The West Has to Believe that Democracy Will Prevail
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
When I began working on the history of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, survivors and historians alike were free to speak as they wished. Many of them felt as if a new Russia could be constructed on top of the fundamental, historical truths that were emerging.
That possibility faded. I can even tell you the exact moment when it finally came to an end: the morning of February 20, 2014, when Russian troops illegally marched across the Crimean peninsula, which is part of Ukraine. That was the moment when the work of writing Russian history once again became dangerous. Because that was the moment when the past and present collided—when the past became, once again, a blueprint for the present.
No historian of tragedy ever wants to look up, turn on the television, and find that their work has come to life. When, in the 1990s, I was researching the history of the Gulag in the Soviet archives, I assumed that the story belonged to the distant past. When, a few years later, I wrote about the Soviet assault on Eastern Europe, I also thought that I was describing an era that had ended. And when I studied the history of the Ukrainian famine, the tragedy at the center of Stalin’s attempt to eradicate Ukraine as a nation, I did not imagine that this same kind of story could repeat itself in my lifetime.
But in 2014, old plans were taken out of the same Soviet archives, dusted off, and put to use once again.
The Russian soldiers who spread out across Crimea traveled in unmarked vehicles, wearing uniforms without insignia. They took over government buildings, removed the local leaders, barred them from their offices. For several days afterward, the world was confused. Were these “separatists” who were staging an uprising? Were they “pro-Russian” Ukrainians?
I was not confused. I knew that this was a Russian invasion of Crimea, because it looked exactly like the Soviet invasion of Poland 70 years earlier. In 1944, the invasion featured Soviet soldiers wearing Polish uniforms, a Soviet-backed Communist Party pretending to speak for all Poles, a manipulated referendum, and other acts of political fakery that were designed to confuse not only the people of Poland but also Poland’s allies in London and Washington.
After 2014, and then again after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, cruelly familiar patterns repeated themselves. Russian soldiers treated ordinary Ukrainians as enemies and spies. They used random violence to terrorize people. They imprisoned civilians for minor offenses—the tying of a ribbon with Ukrainian colors to a bicycle, for example—or sometimes for no reason at all. They built torture chambers as well as filtration camps, which we could also call concentration camps. They transformed cultural institutions, schools, and universities to suit the nationalist, imperialist ideology of the new regime. They kidnapped children, took them to Russia, and changed their identities. They stripped Ukrainians of everything that made them human, that made them vital, that made them unique.
In different languages, at different times, this kind of assault has had different names. We used to talk about Sovietization . Now we speak of Russification . There is a German word too: Gleichschaltung. But whatever word you use, the process is the same. It means the imposition of arbitrary autocratic rule: a state without the rule of law, without guaranteed rights, without accountability, without checks and balances. It means the destruction of all stirrings or survivals or signs of the liberal democratic order. It means the construction of a totalitarian regime: In Mussolini’s famous words, “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”
In 2014, Russia was already on the way to becoming a totalitarian society, having launched two brutal wars in Chechnya, having murdered journalists and arrested critics. But after 2014, that process accelerated. The Russian experience of occupation in Ukraine paved the way for harsher politics inside Russia itself. In the years after the Crimean invasion, opposition was repressed further; independent institutions were completely banned.
This deep connection between autocracy and imperial wars of conquest has a logic to it. If you truly believe that you and your regime have the right to control all institutions, all information, all organizations—that you can strip people not just of rights but of identity, language, property, life—then of course you also believe that you have the right to inflict violence on whomever you please. Nor will you object to the human costs of such a war: If ordinary people have no rights, no power, no voice, then why should it matter whether they live or die?
Not that this connection is nothing new. Two centuries ago, Immanuel Kant—whose ideas inspired this prize —also described the link between despotism and war. More than two millennia ago, Aristotle wrote that a tyrant is inclined “to foment wars in order to preserve his own monopoly of power.” In the 20th century, Carl Von Ossietzky, the German journalist and activist, became a fierce opponent of war, not least because of what it was doing to the culture of his own country. As he wrote in 1932: “Nowhere is there as much belief in war as in Germany … nowhere are people more inclined to overlook its horrors and disregard its consequences, nowhere is soldiering celebrated more uncritically.”
