By John Reid Wilcox
Imagine that China, Russia, or Venezuela took up the lost cause of Donald Trump’s 2020 re-election. That Trump was received by a litany of senior officials in Beijing who expressed support for the democratic aspirations of the American people and pledged to host a “comprehensive strategic dialogue” with “Make America Great Again” or MAGA-supportive journalists and activists. Additionally, imagine that the state hosting Trump was hundreds of times more powerful than the United States, capable of forcibly overthrowing the government in Washington.
This is precisely what has happened in the case of Belarussian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. Though Tsikhanouskaya is legitimately the victim of an unjust electoral process and forcibly repressive government (unlike Trump), such distinctions matter little in the paranoid view of the Alexander Lukashenko regime.
Today, what progress can such efforts claim to have yielded? Instead of appearing afraid of US policy, Belarus has only ratcheted up its repressive apparatus and taken the drastic step of hosting Russian nuclear weapons on its soil, while democrats in Minsk (or in exile) appear no closer to power.
This piece was originally published in Ink Stick on July 17, 2023. Read more HERE.