
Unable to disembark , several of the men who were unable to swim tried to commit suicide by jumping overboard .
In a photo taken at the time , crew members held signs that said , “ We are helpless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” The crew was repatriated in June 2018 .
Such cases are not uncommon .
A database created by the ITF and international labor section of the United Nations indicates that nearly 5,000 seafarers were abandoned on their vessels in nearly 400 separate incidents between 2004 and 2018 .
On any given day , more than a million seafarers , mostly migrants from poor countries , work on 55,000 ships globally .
While on board their ships , these crews are truly divorced from many of the protections enjoyed by most workers from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the mercy of decisions passed down by port state officials , such as shipping companies , port managers , and immigration authorities .
“ Food , water , oil , ” said Ben Bailey , director of advocacy for the Mission to Seafarers , a mariners ’ advocacy group .
“ It ’ s difficult for us to get supplies to these men.
” He added that the problem of abandonment has become more severe during the Covid-19 pandemic , as global maritime commerce has ground to a halt .
In June , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ allow hundreds of thousands of seafarers stranded in ports due to Covid-19 travel restrictions to safely change over to other ships or return to their home countries .
“ The ITF has been receiving e-mails from hundreds of seafarers daily , expressing their concern about contracts being extended under duress , ” said Stephen Cotton , general secretary of the ITF .
In May , Guy Platten , general secretary of the International Chamber of Shipping , described the abandonment of ships and seafarers as a “ ticking time bomb.
” In the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not far from the warehouse that exploded , an oil tanker called the Captain Nagdaliyev was abandoned with 13 seafarers on board .
When the vessel was inspected on July 20 of this year , the crew had not been paid in six months and they lacked clean drinking water .
These men were still stuck on board their ship in the Beirut port at the time of the explosion , which ripped off a door from their vessel , before they escaped to safety .
As the Beirut explosion made clear , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the workers in ports or on ships but also for the wider public .
The devastation of Beirut has turned global attention to another and potentially worse crisis emerging elsewhere in the Middle East .
The FSO Safer , a tanker off the coast of Yemen formerly used as a floating oil-storage facility , was abandoned after its Yemeni owner sustaining the ship stopped operation because of that country ’ s war .
Located in one of the world ’ s busiest shipping routes , this floating bomb is located miles offshore @ @ @ @ @ @ @ environmental damage and impede marine traffic traveling through the Red Sea , Bab el-Mandeb strait , and the Suez Canal .
Similarly , environmentalists and union officials have warned of a possible disaster tied to an abandoned ship 13 miles off the coast of the Philippines in Manila Bay .
A crew of 15 have been stuck on the Spanish tanker MV Celanova since February 2 .
Loaded with liquid petroleum gas , the tanker lacks enough fuel to keep the cargo refrigerated and port officials warn there is imminent risk of fire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mandating that ammonium nitrate should not be stored near fuels or sources of heat .
In the United States , regulations of ammonium nitrate were tightened significantly after it was used in the 1995 truck bomb that destroyed the federal building in Oklahoma City , in which 168 people died .
Lebanese port officials , on the other hand , had their hands tied in dealing with the highly explosive material left floating in their waters .
Grechushkin ’ s silence made it especially difficult for these authorities to auction off the ammonium @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some point between July 2014 and October 2015 , the ammonium nitrate was moved to the port side alongside the country ’ s main north-south highway , where it remained until the catastrophic explosion .
There is no shortage of blame to share for what happened in Beirut .
Lebanese government corruption and ineptitude played a crucial role in the disaster : Customs authorities repeatedly tried to get permission from local judges to allow them to seize the cargo so they could export the ammonium nitrate or hand it over to the Lebanese @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the port warehouse .
Their urgent letters went unanswered for years .
The Lebanese public , which expressed outrage at their government ’ s corruption and incompetence in a series of massive demonstrations last fall , has in the wake of the explosion renewed the call for a thorough housecleaning of the country ’ s sectarian-based governing system .
Port officials globally have a tough time preventing the abandonment of ships or seafarers , partly because of the opaque way that the shipping industry polices itself .
For centuries , the world ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the country of their home port .
That country was responsible for ensuring the proper treatment of the crew and safety of the vessel .
This began to change in the early 20th century , with the emergence of “ open registries , ” also called “ flags of convenience.
” The company collecting fees for the right to fly a certain flag is also responsible for policing its customers , ensuring that they abide by safety , labor , and environmental rules , as well as for conducting investigations when things go @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of convenience create a perverse incentive for ship operators to shop around for the most lax registries with the lowest prices and fewest regulations .
The Rhosus , for instance , was flagged to Moldova , which at least since 2013 has been on a blacklist that is run by Paris MoU , an international naval organization that monitors and regulates maritime traffic in European waters .
The organization labeled Moldovan-flagged ships as “ medium to high risk , ” because of the number of times those ships have been inspected or detained @ @ @ @ @ @ @ media is also complicit .
Dramatic disasters like the Beirut explosion reflect acute problems and typically grab press attention .
Slow-motion tragedies and bureaucratic crimes of neglect like those that preceded the Beirut explosion rarely get covered , even though the impact is often ruinous .
When abandoned seafarers do make it home , they usually face crushing debt due to the unpaid wages and the money they borrowed to get their job at sea .
With their maritime licenses expired , they are often also blacklisted by the local employment agencies that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ need to see greater enforcement of the abandonment amendments contained in the Maritime Labor Convention , ” said Bailey from the Mission to Seafarers , referring to the set of workplace protections for seafarers , recognized by more than 90 countries .
In 2017 , partly motivated by bad press and union pressure , the shipping industry came together in an unprecedented fashion and tried to confront its tendency to abandon seafarers .
The industry imposed a new rule requiring shipowners to carry insurance to cover the costs of sailors marooned in port @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and older vessels that are most likely to strand mariners are not , under this new rule , the ones required to carry such insurance .

Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Get The Nation’s Weekly Newsletter Fridays. The best of the week. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Fridays. The best of the week.
Thank you for signing up for The Nation’s weekly newsletter.
Repro Nation A monthly newsletter on the global fight for reproductive freedom. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.
Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?
Hidden behind the tragedy of the deadly explosion earlier this month in the port of Beirut is a dark and pervasive travesty that began in 2013 and explains how the 2,750 tons of explosive ammonium nitrate ended up in a portside warehouse.
This backstory sheds light on the deeper problem of maritime abandonment of ships, seafarers, and cargo, and the factors that make it so easy for vessel owners and operators to walk away from their responsibilities, usually with impunity, often with life-or-death consequences for the crew that gets left behind.
Lebanese investigators are now fairly certain of the proximate cause of the explosion: Fireworks stored nearby ignited the flammable dunes of the powdery chemical that was housed in Hangar 12, triggering a massive shock wave that leveled buildings and shattered windows throughout the city. Killing at least 190 people, injuring more than 6,500, and leaving some 300,000 others homeless, the blast was so powerful that it created seismic waves equivalent to a magnitude 3.3 earthquake, and was reportedly heard and felt in Cyprus, nearly 150 miles across the eastern Mediterranean.