Since the invasion of Crimea in 2014, this same militarization has gripped Russia too. Russian schools now train small children to be soldiers. Russian television encourages Russians to hate Ukrainians, to consider them subhuman. The Russian economy has been militarized: Some 40 percent of the national budget will now be spent on weapons. To obtain missiles and ammunition, Russia now makes deals with Iran and North Korea, two of the most brutal dictatorships on the planet. The constant talk of war in Ukraine also normalized the idea of war in Russia, making other wars more likely. Russian leaders now speak casually of using nuclear weapons against their other neighbors and regularly threaten to invade them.
As in Von Ossietzky’s Germany, criticism of the war is not merely discouraged in Russia. It is illegal. My friend Vladimir Kara-Murza made the brave decision in 2022 to return to Russia and to speak out against the invasion from there. Why? Because he wanted the history books to record that someone opposed the war. He paid a very high price. He was arrested. His health deteriorated. He was often kept in isolation. When he and others who had been unjustly imprisoned were finally released, in exchange for a group of Russian spies and criminals including a murderer taken from a German prison, his captors hinted that he should be careful, because in the future he might be poisoned. He had reason to believe them: Russian secret policemen had already poisoned him twice.
Kara-Murza was not alone. Since 2018, more than 116,000 Russians have faced criminal or administrative punishment for speaking their mind. Thousands of them have been punished specifically for objecting to the war in Ukraine. Their heroic battle is mostly carried out in silence. Because the regime has imposed total control on information in Russia, their voices cannot be heard.
But what about us in the rest of the democratic world? Our voices are not restrained or restricted. We are not jailed or poisoned for speaking our mind. How should we react to the revival of a form of government that we thought had disappeared from Europe forever? In the early, emotional days of the war in Ukraine, many did join the chorus of support. In 2022, as in 2014, Europeans again turned on their televisions to see scenes of a kind they knew only from history books: women and children huddled at train stations, tanks rolling across fields, bombed-out cities. In that moment, many things suddenly felt clear. Words quickly became actions. More than 50 countries joined a coalition to aid Ukraine, militarily and economically, an alliance built at unprecedented speed. In Kyiv, Odesa, and Kherson, I witnessed the effect of food aid, military aid, and other European support. It felt miraculous.
But as the war has continued, doubt has crept in. Since 2014, faith in democratic institutions and alliances has declined dramatically, in both Europe and America. Maybe our indifference to the invasion of Crimea played a larger role in this decline than we usually think. The decision to accelerate economic cooperation with Russia after the invasion certainly created both moral and financial corruption as well as cynicism. That cynicism was then amplified by a Russian disinformation campaign that we dismissed or ignored.
Now, faced with the greatest challenge to our values and our interests in our time, the democratic world is starting to wobble. Many wish the fighting in Ukraine would somehow, magically, stop. Others want to change the subject to the Middle East—another horrific, tragic conflict, but one where Europeans have almost no ability to shape events. A Hobbesian world makes many claims upon our resources of solidarity. A deeper engagement with one tragedy does not denote indifference to other tragedies. We must do what we can where our actions will make a difference.
Slowly, another group is gaining traction, too, especially in Germany. These are the people who do not support or condemn Vladimir Putin’s aggression but rather pretend to stand above the argument and declare “I want peace.” Some even call for peace by referring solemnly to the lessons of German history. But “I want peace” is not always a moral argument. This is also the right moment to say that the lesson of German history is not that Germans should be pacifists. On the contrary, we have known for nearly a century that a demand for pacifism in the face of an aggressive, advancing dictatorship can simply represent the appeasement and acceptance of that dictatorship.
In 1938, the German writer Thomas Mann, then already in exile, horrified by the situation in his country and by the complacency of the liberal democracies, denounced the “pacifism that brings about war instead of banishing it.” During World War II, George Orwell condemned his compatriots who called upon Britain to stop fighting. “Pacifism,” he wrote, “is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other.”
In 1983, Manés Sperber, the recipient of that year’s German Peace Prize, also argued against the false morality of his era’s pacifists, who at that time wanted to disarm Germany and Europe in the face of the Soviet threat: “Anyone,” he declared, “who believes and wants to make others believe that a Europe without weapons, neutral and capitulating, can ensure peace for the foreseeable future is mistaken and is misleading others.”
