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Ukraine ping

[Putin must have suppressed any competitors more effectively than a newly hatched queen bee. It’s a little amazing that this much incompetence and stupidity have not led to his overthrow yet.]

The zeitgeist doesn’t overthrow rulers who are prepared to do what it takes to keep themselves in power. Only able and lucky challengers manage to pull this off. So why is the inner circle hesitant? Since any challenger is risking his life, he wants to know that he has (1) a good chance of staying alive and (2) a good chance of either succeeding the ruler, becoming eminence grise or at least staying or becoming a prominent figure in the new regime. If you’re gambling with your life, the payoff needs to be like winning the lotto, but a thousand times better.

That’s the sticking point - you might be able to kill the king, but his other courtiers might simply end up painting you and your conspirators as Judas incarnate and sticking the lot of you in a mass grave. That is pretty much why von Runstedt demurred, while not informing on the coup plotters, when asked to join various assassination attempts/coups against Hitler, at a time when Germany was losing battle after battle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerd_von_Rundstedt#Plot_to_kill_Hitler