But the deeper causes of this explosion stem from slower-moving and less dramatic factors: corporate negligence and political corruption, anemic enforcement by shady flag registries that are supposed to hold shipowners accountable, tightened immigration controls that routinely trap stranded crews on decrepit ships, lax rules and a maritime bureaucracy designed more to protect anonymity and secrecy of ship owners than to enable oversight and transparency of the industry. Related Article After the Beirut Blast, Hezbollah Almost Went to War Jesse Rosenfeld
This broader story begins on a barely seaworthy, Russian-owned ship flagged to Moldova called the Rhosus that in 2013 was transporting tons of the volatile and odorless crystalline substance from Georgia to Mozambique. Manned by 10 Ukrainians and one Russian, the rusty freighter was stopped by Lebanese port authorities, who deemed the vessel unsafe to continue its journey.
Refusing to answer urgent calls from the crew or port authorities, the ship’s owner, a Russian man named Igor Grechushkin, was soon confronted with heavy fines, including roughly $100,000 in back wages and port fees. In response, Grechushkin did what many shipowners do. He cut his losses, declared bankruptcy, and quietly disappeared, abandoning his workers, the dilapidated ship, and its deadly cargo.
That Grechushkin could disavow his duties so easily is a consequence of the loopholes in maritime law and opaqueness in the law’s administration, as well as the distinctly transient and transnational nature of the industry. Lebanese authorities were hard-pressed to arrest Grechushkin or seize his property, since he lived not in Lebanon but in Cyprus, and his shipping company, Teto Shipping Ltd., was registered on the Marshall Islands. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Current Issue View our current issue
Meanwhile, the men left onboard the Rhosus found themselves in a bind that is surprisingly common for seafarers around the world. Lacking clean water, fuel, or food, not to mention cell phone service, legal help, or the ability to speak the local language, these men had no money to help them get home, or even the immigration papers allowing them to disembark.
On any given day, hundreds of ships and thousands of seafarers are in the same situation. Port officials like those in Beirut have little power to repatriate abandoned crews or ships when they are left behind. Usually cargo gets sent to its rightful owner because it travels with insurance, but the men who work on board are rarely as lucky.
The plight that befell the crew of the Rhosus is illustrative. After several weeks stuck in port, the majority of the men were safely repatriated. But the captain and three of the crew members were forced to stay aboard and, for the next year, they were stuck, since immigration restrictions prevented them from heading home. While they waited, these men warned Lebanese authorities that the ship’s cargo posed a serious safety risk to them and the public. On September 14, 2014, the final Rhosus seafarers made it home, with help from their lawyers and the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), which is the largest global seafarers union.
The problem of abandoned ships rarely gets public notice. But over the past six years, while reporting on crimes at sea, I’ve stumbled across hundreds of these dire predicaments.
Take, for instance, the 16 men stuck on the Zoya 1, a supertanker that in April 2018 had been trapped off the coast of the United Arab Emirates for over a year and were owed more than four months’ salary. Languishing on board a ship overrun with vermin, the men slowly fell apart, physically and mentally. Unable to disembark, several of the men who were unable to swim tried to commit suicide by jumping overboard. In a photo taken at the time, crew members held signs that said, “We are helpless. We did not commit any crime.” The crew was repatriated in June 2018.
Such cases are not uncommon. A database created by the ITF and international labor section of the United Nations indicates that nearly 5,000 seafarers were abandoned on their vessels in nearly 400 separate incidents between 2004 and 2018. On any given day, more than a million seafarers, mostly migrants from poor countries, work on 55,000 ships globally. While on board their ships, these crews are truly divorced from many of the protections enjoyed by most workers from on-land industries, and they are at the mercy of decisions passed down by port state officials, such as shipping companies, port managers, and immigration authorities.
“Food, water, oil,” said Ben Bailey, director of advocacy for the Mission to Seafarers, a mariners’ advocacy group. “It’s difficult for us to get supplies to these men.” He added that the problem of abandonment has become more severe during the Covid-19 pandemic, as global maritime commerce has ground to a halt. In June, the UN called upon maritime governments to allow hundreds of thousands of seafarers stranded in ports due to Covid-19 travel restrictions to safely change over to other ships or return to their home countries.
“The ITF has been receiving e-mails from hundreds of seafarers daily, expressing their concern about contracts being extended under duress,” said Stephen Cotton, general secretary of the ITF. In May, Guy Platten, general secretary of the International Chamber of Shipping, described the abandonment of ships and seafarers as a “ticking time bomb.”
In the Port of Beirut, for example, not far from the warehouse that exploded, an oil tanker called the Captain Nagdaliyev was abandoned with 13 seafarers on board. When the vessel was inspected on July 20 of this year, the crew had not been paid in six months and they lacked clean drinking water. These men were still stuck on board their ship in the Beirut port at the time of the explosion, which ripped off a door from their vessel, before they escaped to safety.
As the Beirut explosion made clear, such abandonment is not just a concern for the workers in ports or on ships but also for the wider public. The devastation of Beirut has turned global attention to another and potentially worse crisis emerging elsewhere in the Middle East. The FSO Safer, a tanker off the coast of Yemen formerly used as a floating oil-storage facility, was abandoned after its Yemeni owner sustaining the ship stopped operation because of that country’s war. Located in one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, this floating bomb is located miles offshore, but its explosion could cause massive environmental damage and impede marine traffic traveling through the Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb strait, and the Suez Canal.
Similarly, environmentalists and union officials have warned of a possible disaster tied to an abandoned ship 13 miles off the coast of the Philippines in Manila Bay. A crew of 15 have been stuck on the Spanish tanker MV Celanova since February 2. Loaded with liquid petroleum gas, the tanker lacks enough fuel to keep the cargo refrigerated and port officials warn there is imminent risk of fire.
Internationally, there are strict rules mandating that ammonium nitrate should not be stored near fuels or sources of heat. In the United States, regulations of ammonium nitrate were tightened significantly after it was used in the 1995 truck bomb that destroyed the federal building in Oklahoma City, in which 168 people died.
Lebanese port officials, on the other hand, had their hands tied in dealing with the highly explosive material left floating in their waters. Grechushkin’s silence made it especially difficult for these authorities to auction off the ammonium nitrate left on the ship. At some point between July 2014 and October 2015, the ammonium nitrate was moved to the port side alongside the country’s main north-south highway, where it remained until the catastrophic explosion.
There is no shortage of blame to share for what happened in Beirut. Lebanese government corruption and ineptitude played a crucial role in the disaster: Customs authorities repeatedly tried to get permission from local judges to allow them to seize the cargo so they could export the ammonium nitrate or hand it over to the Lebanese Army rather than store it dangerously in the port warehouse. Their urgent letters went unanswered for years. The Lebanese public, which expressed outrage at their government’s corruption and incompetence in a series of massive demonstrations last fall, has in the wake of the explosion renewed the call for a thorough housecleaning of the country’s sectarian-based governing system.