We can use some of these words once again. Many of those in Germany, and in Europe, who now call for pacifism in the face of the Russian onslaught are indeed “objectively pro-Russian,” to borrow Orwell’s phrase. Their arguments, if followed to the logical conclusion, mean that we should acquiesce to the military conquest of Ukraine, to the cultural destruction of Ukraine, to the construction of concentration camps in Ukraine, to the kidnapping of children in Ukraine. We are nearly three years into this war. What would it have meant to plead for peace in Nazi-dominated Europe in early 1942?
Let me say it more clearly: Those who advocate pacifism, and those who would surrender not just territory but people and principles to Russia, have learned nothing at all from the history of the 20th century.
The magic of the phrase never again has blinded us to reality before. In the weeks before the invasion in February 2022, Germany, like many other European nations, found war so impossible to imagine that the German government refused to supply Ukraine with weapons. And yet here is the irony: Had Germany, and the rest of NATO, supplied Ukraine with those weapons well in advance, maybe we could have deterred the invasion. Maybe it would never have happened. Perhaps the West’s failure was, in Thomas Mann’s words again, “pacifism that brings about war instead of banishing it.“
But let me repeat again: Mann loathed the war, as well as the regime that promoted it. Orwell hated militarism. Sperber and his family were themselves refugees from war. Yet it was because they hated war with such passion, and because they understood the link between war and dictatorship, that they argued in favor of defending the liberal societies they treasured.
We have been here before, which is why the words of our liberal democratic predecessors speak to us. European liberal societies have been confronted by aggressive dictatorships before. We have fought against them before. We can do so again. And this time, Germany is one of the liberal societies that can lead the fight.
To prevent the Russians from spreading their autocratic political system further, we must help the Ukrainians achieve victory, and not only for the sake of Ukraine. If there is even a small chance that military defeat could help end this horrific cult of violence in Russia, just as military defeat once brought an end to the cult of violence in Germany, we should take it. The impact will be felt on our continent and around the world—not just in Ukraine but in Ukraine’s neighbors, in Georgia, in Moldova, in Belarus. And not just in Russia but among Russia’s allies: China, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea.
The challenge is not only military. This is also a battle against hopelessness, against pessimism, and even against the creeping appeal of autocratic rule, which is also sometimes disguised beneath the false language of “peace.” The idea that autocracy is safe and stable, that democracies cause war; that autocracies protect some form of traditional values while democracies are degenerate—this language is also coming from Russia and the broader autocratic world, as well as from those inside our own societies who are prepared to accept as inevitable the blood and destruction inflicted by the Russian state. Those who accept the erasure of other people’s democracies are less likely to fight against the erasure of their own democracy. Complacency, like a virus, moves quickly across borders.
The temptation of pessimism is real. In the face of what feels like an endless war and an onslaught of propaganda, it is easier just to accept the idea of decline. But let’s remember what’s at stake, what the Ukrainians are fighting for: a society, like ours, where independent courts protect people from arbitrary violence; where the rights to thought, speech, and assembly are guaranteed; where citizens are free to engage in public life and are not frightened of the consequences; where security is guaranteed by a broad alliance of democracies and prosperity is anchored by the European Union.
Autocrats like the Russian president hate all of these principles because they threaten their power. Independent judges can hold rulers to account. A free press can expose high-level corruption. A political system that empowers citizens allows them to change their leaders. International organizations can enforce the rule of law. That is why the propagandists of autocratic regimes will do what they can to undermine the language of liberalism and the institutions that guard our freedoms, to mock them and to belittle them, inside their own countries and in ours as well.
Supporters of Ukraine are now asking Germany to provide weapons to be used against Russia, an aggressive military power. The true lesson of German history is not that Germans should never fight but that Germans have a special responsibility to stand up and take risks for freedom. All of us in the democratic world, not just Germans, have been trained to be critical and skeptical of our own leaders and of our own societies, so it can feel awkward when we are asked to defend our most fundamental principles. But we can’t let skepticism decline into nihilism.
In the face of an ugly, aggressive dictatorship in Europe, we in the democratic world are natural comrades. Our principles and ideals, and the alliances we have built around them, are our most powerful weapons. We must act upon our shared beliefs—that the future can be better; the war can be won; that authoritarianism can be defeated once again; that freedom is possible, and that true peace is possible, on this continent and around the world.
