There are still many Republicans (exemplified by Mitch McConnell) who are as anti-Putin as Democratic figures like Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken, so the shift in Republican foreign policy is not universal but represents a shift in which faction has become dominant within the party.

Military casualty figures from the Russia-Ukraine war are uncertain; The Economist estimated 40,000-50,000 Russian fatalities (implying even higher total casualties when accounting for wounded), but these are based on second-tier data because neither Russia nor Ukraine release official figures.

Stevens wrote an anti-Putin editorial for the Wall Street Journal's editorial page at the end of 1999 and received backlash primarily from the left (writers at The Nation), but the Republican party's position on Putin reversed with Donald Trump's rise to political prominence.

Mainstream media's worldview is so distorted by the bubble inhabited by journalists and commentators that they report on an America that exists only in elite coastal urban corridors (the 'Acela Corridor') while treating regular Americans like anthropologists studying a recently discovered Amazonian tribe's taboos and shamans.

Democratic administrations (Biden, Harris, Obama) lack understanding of negotiation leverage because their leaders have never had private-sector jobs and 'certainly haven't had jobs uh in in the things economy which is what makes America traditionally what made America great' and appeals to people about capitalism.

The Democratic Party under the Biden-Harris administration has become a party of incessant moralizing, dismissal of everyday American concerns including working-class issues, adherence to bizarre cultural norms, insistence on new language and terminology that sounds Orwellian to many, and division of the country into identity groups rather than unity or overcoming separate identities.

Mainstream media exhibited transparent partisan bias by failing to cover potential Harris campaign vulnerabilities while running essentially continuous endorsement coverage of her candidacy; the Washington Post's hand-wringing over its lack of endorsement revealed institutional partisan capture by left-wing staff masquerading as journalists.

Kamala Harris was a spectacularly incompetent candidate, which should not have surprised anyone given her record as a terrible manager with a dreadful office during her vice presidency, her hilariously incompetent 2019 presidential campaign, her communication of unearned entitlement, and her instant anointing by Democrats despite this track record.

The first Trump Administration rhetoric was wild but the policy was strong; Trump was not 'Putin's poodle' despite claims, as the administration opposed Russia more than Obama or Biden did at least until the Ukraine invasion; this positive policy outcome depended heavily on advisers like HR McMaster and Mike Pompeo, and the new Trump circle is more isolationist.

There is a fundamental divide in American governance between the 'economy of words' (lawyers, academics, rule-makers, bureaucrats, publishers) and the 'economy of things' (real estate, trucking, manufacturers); the governing class increasingly inhabits only the economy of words and has no understanding of regulatory burden on business, making Trump's business background valuable.

If Democrats follow Brett Stevens's advice to conduct normal opposition politics rather than resistance politics, they can improve their position; but if they continue to treat Trump as a mortal threat to democracy and engage in resistance tactics, they will continue losing because such tactics feed Trump's narrative of an entrenched, manipulative deep state.

The Democratic Party has learned nothing from three consecutive losses (presumably 2016, 2020 contested outcome, and 2024) and needs a figure like Bill Clinton or a centrist Southern governor like Andy Beshear to restore electoral viability, as the party did in the 1980s-1990s with the Democratic Leadership Council.

The election was an 'extraordinary personal Vindication' for Trump but also 'a stinging stunning decisive repudiation' of the Democratic Party under the Biden-Harris Administration and since Obama's time.

Harris's campaign messaging of 'Joy' was 'the most sanctimonious Joy' and exemplified a kind of preachy moralism that alienated voters rather than energized them.

Even the Democratic left is recognizing that regulation is a problem because they discovered it takes 10 years to get permits to connect windmills and solar panels to the grid, and housing costs are driven by permitting delays, creating potential common ground on deregulation.