Port officials globally have a tough time preventing the abandonment of ships or seafarers, partly because of the opaque way that the shipping industry polices itself. For centuries, the world’s merchant fleets flew the flag of the country of their home port. That country was responsible for ensuring the proper treatment of the crew and safety of the vessel. This began to change in the early 20th century, with the emergence of “open registries,” also called “flags of convenience.”
The company collecting fees for the right to fly a certain flag is also responsible for policing its customers, ensuring that they abide by safety, labor, and environmental rules, as well as for conducting investigations when things go wrong. But in practice, flags of convenience create a perverse incentive for ship operators to shop around for the most lax registries with the lowest prices and fewest regulations.
The Rhosus, for instance, was flagged to Moldova, which at least since 2013 has been on a blacklist that is run by Paris MoU, an international naval organization that monitors and regulates maritime traffic in European waters. The organization labeled Moldovan-flagged ships as “medium to high risk,” because of the number of times those ships have been inspected or detained in the past three years.
The media is also complicit. Dramatic disasters like the Beirut explosion reflect acute problems and typically grab press attention. Slow-motion tragedies and bureaucratic crimes of neglect like those that preceded the Beirut explosion rarely get covered, even though the impact is often ruinous. When abandoned seafarers do make it home, they usually face crushing debt due to the unpaid wages and the money they borrowed to get their job at sea. With their maritime licenses expired, they are often also blacklisted by the local employment agencies that control access to jobs.
“We need to see greater enforcement of the abandonment amendments contained in the Maritime Labor Convention,” said Bailey from the Mission to Seafarers, referring to the set of workplace protections for seafarers, recognized by more than 90 countries.
In 2017, partly motivated by bad press and union pressure, the shipping industry came together in an unprecedented fashion and tried to confront its tendency to abandon seafarers. The industry imposed a new rule requiring shipowners to carry insurance to cover the costs of sailors marooned in port. Unfortunately, most of the smaller and older vessels that are most likely to strand mariners are not, under this new rule, the ones required to carry such insurance.


Covid Country Diary

ullivan ounty , It ’ s a myth that people in small-town America know one another .
I ’ ve had a cabin in this place for 30 years and never knew that a foie gras factory sits high above Ferndale , a hamlet I ’ ve driven through hundreds of times .
I found out one sunny Sunday this spring , when 40 flag-festooned cars filed up to La Belle Farm past blooming forsythia and a white-picket-fenced farmhouse , part of an appreciation drive for farm and factory workers .
The drive kicked off at Murray ’ s Chickens @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in South Fallsburg , and weaved through a housing project where workers and their kids smiled and waved , sprawling out onto concrete stoops in the spring warmth as we honked our horns .
No one waved in Ferndale .
Not a soul could be seen .
Only row after row of workers ’ trailers , exposed on a hilltop , perpendicular to an enormous , low , windowless barn .
When New York City banned the sale of foie gras , a few years ago , no one stopped this place or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and slaughtering enough ducks , ducklings , and geese to make these the nation ’ s premier producers of the sickening pâté .
Who knew ?
We left Manhattan and drove up here in March .
A pocket of hanging-on farms , scrubby woods , and defunct hotels , Sullivan Valley is neither Hudson Valley rich nor Delaware Valley airy .
From its heyday as the Catskills ’ famous Borscht Belt in the 1950s , it is home now to 75,000 souls in winter .
Social distance comes with the territory .
As @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and lines at the supermarket got better organized , it was possible to imagine that nothing new was coming , not spring or Covid-19 .
The novel coronavirus came quietly to the country , prowling the backroads of poor health , poor health care , lack of attention and clout .
Facts took time to come into focus , as inconspicuous places with tucked-away poultry plants started showing up in county statistics , followed by obscure villages fronting off-road meat packers and down-by-the river dairy processors .
This Is What Dystopia Looks Like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , people were realizing that , just like the city , their patch of country was powered by a pool of poorly paid , poorly documented , mostly Latinx and Black workers .
Some were dead , and more were falling sick .
Thirty-eight-year-old Luz ( not her real name ) worked in a cold , crowded factory wrapping luncheon meat around cheese sticks for sale at deli counters around the country .
Twenty-five workers toiled bunched up at three tables , and ate together at mealtimes .
She learned about the virus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and didn ’ t believe it posed a threat here .
All spring , Luz kept working .
Still , she ’ d undress as soon as she returned home and shower before greeting her children .
“ She went nowhere , just from her job to home ; home to Walmart or ShopRite to get what we needed ; then home again , ” explained teenage Marisol , speaking on Zoom from the home her mother forbade her to leave .
Then a coworker died .
Luz left work that day @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ How could they do such a thing , to not tell us what ’ s happening ?
” Two months into the lockdown in Manhattan , Sullivan County had the highest positive test rate , and the most new cases per capita , in New York State .
The county ’ s public health director , Nancy McGraw , raised concerns about farm and factory workers at her weekly briefings , which were face-timed on a press officer ’ s cell phone .
Local media picked up the story , and with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ activists got busy .
By early May , Rotary clubs were delivering food to essential workers , piling station wagons full of Monticello ’ s famous bagels in the morning and cooked meals from grateful restaurants at night .
At the entrance to the senior care center in Liberty , nurses put on superhero costumes to greet a rain-drenched solidarity drive-by .
Nurses thanking drivers , drivers thanking nurses , everyone getting wet .
Meanwhile , Juanita Sarmiento and members of the Rural and Migrant Ministry set up signs at the entrance to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Across from the bank and the kosher butchers , they handed out boxloads of protective masks to blue-apron-clad workers at shift change .
“ We could have seen it coming .
I saw it coming , ” says Sarmiento , a former biology student .
“ What ’ s coming into its own is new leadership , ” purrs Sandy Oxford through a red chili-pepper face mask .
Director of the Hudson Valley Area Labor Federation , Oxford joined Sarmiento at Murray ’ s one Friday to support workers and berate the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all the masks they need , why are they rushing over here to get more ?
” Crowds rallied for Black lives in June : half a dozen on the bridge in Narrowsburg ; several hundred in Monticello , demanding release of prisoners from the town ’ s ancient jail .
In Roscoe , at the foot of Catskill State Park , the Black Lives Matter rally took place on Railway Avenue , a broad , empty block , home of the Trout Town Inn .
Organizer Ashlee Perez straddled a wooden ranch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , we have racism here in Roscoe , ” she told the mostly white , mostly young group of protesters .
Along with half a dozen other African Americans , she told her neighbors about their town—about school bullies , bureaucratic bigots , absurd arrests , and too-many-to-count traffic stops , about silence and threats .
The group clustered around two vintage train carriages , a perky red caboose , and a long , sea green “ trout car , ” reminders of the railway platform that once occupied this block .
One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dresses and high hats , mostly white , mostly Christian , would spill off the trains of the O & W line , drawn by Roscoe ’ s fish and fresh air .
Only the train cars and the trout remain .
The future will look different , says Perez .
Demographics demand it .
“ But right now , people like me aren ’ t going to want to stay here.
” Waving her arms for balance , Perez seemed to gesture down the invisible tracks .
“ This place is going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seen every day of spring and summer here for the first time .
I ’ ve discovered that those trout , millions of them , were city transplants , shipped from Long Island hatcheries in the 1880s and ’ 90s .
