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This is Fighting Words, a weekly newsletter about what got me steamed this week. Let’s dive in.

Item one: “Unpredictable consequences”

 

I don’t know about you, but I have been worrying since this war started that we, the United States, were somehow going to end up officially fighting it. Joe Biden has done a good job of keeping us out of it and saying there’s no way we’re sending troops to defend Ukraine.

 

But history tells us that these things snowball. When I was young, I read a book called Why Nations Go to War by John Stoessinger that had a pretty profound impact on me. It discussed the start of World War I. It quoted extensively from the famous “Willy-Nicky letters,” the notes passed back and forth after the Sarajevo incident by the Kaiser and the Czar, who were cousins (Britain’s George V was also their cousin: incredible that the world was run that way!). As I recall, those letters were at first cordial and filled with demurrals; why, no, cousin, war is out of the question! And yet, within a month or so, they were writing to each other that alas, there was no alternative.

 

Has the world changed in a hundred years? Yes—and no. Specifically, Vladimir Putin doesn’t seem so different from the czars, in terms of imperial ambition. And we have no idea what he’s capable of. Remember that Fiona Hill, who has spent a good chunk of her life studying Putin, said, when hostilities started: “Basically, what President Putin has said quite explicitly in recent days is that if anybody interferes in Ukraine, they will be met with a response that they’ve ‘never had in [their] history.’ And he has put Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert. So he’s making it very clear that nuclear is on the table.”

 

And now, reports The Washington Post, Putin has issued an ominous warning: “Russia this week sent a formal diplomatic note to the United States warning that U.S. and NATO shipments of the ‘most sensitive’ weapons systems to Ukraine were ‘adding fuel’ to the conflict there and could bring ‘unpredictable consequences.’”

 

Unpredictable consequences … as if Putin can’t predict them; as if these consequences are somehow beyond his control, divine in some way, directed by fate. It won’t be him pressing the button, you see. It will be God. Just as, in the Willy-Nicky letters, it was God and fate that caused World War I to start.

 

If he gets desperate, he may well decide that his best move is to drag everyone into world war. If the Russian economy is going to tank, why not tank the world economy? If Russians are dying, why not have Americans die, too? From the point of view of a cornered imperialist whose imperial dreams are going off the rails, it’s the logical play.

 

I feel certain that Biden doesn’t want war. Why on earth would he? But if Putin does something crazy—uses a nuke, or makes an incursion into a NATO country—what is Biden to do? If this doesn’t keep you up at night, you’re not paying enough attention.

 

Item two: Stop traffic stops

 

This police execution, and it can only be called that, of Patrick Lyoya of Grand Rapids, Michigan, is beyond belief. Lyoya, who was on his hands and knees with the cop on his back, had apparently reached for the cop’s Taser, but for God’s sakes, doing so doesn’t invite a cop to put a bullet in the back of a human being’s head—“like an animal,” as Lyoya’s father said. What kind of depraved mind thinks that is an appropriate use of force? If this cop, whose name we don’t yet know (and what right has the Grand Rapids Police Department to withhold his name, by the way?), is ultimately acquitted, God help us.

 

The policy issue here is traffic stops. You’ll have noticed, I’m sure, that many of these killings start as traffic stops, this one included. Question: Why do armed police officers make traffic stops? There’s no logical reason for it. There should be an unarmed force of traffic officers who make these stops. Even if the motorist has a gun, how likely is he to use it on a uniformed officer who is unarmed? I’d say extremely unlikely. The armed motorist will know that shooting an unarmed peace officer is a really bad idea and will likely land him in prison for many years. The presence of the cop’s gun serves only to escalate matters.

 

In addition, traffic stops should just be minimized anyway. What’s the point? If somebody’s doing 60 in a 25 mph zone, sure, pull them over, they’re a danger. But say someone has expired tags. Just take a picture and send them a letter telling them they need to renew or pay a fine by X date. And some of the reasons for these stops are so picayune as to suggest that cops are looking for action—looking to hassle Black people specifically. Sandra Bland, the Texas woman whose 2015 death in a jail cell was ruled a suicide, was stopped because she failed to engage her turn indicator while changing lanes. Think about that. The cop in her case had a history of making “pretextual” traffic stops on very minor infractions and hoping to find evidence of criminality. What’s the point? Obviously, cops are given incentives to make these arrests. That incentive structure has to be decimated. The vast majority of people aren’t breaking the law.

 

A number of jurisdictions are considering or have recently implemented putting unarmed officers in charge of traffic stops. In a few years, we’ll have good data, and I have no doubt it will show that deaths are down. But of course, just once, one of these unarmed officers will be shot, and Fox News will go crazy with it, and Republicans will demagogue it, and whatever progress has been made will be lost.

Item three: No debates

 

The Republican National Committee has pulled out of the Commission on Presidential Debates, meaning unless something changes that, in 2024, there will be no presidential debates.

 

This is not exactly a surprise. Donald Trump doesn’t want debates. He lost every one, to both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, and whined and lied after them. But this is another assault on democracy from the Republicans. An estimated 63 million Americans tuned in to the final debate of 2020. That’s about 40 percent of the electorate. Debates are the main vehicle most people have for making up their minds.

 

Ronna McDaniel, the execrable chairwoman of the RNC, knows this. The Trumpy GOP wants to deny people information. If Trump is the nominee, he will no doubt do a steady stream of interviews on Fox News and One America and Newsmax and the others, which will in essence be full-time propaganda outlets in the fall of 2024.

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