This year, the Atlantic staff writer Anne Applebaum was awarded the German Book Trade’s Peace Prize for her “indispensable contribution to the preservation of democracy.” Applebaum is the author of Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World ; Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine ; Gulag: A History ; and other books about dictatorship and democracy. This article is adapted from the acceptance lecture that she delivered yesterday in Frankfurt.
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Alas the populists are bent upon making themselves great again. You've been warned by a host of historians across the spectrum and surely there is 'no' need to repeat Santayana's ominous maxim.
Damn populists.
Doh!
meh, I'm not worried. the ready shoot aim party will neglect to disarm their opposition prior to implementing a fascist agenda.
The ignorance of so many in this country is astounding.
maga
[✘]
mega maga
maga smegma
mega maga smegma integra absolutely absent, as too tardy to regardy our country tis of thee, and how it used to be, due to the dumbing down severely accelerated by the orange clown who goes down on Dick taters faster than an old folk pushed off a cliff in a wheelchair
The blind spots of Maga are astounding. Wanting to pull support from Ukraine is stupidity at its finest.
NK is selecting munitions to Russia and as of a few days ago 1500 NK troops were sent to help Russia. Iran is selling drones to Russia and China is supporting Russia. A blind person can see what is happening and to desert Ukraine is a disaster of course our own Neville Chamberlain will have peace in a day. Ya sure.
These activities are not happening in a vacuum. I am willing to bet that self-labeled "Macho-Man" (a member of team Toxic masculinity - across the globe) Crooked Donald has been talking to this pals about stirring up bad news - trouble . . . so that he looks 'muscular' and 'able' to fix it.
Crooked Donald has not end to his meddling in the affairs of state. . . and does not respect boundaries. It's disturbing and sickening. Elect Harris/Walz. Leaders we can trust with our votes and futures!
We really have gone down the rabbit hole regarding Trump, Putin, Russia and everything we ever knew or experience regarding the post World War Two Republican Party. But remember, right up to election day in 2016 Trump was secretly in negotiations with Putin himself to build a Trump Tower in Moscow in Red Square across from Lenin's Tomb. Michael Cohen, Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump Junior have all testified in courts and before Congress this is true. Then, you have Trump meeting with Russian operatives in Trump Tower and worse Trump blackmailing Ukraine as President? Good God! It All Stinks!
One country that will no longer exist if Trump gets elected is Ukraine.
Without hyperbole, the other is possibly The United States of America!
Yeah, Democrats don't like to remember attacking Romney for calling Putin a threat to America.
What does that have to do with Trump actually surrendering Ukraine to Putin the day of his inauguration, if there is one?
God Forbid...
Anne Applebaum illustrates why the United States separating itself from Europe has become imperative. Europe refuses to defend itself and spreads propaganda to drag the United States into quagmires of little importance or consequence.
Why did the unelected Ukrainian government send tanks into Donbas to fight Ukrainians in 2014 instead of sending tanks to Crimea to fight Russian invaders? Why did Barack Obama pee down his legs to support a coup? Why was Kiev and the United States in agreement that the real threat to Ukrainian sovereignty were separatists in Donbas instead of Russians in Crimea? Why was OSCE monitors operating in Donbas instead of along the Crimean border? Why was NATO operating in eastern Ukraine without concern over a Russian invasion?
Couldn't the Ukrainian war have been prevented if Ukraine had ejected the Russian invaders in 2014? Wouldn't NATO and Europe rush to Ukraine's defense? The rhetoric concerning Russia invading Ukraine hasn't changed since 2014. Yet Kiev and Europe paid no heed to the Russian invasion until Kiev, itself, was threatened.
Ukraine offers little of value to Europe and nothing of value to the United States. About the only thing Ukraine east of the Dnieper River offers is a tourist destination.
Putin's propagandists couldn't have said it better.
Just from a materialistic standpoint, Ukraine is the EU's 16th biggest trading partner.
Agricultural products: In 2023, Ukraine exported nearly $12.5 billion worth of agricultural products to the EU. This was a 10.3% increase in value and a 23.9% increase in volume compared to the previous year.
Along with many other products, Ukraine has also been exporting clean energy to the EU from solar and hydro plants.