They rode the rails as people did .
From the crowded city , many people came with tuberculosis , seeking fresh air , a cure , relief .
For 30 years , Sullivan County boomed .
That was its Silver Age .
It ended in the 1920s , when people began to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
One red hot Saturday in July , strolling down a long former track , now a wheelchair-accessible walkway , with county historian John Conway , I learned more .
TB killed the passenger trains , an entire network of spidery rail lines that had brought generations of city-dwellers north .
But TB also brought a Jewish immigrant and his family here , seeking escape from city smog and anti-Semitism .
The Grossingers bought a failing farm at a bargain price and helped usher in Sullivan County ’ s next big boom , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hotel had 35-buildings , its own airport , and a post office until it closed , in 1986 .
What ’ s coming next ?
Connection or contagion ?
Coming together or coming apart ?
History surprises , but it doesn ’ t predict .
Scenes From a Pandemic is a collaboration between The Nation and Kopkind , a living memorial to radical journalist Andrew Kopkind , who from 1982–94 was the magazine ’ s chief political writer and analyst .
This series of dispatches from Kopkind ’ s far-flung network of participants @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is edited by Nation contributor and Kopkind program director JoAnn Wypijewski , and appears weekly on thenation.com and kopkind.org .

Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Get The Nation’s Weekly Newsletter Fridays. The best of the week. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Fridays. The best of the week.
Thank you for signing up for The Nation’s weekly newsletter.
Repro Nation A monthly newsletter on the global fight for reproductive freedom. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.
Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?
S ullivan C ounty, N.Y.— It’s a myth that people in small-town America know one another. I’ve had a cabin in this place for 30 years and never knew that a foie gras factory sits high above Ferndale, a hamlet I’ve driven through hundreds of times. I found out one sunny Sunday this spring, when 40 flag-festooned cars filed up to La Belle Farm past blooming forsythia and a white-picket-fenced farmhouse, part of an appreciation drive for farm and factory workers.
The drive kicked off at Murray’s Chickens, a packing plant 15 minutes away in South Fallsburg, and weaved through a housing project where workers and their kids smiled and waved, sprawling out onto concrete stoops in the spring warmth as we honked our horns.
No one waved in Ferndale. Not a soul could be seen. Only row after row of workers’ trailers, exposed on a hilltop, perpendicular to an enormous, low, windowless barn. When New York City banned the sale of foie gras, a few years ago, no one stopped this place or nearby Hudson Valley Foie Gras from force-feeding and slaughtering enough ducks, ducklings, and geese to make these the nation’s premier producers of the sickening pâté. Who knew?
We left Manhattan and drove up here in March. A pocket of hanging-on farms, scrubby woods, and defunct hotels, Sullivan Valley is neither Hudson Valley rich nor Delaware Valley airy. From its heyday as the Catskills’ famous Borscht Belt in the 1950s, it is home now to 75,000 souls in winter. Social distance comes with the territory. As the snow fell late and wet, and lines at the supermarket got better organized, it was possible to imagine that nothing new was coming, not spring or Covid-19.
The novel coronavirus came quietly to the country, prowling the backroads of poor health, poor health care, lack of attention and clout. Facts took time to come into focus, as inconspicuous places with tucked-away poultry plants started showing up in county statistics, followed by obscure villages fronting off-road meat packers and down-by-the river dairy processors. Scenes From a Pandemic Untethered, or The Year of Living Virtually Patricia J. Williams The Art of the Meal Mary Lewis Maybe We Shouldn’t Go Back to Normal Bri M.
By late April, people were realizing that, just like the city, their patch of country was powered by a pool of poorly paid, poorly documented, mostly Latinx and Black workers. Some were dead, and more were falling sick.
Thirty-eight-year-old Luz (not her real name) worked in a cold, crowded factory wrapping luncheon meat around cheese sticks for sale at deli counters around the country. Twenty-five workers toiled bunched up at three tables, and ate together at mealtimes. She learned about the virus through the Internet, then on Facebook, and didn’t believe it posed a threat here. All spring, Luz kept working. Still, she’d undress as soon as she returned home and shower before greeting her children.
“She went nowhere, just from her job to home; home to Walmart or ShopRite to get what we needed; then home again,” explained teenage Marisol, speaking on Zoom from the home her mother forbade her to leave. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
Then a coworker died. Luz left work that day and hasn’t been back: “How could they do such a thing, to not tell us what’s happening?”
Two months into the lockdown in Manhattan, Sullivan County had the highest positive test rate, and the most new cases per capita, in New York State.
The county’s public health director, Nancy McGraw, raised concerns about farm and factory workers at her weekly briefings, which were face-timed on a press officer’s cell phone. Local media picked up the story, and with bad broadband and little elbow room, activists got busy.
By early May, Rotary clubs were delivering food to essential workers, piling station wagons full of Monticello’s famous bagels in the morning and cooked meals from grateful restaurants at night. At the entrance to the senior care center in Liberty, nurses put on superhero costumes to greet a rain-drenched solidarity drive-by. Nurses thanking drivers, drivers thanking nurses, everyone getting wet. Current Issue View our current issue
Meanwhile, Juanita Sarmiento and members of the Rural and Migrant Ministry set up signs at the entrance to Murray’s Chickens: FREE MASKS. Across from the bank and the kosher butchers, they handed out boxloads of protective masks to blue-apron-clad workers at shift change.
“We could have seen it coming. I saw it coming,” says Sarmiento, a former biology student.
“What’s coming into its own is new leadership,” purrs Sandy Oxford through a red chili-pepper face mask. Director of the Hudson Valley Area Labor Federation, Oxford joined Sarmiento at Murray’s one Friday to support workers and berate the bosses: “If the workers have all the masks they need, why are they rushing over here to get more?”
Crowds rallied for Black lives in June: half a dozen on the bridge in Narrowsburg; several hundred in Monticello, demanding release of prisoners from the town’s ancient jail.
In Roscoe, at the foot of Catskill State Park, the Black Lives Matter rally took place on Railway Avenue, a broad, empty block, home of the Trout Town Inn.
Organizer Ashlee Perez straddled a wooden ranch fence to be seen. “Yes, we have racism here in Roscoe,” she told the mostly white, mostly young group of protesters. Along with half a dozen other African Americans, she told her neighbors about their town—about school bullies, bureaucratic bigots, absurd arrests, and too-many-to-count traffic stops, about silence and threats.
The group clustered around two vintage train carriages, a perky red caboose, and a long, sea green “trout car,” reminders of the railway platform that once occupied this block. One hundred years ago, people in long dresses and high hats, mostly white, mostly Christian, would spill off the trains of the O & W line, drawn by Roscoe’s fish and fresh air. Only the train cars and the trout remain.
The future will look different, says Perez. Demographics demand it. “But right now, people like me aren’t going to want to stay here.” Waving her arms for balance, Perez seemed to gesture down the invisible tracks. “This place is going to have to change.”
I have seen every day of spring and summer here for the first time. I’ve discovered that those trout, millions of them, were city transplants, shipped from Long Island hatcheries in the 1880s and ’90s. They rode the rails as people did. From the crowded city, many people came with tuberculosis, seeking fresh air, a cure, relief.
