‘The Sickening Nature of It All’ — My Latest Hot Type Column in Byline
For this week’s Hot Type column in Byline, I write how the core objective of the Alaska Summit was to reputation wash Vladimir Putin. Plus, additional reporting from Michael MacKay and Monique Camarra
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“If journalists really wanted to cover the summit adequately, they would need to juxtapose images of Putin on that red carpet with Russian soldiers tying captured Ukrainians to boards and electrocuting them.”—Dr Marci Shore, author of The Ukrainian Night, for Hot Type
I believe it’s vitally important to not simply allow events to pass and then lurch to the next crisis/distraction. I put some thought into the ramifications of the Alaska Summit and determined that the ultimate result was a reputation cleansing of Vladimir Putin, which is the subject of this week’s Hot Type column in Byline Supplement:
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Below is an excerpt from today’s column, which includes biting commentary from Dr. Marci Shore, and I also include additional reporting from Dr. Michael MacKay and Monique Camarra that arrived after I sent my draft to Byline editors.
Although I was able to include some of MacKay’s commentary in my column, Camarra’s just arrived this moment in my inbox, and you will find both their complete thoughts below the excerpt.
Hot Type: The Sickening Nature of It All
An Excerpt from Byline Supplement
As Vladimir Putin glad-hands Narendra Modi and Xi Jin Ping, Heidi Siegmund Cuda reports that, like the recent Alaska summit with Trump, the point of these events is to reputation wash Putin
“I really do feel a crisis of language,” Dr Marci Shore told Byline Supplement. “Watching Trump roll out that red carpet for Putin — there's already been so much rhetorical inflation, and yet everything feels inadequate to capture the sickening nature of it all.”
Under the guise of ‘peace talks’ regarding Russia’s full-scale invasion of the independent country of Ukraine, the two criminals met with all the pomp of third world warlords.
As I recently wrote, murderers don’t want peace. The meeting on US soil was never about peace — it was about reputation washing Vladimir Putin in front of the world.
“If journalists really wanted to cover the summit adequately, they would need to juxtapose images of Putin on that red carpet with Russian soldiers tying captured Ukrainians to boards and electrocuting them,” said Shore, the author of The Ukrainian Night: An Intimate History of Revolution and the Chair of the European Intellectual History at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy in Toronto.
Shore said when the Alaska summit occurred three weeks ago, she thought she should write something about it.
“But I found I’d run out of words to express my disgust,” she said. “It's not just reputation-washing for Putin, it's a signaling that we are now in a world where there are no longer any rules and no longer any values. This is a Dostoevskyian world in which ‘everything is permissible.’ It's shameless moral nihilism.”
Instead, she decided to write about a recent trip to Kyiv, ‘Death and Other Borders’, in an article for the New York Review, where she documents life during wartime from the point of view of her work as the guest-curator of this year’s Kyiv Book Arsenal, a large literary festival.
Shore wrote:
“As of August 14 there had been 1,773 air raid alarms in the capital since the beginning of the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022. Given the frequency, my Ukrainian friends don’t run to the bomb shelter at every alarm—it’s too disruptive. One has to live. Locals tend to go to the shelter only on select occasions, in response to specific intelligence posted on Telegram channels. That said, no one ever forgets about the war. Everyone lives in a state of perpetual readiness and has made adjustments accordingly: women have abandoned stilettos in favor of running shoes, even with skirts.”
Although she describes the heavy drone and shelling attacks that occurred during the May festival, thousands of people waited in long lines to pass through the security checks to attend the festival.
An event on the second day was titled: “Muttersprache/Mördersprache,” which she said was inspired by the “incandescent poetry of the Holocaust survivor Paul Celan, who wrote in German, the language that was both mother tongue and murderer’s tongue to him.”
Chernivtsi, now in Ukraine, was Celan’s hometown. His mother was shot to death in a camp in Transnistria.
That more than one hundred Ukrainian publishing houses had set up book stands at the event is a powerful testament to the wild independence of Ukraine, which Russia has historically repeatedly tried to beat into submission. I have written about the Executed Renaissance, the purge of hundreds of Ukrainian authors, poets, historians, playwrights, and philosophers under Stalin. That the festival was attended by more than 30,000 visitors over four days during war also bears witness to the artistic passion of Ukrainians.
Her report highlights the festival’s discussions about the poetry of suffering and empathy, and bridges built across oceans and borders. As often with Shore’s writing, she turns to poets and philosophers — past and present, to help us understand this moment.
She quotes the Ukrainian philosopher Volodymyr Yermolenko:
“Death is not just a word. It was kind of sick to see how the word ‘death’ became popular in the twentieth century. We talked about the death of culture, the death of modernity, the death of idealism, the death of metaphysics, and in all this we kind of played with the word death. I think death became less scary for us. It became something very far away with which we can play. But for Ukrainians right now, death is not an abstract word: it’s a physical death, it’s a real death, it’s a void that you feel when your close people die, when your husbands die, when your kids die, when your parents die, when your friends die.”
