“Death Is The Only Experience Of Life...

Watch this, and then think of the Republican members of Congress who cower at the thought of being verbally attacked by a powerless Donald Trump. https://t.co/vOjqCrNKl0

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) February 3, 2021

...that is not lived through.”—Wittgenstein 

Pardon my cynicism, but it’s rather easy to demand someone else be brave when it costs you nothing.  Navalny is no doubt courageous, but he is challenging the political and governmental order in Russia. If he wins, he gains. If he loses, he gains; especially since he's already cheated Putin's attempt to kill him.  Death tends to focus the minds; surviving an attempt on your life tends to focus the spirit.  But political defeat in a more rational system than Russian politics is not akin to death at all; in some ways, it's much worse.  Challenging the political order in America either makes you AOC or MTG, but that depends on getting through the primaries. If you lose there, you lose.  Losing IS an experience of life that is "lived through."

There are worse fates than political loss, of course, but if you want to remain in office you have to play the game.If youwant to have any political power you also have to play the game.  Courage doesn’t win elections, unless it’s the false courage of Josh Hawley raising a fist to the crowd on January 6th. Standing up to a state that has already tried to kill you is courageous. Standing up to an electorate fed on lies should be courageous, but it’s actually the way to become a political footnote; or more likely, just political roadkill. To put it bluntly, it’s the reason (IMHPO) so few Democrats won in Texas in November. I think many of them showed political courage.  I also note none of them won election. So it goes.

The “leadership” in the GOP right now is McConnell and Romney, but it’s also Gym Jordan and Matt Gaetz. It is not Liz Cheney or Kevin McCarthy. It’s notable GOP Senators are speaking out against MTG, but House GOP members are not. Taking on MTG is not taking on the state, it’s taking on the GOP primary electorate. In fact, Trump and MTG tried to position themselves as challenging the state: the”Deep State.” They posed as having the courage of Navalny. And it worked.

So, be careful what you wish for.

Navalny’s courage is true. He has faced death, and faced it because of his political ideology. Most politicians don’t have to be that determined, nor do we ask them to (how broken is a society or government where that kind of courage is a necessity?). Facing political death just to oppose Donald Trump? Where does that put you? “When elephants fight, the grass is trampled.” Surely the politicians are grass. 

Death may not be lived through; but defeat certainly is.