For 30 years, Sullivan County boomed. That was its Silver Age. It ended in the 1920s, when people began to understand that human contact could spread disease.
One red hot Saturday in July, strolling down a long former track, now a wheelchair-accessible walkway, with county historian John Conway, I learned more. TB killed the passenger trains, an entire network of spidery rail lines that had brought generations of city-dwellers north. But TB also brought a Jewish immigrant and his family here, seeking escape from city smog and anti-Semitism. The Grossingers bought a failing farm at a bargain price and helped usher in Sullivan County’s next big boom, its Golden Age. Grossingers Catskill Resort Hotel had 35-buildings, its own airport, and a post office until it closed, in 1986.
What’s coming next? Connection or contagion? Coming together or coming apart? History surprises, but it doesn’t predict.
Scenes From a Pandemic is a collaboration between The Nation and Kopkind, a living memorial to radical journalist Andrew Kopkind, who from 1982–94 was the magazine’s chief political writer and analyst. This series of dispatches from Kopkind’s far-flung network of participants, advisers, guests, and friends is edited by Nation contributor and Kopkind program director JoAnn Wypijewski, and appears weekly on thenation.com and kopkind.org.


thenation--2020-09-02--As Alexei Navalny’s Life Hangs in the Balance, So Does the Fate of the Russian Opposition

As the life of Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny hangs in the balance , so does the fate of the movement he leads .
For many years , the anti-corruption crusader has offered the only serious challenge to President Vladimir Putin ’ s 20-year rule .
According to the German government , Navalny was poisoned with Novichok , the same deadly nerve agent used in the UK against Russian double agent Sergey Skripal in 2018 .
With doctors predicting a long and difficult recovery , will the temporary loss of its lodestar cripple Russia ’ s already embattled opposition or set @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brilliant but flawed leader ?
If Russia ’ s failings are too often blamed on one man , for over a decade the country ’ s salvation has been linked—in the Western imagination at least—to the promise of another .
Navalny—corporate lawyer , activist investor , and presidential candidate—has turned his online exposés of official corruption into a formidable political force .
Forensically researched but leavened with acerbic wit , memes , and pop culture references , his viral videos attract millions of views .
Navalny is not allowed on Russian terrestrial television @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his YouTube channel ; his recent video ridiculing the July constitutional referendum that potentially extended Vladimir Putin ’ s presidency until 2036 was viewed 12 million times .
In the 2013 Moscow mayoral race , he managed to secure a quarter of the votes despite being denied any mainstream media airtime .
Credible allegations of ballot-stuffing accompanied the Kremlin-backed winner .
Navalny ’ s telegenic , market-friendly persona , and strident opposition to Putin have made him into a darling of the West .
Here , finally , was a Russian liberal preaching @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political baggage of Yeltsin-era figures such as the assassinated Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov or vengeful oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky , whose oil company Yukos was nationalized after he crossed Putin .
Writing in The Washington Post last week , former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul likened Navalny to Nelson Mandela , Mahatma Gandhi , Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. , and Vaclav Havel , all in the same sentence .
Such breathless pronouncements gloss over Navalny ’ s troubling history of right-wing , nationalist , and anti-immigrant rhetoric .
In 2007 , Navalny @ @ @ @ @ @ @ liberal Yabloko party over his nationalist views .
Calling for a “ normal nationalism , ” he regularly attended the annual Russian March , a rally that attracted neo-Nazis .
Nor did Navalny ’ s animosity to the Kremlin prevent him from supporting the 2008 war with Georgia or stating , in a 2014 radio interview , that he would not return Crimea to Ukraine if he had the power to do so .
When Navalny ran for president in 2018 , one columnist even likened him to Donald Trump for his plans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ former Soviet republics .
Unsurprisingly , the left has been much more ambivalent about Navalny .
In his 2018 book Russia Without Putin , Tony Wood , a member of the editorial committee of New Left Review dismissed Navalny ’ s philosophy as “ a digest of the last three decades of conventional western social and economic policy , ” ideas that “ led the world into a pervasive crisis from which there is no end in sight.
” Were Navalny ever to win power , Wood wrote , his policies “ would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the post-Soviet system in place that , for the majority of Russians , it would be hard to see what had changed.
” Yet after speaking to both to his supporters and critics , it becomes clear that in recent years Navalny has taken an unexpected but unmistakable left turn .
That may have been what turned him from a niche liberal troublemaker into a genuine existential threat to the Kremlin .
Violetta Grudina heads Navalny ’ s organization in my hometown , the arctic city of Murmansk .
A longtime liberal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s job in strongly social justice terms .
“ For local and regional officials , the question of people ’ s quality of life is not just on the bottom of the list ; it doesn ’ t figure on the list at all , ” she told me .
“ The people who own the mines in the region are all billionaires .
Governors come and go , but they are all beholden to these oligarchs .
Their sole task is to facilitate the transfer of the region ’ s natural @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This kind of language was rarely used by Navalny ’ s people in the past .
On a day-to-day level , says Grudina , “ we are a citizens ’ advice organization as much as a political one.
” She explained that people “ come to us as a last resort , having been through all the other circles of hell .
They need help with legal questions , or are looking for impartial information .
Most are not even our supporters but soon realize that we are working on their behalf.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Foundation ( FBK ) , Navalny ’ s muckraking initiative devoted to uncovering the misdeeds of politicians and oligarchs , became more socially conscious recently .
After years of spotlighting graft and venality at the top of Russian politics—including revelations that Dmitry Medvedev owned a duck house on his estate and once bought 20 pairs of shoes in a day—Navalny turned his ire to corruption with more direct impact on citizens .
In late 2018 , the FBK linked a dysentery outbreak in Moscow schools to several monopolistic catering companies allegedly owned by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ described as “ Putin ’ s chef , ” who also sponsors Russian mercenaries abroad .
The report caused widespread outrage and led Prigozhin to file , and win , a USD 1.2 million lawsuit against the FBK .
Facing financial ruin , in June , Navalny was forced to dissolve the organization .
Despite this setback , Navalny ’ s socially orientated , regionally inflected , and nonpartisan approach has paid dividends .
By removing the taint of tribalism and Moscow elitism , Navalny has succeeded where all other members of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more unexpectedly , he has built bridges with Russia ’ s large mass of disaffected people who do not identify as reformist at all—in particular , the supporters of the so-called systemic opposition .
The Factory Joins the Square : Putin ’ s Nightmare Unfolds in Belarus The term describes the five parliamentary political parties that ostensibly oppose the ruling United Russia Party but appear to have made a pact with the Kremlin not to put up a serious fight .
Chief among them is the Communist Party of the Russian Federation ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been dismissed as “ red-brown ” Stalinists ’ nostalgic for Soviet central planning and military might .
Nevertheless , the KRPF remains the second-largest party in parliament after United Russia .
Navalny reached out to the KRPF through an initiative called Smart Vote , designed to prevent United Russia from splitting the opposition vote .