From a civilizational standpoint, any democratic country, especially a European country with a population of over 38,000,000, enriches Europe, the U.S. and the rest of the world, contributing to the advancement of freedoms such as those shared by most Americans and Europeans. Of course, Putinites and other anti-democratic forces are eager to see Ukraine subjected to dictatorship and the absence of freedom for its people.
Why must we follow Europe's example and just ignore what we do not want to hear?
Russia is currently the EU's 10th largest trading partner. Russia is still a more important trading partner for the EU than Ukraine.
Because of the war, eastern European countries have adopted measures to protect their own agricultural producers from Ukrainian dumping.
Except Ukraine is not a democratic country.
Putinites remind me of something:
We are Borg
When thought about from this perspective, it begins to make sense as to WHY the U.S. can not just stand by and let Ukraine and Europe fall to the Russian Federation!!
Non-responsive and nonsensical.
So? Your comment was that Ukraine "offers little of value to Europe", and the information I provided put the lie to your statement.
Except, it is. Are you going to try to argue that Russia is actually a democratic country?
Non-responsive and nonsensical response to pre-programmed propaganda deflection? Really? You haven't answered why the unelected government in Kiev attacked Ukrainians in Donbas instead of Russian invaders in Crimea. Why would a government, installed by coup, feel the need to disenfranchise Ukrainian voters in Crimea and eastern Donbas before an election?
And my comment still stands. Ukraine offers little of value to Europe and nothing of value to the United States other than as a tourist destination.
Ukraine is an oligarchy. Just like Russia. That's why Europe has been bleating about corruption in Kiev. That's why Joe Biden could get away with quid pro quo interference in the Ukrainian government.
Da!!
You'd think we had a lot of Russian ops right here on NT.
[Deleted][✘]
Ukraine = Russia light
Trump = fat Putin
Body shaming? Tsk, tsk …. Must be the new kinder, gentler democrat party
So if trump is fat Putin, does that make Biden senile Putin and Kamala dumb Putin?
It's interesting to learn that the fascist party has become so politically correct. From now on we'll make sure only to use fascist approved slogans like your Dear Leader does. You know, Trump is "mentally deranged", Trump is "stupid", Trump is "shit".
A comment that displays a complete lack of understanding of the term “fascist.”
SOSDD
Or Obama 2.0 and Obama 3.0
Hilarious. Ignorant comment, but hilarious. We can rely on the opinions of knowledgeable experts like Gen. Milley, Prof. Timothy Snyder and Prof. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, among many others, as well as a common sense understanding of current political reality, or we can take the word of trump cultists. Knowledge and common sense give the lie to your comment, of course.
Sorry, but I don't use cute little teenager internet abbreviations.
That is an informal fallacy known as appeal to authority. Simply basing the reliability of a source based on their credentials is not indicative of truth. There are countless examples of authorities who have been wrong, even within their field of expertise. Relying on them simply because of their position in society is simply refusal to think for oneself, in my opinion. X says it's so, so it must be so is not a very good argument.
What common sense constitutes will depend on premises one begins with, especially concerning politics. Progressives and conservatives will view what constitutes common sense very differently.
Fortunately for you, then, that no one asked you to.
“What common sense constitutes will depend on premises one begins with, especially concerning politics. Progressives and conservatives will view what constitutes common sense very differently. “
.
The problem i see with that logic is how does it account for so many Respected on both sides high ranking officials, with by far the majority being card carrying “Right leaning” Republicans? Elected officials, decorated high ranking generals, Diplomats, and others from the cabinet and or administration that all once supposedly supported this poor excuse of a human being, are all against Trump with many stating they do not believe Trump is fit for office, probably, because he is Not.
We’ve never seen so many come across the aisle to support the opposing parties choice of Harris, and condemnation of Trump.
How would you account for this ?
yes common sense is uncommon, and so is this unprecedented felonious fake pol, who is the worst excuse for a Potus, hell, he’s one of the worst excuses for a person, that i’ve ever seen in my life.
He belongs in a Big House, not our White house
I don't. I was speaking of common people, not politicians, which are a class all by themselves for the most part.
You're welcome to your opinion, but I can only see this as hyperbole. Serial killers, child molesters and traffickers, drug dealers, scammers, pimps, gang bangers and plenty of others seem much worse to me. I am not a fan of Trump, no more than I am of Harris, Walz or Biden. In spite of that, I don't think every last thing they ever do has been evil. That's a ridiculous notion, even though there are those on both sides that try to make it seem that way.
