Donald J. Trump is Alexei Navalny, haven’t you heard? And so is Julian Assange.
Indeed, just about anyone with an ax to grind who feels put upon is Navalny, the Russina opposition leader who died mysteriously in Siberia on Feb. 16 just as the Munich Security Conference, which wife Yulia Navalnaya attended, was underway and Russia was making headway in its war on Ukraine, thanks to the Republicans in the House of Representatives.
The disproportionately aggrieved are always drawn to martyrdom, which would explain the un-Christlike’s obsession with Jesus. That they would be willing to follow his actual example of compassion and courage all the way to Calvary — a journey true Christians are taking in this holy season of Lent — is less certain.
They’re more interested in the “poor me” aspect of the narcissistic paradox in which they’re the best and everything they have is the best and yet, they’re always under siege. In the case of Trump — back on the binge of how he’s had it worse than President Abraham Lincoln, who prevailed over a shattered nation in the Civil War and wound up assassinated —his problems are of his own making. Had he not talked about E. Jean Carroll, had he returned the government documents, had he calmed the crowd on Jan. 6, 2021, had he said he was joking when he called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger about his need to find 11,000 votes in his state after the 2020 presidential election, had he settled out of court in his finance cases, he probably would’ve gotten away with everything he did.
But he’s always right, right? Everything he does is perfect. And anything or anyone to the contrary is part of a witch hunt.
Assange is similarly “oppressed,” suffering so after publishing sensitive material related to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, confined to a British prison and fighting extradition to the United States to face espionage charges. Assange isn’t much of a martyr, seeking asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London when the going got tough. He isn’t even much of a journalist, failing to redact the material or even refrain from publishing it as a journalist would, weighing the right to know with the harm it might do.
A real martyr doesn’t hide and he doesn’t whine. He accepts that there may be consequences to his actions. He even embraces them. And while he may be part of a movement and even lead a movement, he doesn’t demand that others die for him. He understands that this is a decision each person must make for himself.
I don’t think Trump or Assange are interested in any cause beyond themselves. Navalny was different. People wondered why he went back to Russia after he was poisoned in 2020 and evacuated for treatment to Berlin. He could’ve lead the opposition from there or anywhere. But it wouldn’t have been as effective, and he could’ve been assassinated anywhere as well.
In his poem “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” Oscar Wilde wrote, “for each man kills the thing he loves.” But it’s the opposite, isn’t it? Each man is killed by the thing he loves.
Navalny loved Russia, and he relished the fight. There was only Siberia for him.