It debuted during the contested Moscow city Duma elections last September in response to independent candidates being barred from running .
The premise was simple .
On his website , Navalny told his supporters to vote for a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him and his team on the sole basis of their perceived ability to beat the United Russia candidate .
The gambit worked .
On the night , 20 Smart Vote candidates won , claiming nearly half of the assembly ’ s 45 seats .
Two-thirds came from the KPRF , one of whose candidates even managed to unseat Moscow ’ s head of United Russia .
One of the KPRF ’ s beneficiaries of smart voting was 37-year-old Evgeny Stupin , a criminal lawyer and former police detective .
“ I am very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which played a significant role and added at least 5 to 7 percent to my margin , ” Stupin told me .
“ Smart Voting is a highly effective project , and the more different opposition parties , regardless of their political stripe , get involved , the harder it will be for United Russia and Putin to hang on to power.
” Stupin denied that the KPRF is an opposition party in name only , but acknowledged that there exists a contradiction within its ranks .
“ It ’ s true that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the Kremlin , ” he said , “ but there are also others who believe in an uncompromising struggle against the regime using all legal means.
” The successful partnership led many on the left to put aside their reservations .
“ Thanks to Navalny , we are now seeing a new configuration of opposition forces that makes it harder for the authorities to divide people by ideology , ” says the radical activist , poet , and musician Kirill Medvedev .
“ Unifying the liberal and pro-Soviet electorate was an important @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government very nervous.
” It has reason to be .
Since last year ’ s Moscow election debacle , the Kremlin ’ s grip has been rocked by a crescendo of protests against a series of official blunders .
In late 2018 , the government raised the state pension age , something Putin had previously vowed not to do .
In fact , it was Navalny who originally called for raising the pension age , from a position of fiscal conservatism .
However , by 2018 he had changed his mind and organized @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two dozen cities .
Nearly 1000 people were detained .
In July 2019 , protests swept through Moscow after the city ’ s electoral commission refused to register independent candidates from running in the municipal elections .
In June 2020 , the government pushed through a controversial constitutional reform that would allow Putin to remain in office until he turns 84 .
The referendum was plagued by allegations of fraud , voter coercion , and ballot stuffing , with the final tally of 78 percent in favor widely mocked .
This June , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s Khabarovsk region after governor Sergey Furgal was arrested over a murder that allegedly took place 15 years ago .
Many local people viewed the arrest as a politically motivated attempt to replace a relatively independent local figure ( Furgal is a member of the far-right Liberal Democratic Party , one of the parties that make up the systemic opposition ) with a Moscow apparatchik with no ties to the region .
Nearly two months since Furgal ’ s removal , people continue to attend regular protests .
In August , electoral @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Witnessing President Alexander Lukashenko ’ s blatant power grab , many Russians saw clear parallels between two entitled middle-aged men who , despite nearly a half century of rule between them , tried to cheat their way to becoming presidents for life .
Some in Khabarovsk have now begun to carry the red and white flags of the Belarusian opposition .
For two decades , Putin has warned that any regime change would plunge the country back into the misery of the 1990s .
It was a persuasive argument for millions who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plummeted , unemployment soared , and the country ’ s wealth was carved up by oligarchs and criminal gangs .
With official encouragement , that decade ’ s epic dislocation and trauma have morphed into the closest thing post-Soviet Russia has to a national foundation myth .
Over time , the ’ 90s became weaponized by the Kremlin into an all-purpose bogeyman , a modern version of Babai , the sinister , shape-shifting sprite of Russian folklore that takes the form of one ’ s darkest fear .
Traditionally used to frighten children @ @ @ @ @ @ @ become redeployed to warn parents away from the evils of democratic regime change .
Yet there are signs that the strategy is losing its grip over the public imagination .
For one thing , since Putin first came to power in 2000 , an entire generation has come of age with no firsthand experience of the 1990s .
They include Grudina , Navalny ’ s director of operations in Murmansk .
“ All those scare stories about the chaos after the fall of the USSR , they frighten me much less than the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” she told me .
“ People like me who have lived most or all our lives under Putin , we have nothing to compare it to .
We didn ’ t see the ’ 90s .
We don ’ t get triggered by them .
You can ’ t scare us with that stuff.
” The Factory Joins the Square : Putin ’ s Nightmare Unfolds in Belarus More in this series Another member of the post-90s generation trying to enter politics is 28-year-old Ksenia Fadeeva .
She is running as an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Tomsk , the Siberian city where Navalny was taken in last week .
Fadeeva , who leads Navalny ’ s chapter in Tomsk , met with him and other activists the night before he was poisoned .
The chapter is now preparing to release the Smart Vote list of candidates ahead of the elections on September 13 .
“ We are not in the business of helping the KPRF , ” she told me .
“ We just want to break the monopoly of United Russia .
It doesn ’ t matter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yabloko ; what matters is that they can win.
” Fadeeva told me she has no doubt that the leadership of all the parliamentary parties is controlled by the Kremlin , but believes that the very experience of having grassroots backing can be transformative .
“ Once a candidate has felt the support of real voters behind them , rather than the Kremlin or some local bosses ; once they got a taste of that agency , they will start acting like an independent , ” said Fadeeva .
For her , Navalny @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bringing together the liberals and the left but in bringing politics to ordinary people .
“ When I go out and meet voters in my district , nobody asks me if I ’ m a liberal , ” she said .
“ They ask me when their hot water will come back on.
” She remembers how , when she was out campaigning , a man approached , pointed incredulously at her photo on the poster , and exclaimed “ But that ’ s you !
You are here in person , handing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only ever seen United Russia candidates on billboards and the local evening news .
Navalny ’ s unique gift for uniting disparate people , ideas , and movements undoubtedly helped make him a target .
He appears to be the only person in Russia capable of tying together the public ’ s inchoate grievances into a common purpose .
Through Smart Voting , Navalny has already shown his power to hijack and reinvigorate the country ’ s formerly rubber-stamping institutions .
“ For the government , losing the 2020 Duma elections would be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him out of action before it ’ s too late , ” Fadeeva believes .
What will happen to the movement now that he faces , at best , a long road to convalescence ?
“ Navalny has no rivals , ” Wood told me .
Since the publication of his book on Putin , the academic has acknowledged Navalny ’ s move to the left but remains skeptical about the depth of his commitment to a radical program .
Nor does he feel that Navalny has fully jettisoned his earlier nationalism .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to pick on Central Asians he would do it again , ” Wood said .
( Even Fedeeva admitted to me that Navalny “ still has some nationalist , anti-immigrant positions.
” ) Medvedev is more sympathetic about Navalny ’ s ability to amplify and deliver on aspects of the left ’ s agenda , precisely because of his belief that Navalny , rather than being personally wedded to any specific program—nationalism included—will do whatever gets him the most opposition votes .
Yet what bothers the radical activist is the disproportionate influence of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ We on the left always maintained that the opposition should not need an overarching leader , that it should be about consensus among various equal groups , but Navalny had other ideas , ” said Medvedev .
“ Maybe his absense , hard that it would be for us to endure on a human level , could create an opportunity to build a movement that does not hinge on a single individual.
