The Russians are coming, but not for Moldova. Here’s what the tiny nation can teach us about protecting our sovereignty

Archived version: [https://archive.fo/RXJq3](https://archive.fo/RXJq3).

>The lesson may be that a democracy cannot allow democracy itself to be on the ballot. A democracy may, in fact, have to take measures that would seem downright undemocratic if taken at anything other than a moment of absolute, white-knuckle peril in which those measures were the only thing standing between a democracy existing and not.

>First, Moldova struck two Russian-funded political parties from the ballot. Banning political parties is not generally the done thing in a democracy, but when those parties take money from a hostile dictatorship for the purposes of corrupting an election partly through vote-buying schemes, as they allegedly did in Moldova, it may be the necessary thing. Vote-buying, too, isn’t the done thing in democracies. Except, of course, where Elon Musk and America are concerned.

>Compared with more established democracies, Moldova also appears to take a dimmer view of violent provocateurism, having arrested 74 people last month to prevent it. In a democracy, the only thing more alarming than a pre-election mass raid is what those arrestees might have done had their preferred candidate lost. Storm a legislative building while decked out in tactical gear, for instance. And on the subject of America’s Proud Boys, having been pardoned by the president of the United States, the coup-plotters were last seen contemplating career opportunities in the field of mass migrant deportation.

>Finally, pro-Russia parties have complained that Moldova reduced the number of polling stations along its Russia-controlled, Soviet-throwback separatist enclave. And in normal times, in a normal place, such vote restrictions would merit severe criticism. But if Russia foments trouble in a particular region in order to take over a particular country, is that country really obliged to give it the best possible chance of success?

>It’s not clear to me that it is. Nor is it clear that Democrats in the U.S. are obliged to protect Republican seats even as Republicans make every effort to reduce the number of Democratic seats in service of their authoritarian president — a president who also, as it happens, is rather fond of Russian authoritarianism.

>“An eye for an eye will leave the world blind” was said long before the world was set on fire.

!ping Democracy