Clumsy attempts to distance himself from Project 2025 because “the ratings” are bad, Gessen’s rule #1 still applies: Believe the Autocrat.
He means what he says. Whenever you find yourself thinking, or hear others claiming, that he is exaggerating, that is our innate tendency to reach for a rationalization. This will happen often: humans seem to have evolved to practice denial when confronted publicly with the unacceptable. Back in the 1930s, The New York Times assured its readers that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was all posture. More recently, the same newspaper made a telling choice between two statements made by Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov following a police crackdown on protesters in Moscow: “
Von Clownstick may not have any cause or ideology other than himself, but that’s enough for him to want to see this attack on liberal democratic institutions implemented if he’s given the power to do so.