” If he ’ s right , the brutal attempt to decapitate the opposition may yet backfire .
With @ @ @ @ @ @ @ foreseeable future , the opposition now has a chance to rebalance itself through a more diverse , horizontal , and collective approach .
Certainly , neither Grudina and Fadeeva nor Stupin and his progressive colleagues within the systemic opposition are letting the shock of what happened to Navalny put them off the fight .
“ For a while , we couldn ’ t breathe , ” Fadeeva told me .
“ But our work does not stop , so we keep going .
”

Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Get The Nation’s Weekly Newsletter Fridays. The best of the week. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Fridays. The best of the week.
Thank you for signing up for The Nation’s weekly newsletter.
Repro Nation A monthly newsletter on the global fight for reproductive freedom. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.
Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?
As the life of Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny hangs in the balance, so does the fate of the movement he leads. For many years, the anti-corruption crusader has offered the only serious challenge to President Vladimir Putin’s 20-year rule. According to the German government, Navalny was poisoned with Novichok, the same deadly nerve agent used in the UK against Russian double agent Sergey Skripal in 2018. With doctors predicting a long and difficult recovery, will the temporary loss of its lodestar cripple Russia’s already embattled opposition or set it free from the shadow of a brilliant but flawed leader?
If Russia’s failings are too often blamed on one man, for over a decade the country’s salvation has been linked—in the Western imagination at least—to the promise of another. Navalny—corporate lawyer, activist investor, and presidential candidate—has turned his online exposés of official corruption into a formidable political force. Forensically researched but leavened with acerbic wit, memes, and pop culture references, his viral videos attract millions of views.
Navalny is not allowed on Russian terrestrial television, yet 5 million people subscribe to his YouTube channel; his recent video ridiculing the July constitutional referendum that potentially extended Vladimir Putin’s presidency until 2036 was viewed 12 million times. In the 2013 Moscow mayoral race, he managed to secure a quarter of the votes despite being denied any mainstream media airtime. Credible allegations of ballot-stuffing accompanied the Kremlin-backed winner.
Navalny’s telegenic, market-friendly persona, and strident opposition to Putin have made him into a darling of the West. Here, finally, was a Russian liberal preaching shareholder capitalism and free expression without the political baggage of Yeltsin-era figures such as the assassinated Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov or vengeful oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whose oil company Yukos was nationalized after he crossed Putin. Writing in The Washington Post last week, former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul likened Navalny to Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Vaclav Havel, all in the same sentence.
Such breathless pronouncements gloss over Navalny’s troubling history of right-wing, nationalist, and anti-immigrant rhetoric. In 2007, Navalny was expelled from the small, classically liberal Yabloko party over his nationalist views. Calling for a “normal nationalism,” he regularly attended the annual Russian March, a rally that attracted neo-Nazis. Nor did Navalny’s animosity to the Kremlin prevent him from supporting the 2008 war with Georgia or stating, in a 2014 radio interview, that he would not return Crimea to Ukraine if he had the power to do so. When Navalny ran for president in 2018, one columnist even likened him to Donald Trump for his plans to introduce visas for migrant workers from former Soviet republics.
Unsurprisingly, the left has been much more ambivalent about Navalny. In his 2018 book Russia Without Putin, Tony Wood, a member of the editorial committee of New Left Review dismissed Navalny’s philosophy as “a digest of the last three decades of conventional western social and economic policy,” ideas that “led the world into a pervasive crisis from which there is no end in sight.” Were Navalny ever to win power, Wood wrote, his policies “would leave so much of the substantive content of the post-Soviet system in place that, for the majority of Russians, it would be hard to see what had changed.” Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
Yet after speaking to both to his supporters and critics, it becomes clear that in recent years Navalny has taken an unexpected but unmistakable left turn. That may have been what turned him from a niche liberal troublemaker into a genuine existential threat to the Kremlin. Current Issue View our current issue
Violetta Grudina heads Navalny’s organization in my hometown, the arctic city of Murmansk. A longtime liberal activist, she now describes the organization’s job in strongly social justice terms. “For local and regional officials, the question of people’s quality of life is not just on the bottom of the list; it doesn’t figure on the list at all,” she told me. “The people who own the mines in the region are all billionaires. Governors come and go, but they are all beholden to these oligarchs. Their sole task is to facilitate the transfer of the region’s natural wealth to them and to Moscow.” This kind of language was rarely used by Navalny’s people in the past.
On a day-to-day level, says Grudina, “we are a citizens’ advice organization as much as a political one.” She explained that people “come to us as a last resort, having been through all the other circles of hell. They need help with legal questions, or are looking for impartial information. Most are not even our supporters but soon realize that we are working on their behalf.”
Even the investigative work of his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), Navalny’s muckraking initiative devoted to uncovering the misdeeds of politicians and oligarchs, became more socially conscious recently. After years of spotlighting graft and venality at the top of Russian politics—including revelations that Dmitry Medvedev owned a duck house on his estate and once bought 20 pairs of shoes in a day—Navalny turned his ire to corruption with more direct impact on citizens.
In late 2018, the FBK linked a dysentery outbreak in Moscow schools to several monopolistic catering companies allegedly owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close associate sometimes described as “Putin’s chef,” who also sponsors Russian mercenaries abroad. The report caused widespread outrage and led Prigozhin to file, and win, a USD 1.2 million lawsuit against the FBK. Facing financial ruin, in June, Navalny was forced to dissolve the organization.
Despite this setback, Navalny’s socially orientated, regionally inflected, and nonpartisan approach has paid dividends. By removing the taint of tribalism and Moscow elitism, Navalny has succeeded where all other members of the liberal opposition have failed. Perhaps even more unexpectedly, he has built bridges with Russia’s large mass of disaffected people who do not identify as reformist at all—in particular, the supporters of the so-called systemic opposition. Belarus In the Streets The Factory Joins the Square: Putin’s Nightmare Unfolds in Belarus Stephen Crowley
The term describes the five parliamentary political parties that ostensibly oppose the ruling United Russia Party but appear to have made a pact with the Kremlin not to put up a serious fight. Chief among them is the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), whose voters have long been dismissed as “red-brown” Stalinists’ nostalgic for Soviet central planning and military might. Nevertheless, the KRPF remains the second-largest party in parliament after United Russia.
Navalny reached out to the KRPF through an initiative called Smart Vote, designed to prevent United Russia from splitting the opposition vote. It debuted during the contested Moscow city Duma elections last September in response to independent candidates being barred from running. The premise was simple. On his website, Navalny told his supporters to vote for a single candidate per district, selected by him and his team on the sole basis of their perceived ability to beat the United Russia candidate. The gambit worked. On the night, 20 Smart Vote candidates won, claiming nearly half of the assembly’s 45 seats. Two-thirds came from the KPRF, one of whose candidates even managed to unseat Moscow’s head of United Russia.
One of the KPRF’s beneficiaries of smart voting was 37-year-old Evgeny Stupin, a criminal lawyer and former police detective. “I am very grateful to Navalny for his support, which played a significant role and added at least 5 to 7 percent to my margin,” Stupin told me. “Smart Voting is a highly effective project, and the more different opposition parties, regardless of their political stripe, get involved, the harder it will be for United Russia and Putin to hang on to power.”