“I don't. I was speaking of common people, not politicians, which are a class all by themselves for the most part. “
Yes, it is NOT always indicative of truth, but the coincidences of so many experts in certain fields, most Republicans yet, all somehow coming to the same conclusion, that Trump is not fit for office should concern US All. coincidental consistency calls out to contentious controversies that call out attention to the point a correlation has been construed to play this fucked non debatable conclusion unless one is experiencing that of an illusion , thus, the. confusion, as to why so many have come to the same conclusion, Trump is not fine.
and either be i, as keep dozing back off
to sleep, so must need som more
adios til better rested
The logical fallacy, "appeal to authority" is when using someone's opinion without supporting fact. Gsquared was offering, not the opinion of authorities, but the multitude of facts published by those authorities that backed up whatever opinion they concluded with. His praise of other dictators, several of his actions during his last tenure in the WH and his authoritarian language which has gotten much, much worse.
The people who held him in check are gone now. His new group of sycophants, like Loomer and Miller are much worse than Trump. If Trump wins the election he can do as he pleases claiming he said what he wanted to do and has the backing of an election implying the majority are behind his worst action. It's happened before in US history (the red scare/the red summer) and it can happen again under Trump who has speeches with the same rhetoric.
Perhaps we need people like this to continue to remind people that populism always leads to authoritarianism. Sad that it takes a cycle of death and ruin to do so, when all they really should have done is read a few books.
No, the former 'president' traitor convicted felon rapist conman is evil, pure evil, and most of those surrounding him, his yes men and ass kissers also. He has no one that will tell him no or that's not a good idea, or they're gone also.
This is the former 'president' 'I want what I want' and 'That's not fair'
The same hive minded drone nonsense is all you'll get from him and opinions vary.
That's it.
Twice Trump used illegal and authoritarian means against protesters. In Portland he used ICE Agents to arrest and detain some people. Since they didn't have the authority those people had to be let go without any charges. In DC Trump had DC Park police and NG Troops clear the area of peaceful protesters with tear gas so he could do a photo op.
What do you think Trump would do if he suspends civil rights under a declaration of emergency? He recently claimed he could use military tribunals against these people... you don't think he'd do it if he thought he could get away with it? You don't think a certain segment of people that now surround him wouldn't advise him it's a very bad thing?
-minus a brain
He wasn't talking to you.
lol ….. good luck in November.[✘]
The voice of reason …… Will be summarily ignored here by the usual gang
[✘]
That's because you have words.
lol, the queen of passive aggressive ….. pow, zoom, whoosh ……
This is trolling but 5.3.17 isn’t.
Once again, your moderation is garbage
If you re-read what Gsquared actually said you'll find that is exactly what he did. "We can rely on the opinions of knowledgeable experts...". However, even if what he meant is what you say here, it still is the opinion of the authority figure. Many authority figures claim that Trump tried to overthrow the government, which is nonsense. What he tried to do was delay the count and/or replace electors. Evidence against overthrowing the government is that Trump had absolutely nothing in place with which to do so.
That is not said in defense of Trump or his actions. It's simply what I see as factual. I have already voted and my vote was for neither Trump or Harris, so I have no need to defend or support either. Although I like many of the policies Trump says he will implement, I cannot trust the man to not let his presidency and actions to be controlled by his narcissism and, although Harris presents as a nicer person, I believe the Dem policies she supports will lead to totalitarianism faster than anything Trump could ever do.
No, the point of my post to Gsquared is that, concerning such important issues, while it is wise to listen to so called experts, it is unwise to simply base one's own position on their opinions, informed or not. This is because everyone has biases and many have agendas. No one in politics can be trusted so blindly. Combine that with the fact that so many, especially here, are emotionally driven. Speaking for myself, I want to support Trump because of his policies. Because of that I find myself desiring to explain away things about him I would not normally in anyone else. I have to put away the emotions and simply look at it rationally. Saying one should take the opinions of anyone else, credentialed or not, is mostly a way to confirm one's own biases.
I completely agree, which is why I am dismayed that so many people support "progressive" leftist ideas and ideologies.