Divide ut regnes.
Divide and conquer.
Vladimir Putin is evil. Increasingly, his mental stability may now be in question as well. He clearly is getting panicky about his mortality, and is going through something of a post-midlife crisis. But Putin is not an idiot, and he is an astute student of history. He is driven by an insatiable need to make history.
Divide ut regnes. Divide and conquer.
Putin now joins the ranks of Philip of Macedon, Julius Caesar and Napoleon.
Divide Ukraine.
Divide NATO.
Further divide (if that’s possible) the United States’ two dysfunctional political parties.
Divide the American people.
Part of dividing and conquering is gaslighting, of course. Convince people that they are not seeing what they are seeing. Deny facts. Deny the very existence of facts. Deny history. Revise history. And trust that the more absurd your claims are, the more they will be believed by many. (Any of this sound familiar?)
Putin says he has sent “peacekeepers” into the separatist territories of eastern Ukraine. You know, just persecuted ordinary Russian troops engaged in legitimate political discourse. Tourists.
He says that Ukraine doesn’t really exist. “Ukraine has never had traditions of its own statehood.”
Zelensky, Putin says, is an illegitimate president of a non-existent country.
Make Russia Great Again. Caps and t-shirts, maybe?
You do understand all of this. Don’t you?
Divide ut regnes.