At a Paris screening this week of the film, Kherson: Human Safari, directed by Byline Times contributor Zarina Zabrisky, as one of the film’s executive producers I was asked to comment on the war, genocide, and the current state of affairs in the US.
I bluntly told the room that Trump is a Russian asset, and any doubters out there just need to look to Alaska to see what Putin gained.
It was only three years ago that Putin was virtually ignored by world leaders at a Eurasia security summit. But now, this week in Shanghai, he’s captured holding hands with the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, as they giggle with Xi Jinping. Other world leaders from Nepal, Turkey, and Vietnam held private meetings with him.
According to a Swiss foreign minister, Switzerland would grant Putin immunity if he visits the country for ‘hypothetical peace talks’. But Putin’s insistence this week that Volodymyr Zelensky should travel to Moscow for any such ‘peace talks’ exposes the cruel theatrics of these events. His economy is dying and he desperately needs war. And as Zabrisky reported in Byline Times, the US is back in business with Russia, as an oil deal appears to be the Alaska summit’s real purpose. On 27 August, the US lifted sanctions and began allowing diamonds to be imported from Russia.
As I watched Trump’s grotesque display of fealty to Putin in Alaska, it seemed clear that by welcoming him on US soil for the first time in a decade, it was a tremendous victory for Putin and further humiliation for America.
“An American con man rolled out the red carpet for a Russian mass murderer in Alaska,” Dr Michael MacKay, a geopolitical analyst told Byline Supplement. “People with a moral conscience were shocked and repulsed. Most of the world yawned at the banality of evil.”
Instead of being arrested and handed over to the International Criminal Court for prosecution for war crimes of trafficking children, Putin gets his reputation washed…
“If he had landed in Canada he would have been arrested and hauled off to The Hague in chains. But he landed in Russian America, where the slavishly devoted Trump gave Putin the red carpet treatment.”
MacKay just returned from Kyiv on Friday to his home in Canada.
“I have had the pleasure of being in Ukraine the past couple of weeks,” he told Byline Supplement. “The Ukrainians I talk to understand Russians perfectly well. They know Russians are out to steal their land and kill them all, and erase Ukraine from the annals of history. They know they have to fight to survive but they’re also quietly confident in victory.
“There is no time for pity… Western civilization will survive or collapse depending on Ukraine’s victory. Even though the United States is now a puppet regime of the Russian fascist invaders the rest of the world must join Ukraine and fight. It’s a matter of life or death.”
He’s not wrong. I also think Marci Shore is quite correct.
If and when they meet again, it’s the media’s duty to do a split screen.
Smug criminals giggling and glad-handing on one side, Ukrainians being murdered and tortured on the other.
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The above excerpt of my weekly Hot Type column was originally published Saturday morning, September 6, 2025, in Byline Supplement.
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Additional reporting from Dr Michael MacKay and Monique Camarra:
Dr. MacKay wrote this for me while on a 12-hour bus ride returning to Canada from Kyiv:
An American con man rolled out the red carpet for a Russian mass murderer in Alaska. People with a moral conscience were shocked and repulsed. Most of the world yawned at the banality of evil.
Clapping with giddy excitement at the sight of his master on the airport tarmac, Trump humiliated the United States to an extreme it has never seen before. Confidently retelling the lies of Moscow imperialism, Putin asserted his dominance over Trump and his authority over the venue he selected – Alaska, which is “Russian America.”
Putin has made Trump his Gauleiter for the American Oblast of the Russian Federation twice. This time around the Russians ensured Trump would have unchecked power and be able to complete the degradation of the United States from democracy to fascism.
The Russians chose as their Useful Idiot worst American they could find. Trump is an imbecile, a narcissist, a psychopath, a sociopath, a rapist, a fraudster, an insurrectionist, a liar and almost certainly a pedophile. To destroy civil society and bring Trump to power, the Russians carried out elite capture of the Republican Party and sponsored the MAGA cult. The American Republic collapsed as quickly as the Weimar Republic did.
Putin is a wanted war criminal. He is responsible for the systematic genocide of the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar peoples. The main pillar of this genocide is kidnapping Ukrainian children, deporting them to the Russian Federation, and “adopting” them into Russian families. The children’s identity, language, heritage and citizenship is stolen from them.
Putin is charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Court. If he had landed in Canada he would have been arrested and hauled off to The Hague in chains. But he landed in Russian America, where the slavishly devoted Trump gave Putin the red carpet treatment.
I have had the pleasure of being in Ukraine the past couple of weeks. The Ukrainians I talk to understand Russians perfectly well. They know Russians are out to steal their land and kill them all, and erase Ukraine from the annals of history. They know they have to fight to survive but they’re also quietly confident in victory.
But they can’t understand Americans. Ukrainians know Trump is a criminal and traitor and Russian asset just like Viktor Yanukovych. But they don’t understand how so many Americans can become suckers for the MAGA cult and turn themselves into vatniks.