Stupin denied that the KPRF is an opposition party in name only, but acknowledged that there exists a contradiction within its ranks. “It’s true that there are those who insist on compliance with the Kremlin,” he said, “but there are also others who believe in an uncompromising struggle against the regime using all legal means.”
The successful partnership led many on the left to put aside their reservations. “Thanks to Navalny, we are now seeing a new configuration of opposition forces that makes it harder for the authorities to divide people by ideology,” says the radical activist, poet, and musician Kirill Medvedev. “Unifying the liberal and pro-Soviet electorate was an important strategic move, one that made the government very nervous.”
It has reason to be. Since last year’s Moscow election debacle, the Kremlin’s grip has been rocked by a crescendo of protests against a series of official blunders. In late 2018, the government raised the state pension age, something Putin had previously vowed not to do. In fact, it was Navalny who originally called for raising the pension age, from a position of fiscal conservatism. However, by 2018 he had changed his mind and organized a wave of illegal protests in over two dozen cities. Nearly 1000 people were detained.
In July 2019, protests swept through Moscow after the city’s electoral commission refused to register independent candidates from running in the municipal elections. In June 2020, the government pushed through a controversial constitutional reform that would allow Putin to remain in office until he turns 84. The referendum was plagued by allegations of fraud, voter coercion, and ballot stuffing, with the final tally of 78 percent in favor widely mocked.
This June, thousands took to the streets in Siberia’s Khabarovsk region after governor Sergey Furgal was arrested over a murder that allegedly took place 15 years ago. Many local people viewed the arrest as a politically motivated attempt to replace a relatively independent local figure (Furgal is a member of the far-right Liberal Democratic Party, one of the parties that make up the systemic opposition) with a Moscow apparatchik with no ties to the region. Nearly two months since Furgal’s removal, people continue to attend regular protests.
In August, electoral fraud in neighboring Belarus further inflamed tensions. Witnessing President Alexander Lukashenko’s blatant power grab, many Russians saw clear parallels between two entitled middle-aged men who, despite nearly a half century of rule between them, tried to cheat their way to becoming presidents for life. Some in Khabarovsk have now begun to carry the red and white flags of the Belarusian opposition.
For two decades, Putin has warned that any regime change would plunge the country back into the misery of the 1990s. It was a persuasive argument for millions who still remember the years when life expectancy plummeted, unemployment soared, and the country’s wealth was carved up by oligarchs and criminal gangs. With official encouragement, that decade’s epic dislocation and trauma have morphed into the closest thing post-Soviet Russia has to a national foundation myth. Over time, the ’90s became weaponized by the Kremlin into an all-purpose bogeyman, a modern version of Babai, the sinister, shape-shifting sprite of Russian folklore that takes the form of one’s darkest fear. Traditionally used to frighten children into finishing their porridge, Babai has become redeployed to warn parents away from the evils of democratic regime change.
Yet there are signs that the strategy is losing its grip over the public imagination. For one thing, since Putin first came to power in 2000, an entire generation has come of age with no firsthand experience of the 1990s. They include Grudina, Navalny’s director of operations in Murmansk. “All those scare stories about the chaos after the fall of the USSR, they frighten me much less than the nightmare we are currently living through,” she told me. “People like me who have lived most or all our lives under Putin, we have nothing to compare it to. We didn’t see the ’90s. We don’t get triggered by them. You can’t scare us with that stuff.” Russia When AI and Robotics Combine Michael T. Klare The US and Russia’s Standoff Over Prisoner Exchange James Bamford All Sides in the Ukraine War Have Been Using Cluster Bombs Since 2014 Lev Golinkin
Another member of the post-90s generation trying to enter politics is 28-year-old Ksenia Fadeeva. She is running as an independent candidate in the upcoming municipal elections in Tomsk, the Siberian city where Navalny was taken in last week. Fadeeva, who leads Navalny’s chapter in Tomsk, met with him and other activists the night before he was poisoned. The chapter is now preparing to release the Smart Vote list of candidates ahead of the elections on September 13.
“We are not in the business of helping the KPRF,” she told me. “We just want to break the monopoly of United Russia. It doesn’t matter if they are communist, LDPR, Yabloko; what matters is that they can win.” Fadeeva told me she has no doubt that the leadership of all the parliamentary parties is controlled by the Kremlin, but believes that the very experience of having grassroots backing can be transformative. “Once a candidate has felt the support of real voters behind them, rather than the Kremlin or some local bosses; once they got a taste of that agency, they will start acting like an independent,” said Fadeeva.
For her, Navalny’s biggest achievement was not in bringing together the liberals and the left but in bringing politics to ordinary people. “When I go out and meet voters in my district, nobody asks me if I’m a liberal,” she said. “They ask me when their hot water will come back on.” She remembers how, when she was out campaigning, a man approached, pointed incredulously at her photo on the poster, and exclaimed “But that’s you! You are here in person, handing out these flyers yourself.” He had only ever seen United Russia candidates on billboards and the local evening news.
Navalny’s unique gift for uniting disparate people, ideas, and movements undoubtedly helped make him a target. He appears to be the only person in Russia capable of tying together the public’s inchoate grievances into a common purpose. Through Smart Voting, Navalny has already shown his power to hijack and reinvigorate the country’s formerly rubber-stamping institutions. “For the government, losing the 2020 Duma elections would be fatal. So they decided to take him out of action before it’s too late,” Fadeeva believes.
What will happen to the movement now that he faces, at best, a long road to convalescence? “Navalny has no rivals,” Wood told me. Since the publication of his book on Putin, the academic has acknowledged Navalny’s move to the left but remains skeptical about the depth of his commitment to a radical program. Nor does he feel that Navalny has fully jettisoned his earlier nationalism. “If he found it politically expedient to pick on Central Asians he would do it again,” Wood said. (Even Fedeeva admitted to me that Navalny “still has some nationalist, anti-immigrant positions.”)
Medvedev is more sympathetic about Navalny’s ability to amplify and deliver on aspects of the left’s agenda, precisely because of his belief that Navalny, rather than being personally wedded to any specific program—nationalism included—will do whatever gets him the most opposition votes. Yet what bothers the radical activist is the disproportionate influence of one man over the entire opposition movement. “We on the left always maintained that the opposition should not need an overarching leader, that it should be about consensus among various equal groups, but Navalny had other ideas,” said Medvedev. “Maybe his absense, hard that it would be for us to endure on a human level, could create an opportunity to build a movement that does not hinge on a single individual.”
If he’s right, the brutal attempt to decapitate the opposition may yet backfire. With Navalny out of the picture for the foreseeable future, the opposition now has a chance to rebalance itself through a more diverse, horizontal, and collective approach. Certainly, neither Grudina and Fadeeva nor Stupin and his progressive colleagues within the systemic opposition are letting the shock of what happened to Navalny put them off the fight. “For a while, we couldn’t breathe,” Fadeeva told me. “But our work does not stop, so we keep going.”