is falling into the dick taeurbt trap. what is that. a culture of fear that ends up hurting them because they miscalculate based on believing their own lies. what is effective to do is to crush dissent, jail opponents, make people fear you and also start to spread state propaganda, which vladimir putin has done the last 22 years. over time, you can begin to believe that because the people around you fear standing up to you. in a democracy, crossing your boss a potentially risky move. but you don t end up in jail or even killed n. russia, that s not true. when he comes up with awful ideas that are likely to backfire, like invading ukraine, i don t think anyone told him. if they did so, they did so with a huge amount of fear and trepidation. this is the world that putin inhabits, a fantasy world where pop gran da is parroted pack at