Putin Is Too Charismatic to Lose the War
Not gonna lie, ever since I watched that video of AnnaLynne McCord being convinced that Vladimir Putin could be fixed with slam poetry I made a decision: no more war-related content. If I wanted an update I shall fetch some "PRESS" labelled kevlar and travel to the battlefront myself—but I didn't wanna write about monkeypox so I ended up catching up on the war to see if Putin had already started growing a toothbrush moustache and oh, my, god. What a disaster.
Turns out Putin ain't losing this war yet.
I mean, he is losing by most standards. Putin’s budget could only afford the "2 Weeks of Disorganized Warfare" package and not the full-scale invasion he was so cocky about. In the meantime, Ukraine had 3 times fewer personnel and still managed to stand its ground and find spare time to win Eurovision, auction off the trophy and raise money for its army. If I was Putin I’d retreat ASAP and try to get a refund on those T-80 tanks because I’m starting to think the reason why he calls this a “special” military operation is because it’d be rude to use the word “retarded.”
But he's too charismatic for that.
We've seen him scuba-diving, piloting planes, baring his chest on horseback... Putin was living the Dan Bilzerian lifestyle before it was cool. And if there's something that a narcissistic, attention-seeking "strongman" won't do is going "Oops, my bad," publicly admit his mistakes and respectfully fuck off to a Greek island before the Russian oligarchs make an example of him.
Hard to argue with this: Of all the shitty character traits that can coalesce in a short-statured, unstable man with daddy issues like Putin, he has the worst three: narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. So we can safely infer that if Freud had an hour with him, Putin's mother would suffer 60 minutes of clinical trash-talking for doing such a botched-up job at parenting.
Actually, a lot of people in positions of power are like that.
Most US Presidents and UK Prime Ministers of the last 100 years were either psychopathic or narcissistic. It makes sense, I mean, narcissists and psychopaths happen to be the most charismatic, persuasive, risk-taking, self-confident folk who look at power like a baby looks at a lactating nipple. I imagine the only two career choices for someone like that is either leader or serial killer.
Here's the thing about power, though.
Having a little is safe. Like summoning a waiter or forcing veggies on your toddler's diet. But wield obscene amounts of power for long enough and you'll start exposing yourself to hotel staff and offering girls movie roles in exchange for watching you jerk off. This is called "hubris syndrome," and before you think "I don't think that would happen to me" remember that even Ellen "Be Kind" DeGeneres couldn't resist the irony of defecating on her own slogan by becoming a Willy Wonka bitch that made her staff's lives miserable.
Jump to this conclusion: hubris syndrome is not exclusive to narcissists and psychopaths. Anyone that wields too much power for long enough (CEOs, bankers, gurus...) ends up thinking that their assholes were blessed by some kind of divine touch.
This creates a "doom loop."
We the common folk want to have these nut-jobs in charge. Their confidence makes us feel confident. And so we end up giving power to people whose egos should be regulated by heavy medication. And when their megalomania gets out of hand and they start giving intense stares to the nuclear launch buttons, no one can snap them back to sanity. With all the years Putin has spent in charge, I wouldn't be surprised if he genuinely believes he can take a bear down with his hands and bomb the whole of Europe until we're all paying taxes to Moscow.
So, technically...
Putin is too charismatic to lose the war just yet. Too self-absorbed to realise he ain't invading to "restore the Soviet Union" but to satisfy an insatiable sense of self-worth. And as long as we keep giving power to those who are the most easily corrupted by it, we're gonna have to put up with people like Putin and the Paul brothers trying to ruin the fun for everyone else.