Ukrainians used to admire Americans and see the United States as a model. But when they see Americans wallowing in ignorance and conspiratorial thinking they see the same kind of debased humanity that is invading them from Muscovy.
There is no time for pity. Ukrainians feel the same loathing and disgust at the MAGA cultists who support Trump as they do the vatniks who support Putin.
The lesson of Alaska is that America has fallen. What remains of civilized humanity must guard against falling into the same abyss of nihilism the United States has. The surest way to do that is to fight, defend the West, and defeat fascist Russia in war. But so far Ukrainians are the only nation to seize this historical moment and do what needs to be done. If the rest of us don’t join Ukrainians in battle then we will be as lost as the Americans who have already given up their dignity and grounding in a moral life.
Western civilization will survive or collapse depending on Ukraine’s victory. Even though the United States is now a puppet regime of the Russian fascist invaders the rest of the world must join Ukraine and fight. It’s a matter of life or death.—Dr. Michael MacKay for Hot Type and Bette Dangerous
Monique Camarra, a geopolitical analyst who will be joining us along with disinformation analyst Dietmar Pichler at Bette’s Happy Hour on Tuesday at noon, just sent this commentary to me:
Trump White-washing Putin: The so-called August ‘peace’ meet between Trump and Putin in Alaska was probably one of the most humiliating spectacles in U.S. foreign policy history to date. It served to increase support for Putin at home, and begin the whitewashing of the Kremlin’s reputation abroad. Why would the president of the United States subject the nation to such a show of subservience?
Trump’s foreign policy thus far can be characterised as mercenary diplomacy, underpinned by economic warfare: extracting favours and deals through threats and coercive measures from states he feels are weak or will bend to his desires. This was the case for European NATO members who face the real possibility of Trump pulling American troops from the European theatre as Russia has picked up the pace of its war of aggression against Ukraine and grey zone warfare against European states. The president has also announced that European members will now be required to buy American arms in exchange for the U.S. presence on the continent. Just recently, the press has widely reported on American information warfare against Greenland, and the pressure the Trump administration is exerting on Denmark because Trump has set his sights on Greenland’s mineral resources. These coercive tactics are very similar to those Russia uses against states it targets, and Trump is mirroring his friend, Vladimir Putin, in many ways.
Trump rolled out the red carpet for Putin in Alaska to whitewash his reputation because he fundamentally makes no distinction between authoritarian dictators and democratic leaders. Like Putin, he is deprived of ideology, although both use the façade of ideological musings to mask their personal strategic goals and grow support amongst their domestic publics.
At the heart of it, Trump sees a restart to relations with Russia as a vehicle for him to accrue immense personal wealth. However, it’s not just Putin: Trump nurtures relationships with anyone ready to strike a deal with him, be it Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, or leaders of the Gulf States as long as they benefit him personally.
That being said, he is particularly enamoured with authoritarian leaders for one specific reason: Putin, Xi, Kim as well as your run of the mill mafia clan leaders are not restricted by institutional controls. They can do whatever they want and make all the money they desire because they create the institutional environment necessary for their personal enrichment and maintenance of power.
The choice of Steve Witkoff, a real estate broker, is indicative of Trump’s objectives vis-à-vis Russia. Witkoff travelled to Moscow at least five times before the Trump-Putin so-called ‘peace’ meet in Alaska in August. During those trips, it is widely reported that Witkoff discussed a reset with the Kremlin based on future economic and financial arrangements, particularly in the energy sector, unsurprising but disgraceful and immoral given Russia’s unprovoked war against Ukraine. But Trump doesn’t care about doing the right thing at home or abroad, just what is right for him.
Trump’s domestic and foreign policy posture brings alarming consequences for the future strategic resilience at home and abroad. Trump’s executive orders and actions are actually decreasing American strength by curtailing the ability to monitor and meet domestic and international national security threats and by increasing risks to the financial and physical well-being of Americans on the whole. From a purely international perspective, Trump’s close relationship with the Kremlin serves only to destabilise the Western alliance system, which upheld the international balance after the Second World War. The United States cannot afford to lose precious allies, especially at a time when the authoritarian bloc is solidifying its power in the Indo-Pacific and other theatres where the U.S. is vying for precious resources for its strategic industries at home.
The Trump-Putin Alaska meet was a diplomatic debacle that strengthened Putin’s position on the world stage, and tarnished America’s standing as a world leader. The pathetic image of American soldiers kneeling in front of the Kremlin’s plane to adjust the red carpet for Putin was the perfect mirror to Trump’s failing foreign policy, loss of American soft power, and disregard for the international order forged by years of American administrations.
The tools of statecraft, if used strategically and effectively, are supposed to strengthen American power; however, as it stands now, the president of the United States is wielding them for his purposes that amount to a thirst for insatiable, personal aggrandizement and naked power.—Monique Camarra for Bette Dangerous
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Below, Neville Chamberlain, after appeasing Hitler. How’d that work out…