Everyone has an opinion about the legal charges against Donald Trump. That includes Vladimir Putin. “Everything that is happening with Trump,” said the Russian dictator, “is the persecution of a political rival for political reasons. That’s what it is.”

Of course, many Republicans say exactly the same. But “it ain’t necessarily so.” We have due process. Let’s see whether prosecutors can make their cases; let’s see what defenses Trump can offer. Even some of his sympathizers say that the documents case is open-and-shut.

As for the election-subversion case, here is what William Barr said:

“I think it’s a legitimate case. As a legal matter, I don’t see a problem with the indictment. I think it’s not an abuse. The Department of Justice is not acting to weaponize the department by proceeding against the president for a conspiracy to subvert the electoral process.”

Barr, you will recall, served as attorney general under Trump.

My main point today, however, is old and elementary: Dictators often assume that democratic leaders are like themselves; and that free and open societies are like the ones they have control over.

In 2016, I went to Dallas for a visit with George W. Bush. In a subsequent article, I wrote the following:

The “unelected” have a natural fear of a freedom agenda, Bush says. And they have a battery of ways to maintain control. Imprisonment is one — imprisonment of opponents. A monopoly on the press is another.

Bush brings up Vladimir Putin. “People say, ‘He’s the most popular guy in Russia.’ I say, ‘Yeah, I’d be popular too if I owned NBC,’” and the other networks.

Some more:

I get him to tell the story of Putin and Dan Rather. Several newsmen had been forced out at CBS News, including Rather. They were forced out because of false and malicious reporting about George W. Bush.

When Bush and Putin met, Bush pressed the Russian leader on democratic reforms — including freedom of the press. Bristling, Putin said (approximately), “Well, who are you to talk? You had Rather and those people fired at CBS!”

Bush offered a word to the wise: “Vladimir, whatever you do, don’t say that publicly. The people in America will think, ‘Man, he has no clue what’s going on.’”

But Putin went ahead and said it — publicly. He himself calls the shots in Russia: what media get to survive; who is in prison, and for how long. He must assume that the United States is like the Russia in his grip.

But no. I hope that Russia, one day, will be a free and democratic society — where the rights of man are acknowledged and upheld.

Vladimir Kara-Murza is one of Putin’s political prisoners. He has been sentenced to 25 years in Siberia. Vladimir is a friend of mine, and I have written about and podcasted with him many times.

This is from January 2022:

Kara-Murza is not one who thinks that Russia is destined to be ruled by despots. He quotes a phrase from Reagan: “cultural condescension.” In his Westminster Speech (June 1982), Reagan said, “Democracy already flourishes in countries with very different cultures and historical experiences. It would be cultural condescension, or worse, to say that any people prefer dictatorship to democracy.” Kara-Murza himself says, “I have absolutely no doubt that one day we will have a normal, modern, accountable democratic government in Russia. There’s no reason that our nation is destined to be an outlier in Europe or the world, and to live under the yoke of a dictatorship.”

(For that article in full, go here.)

• Last month, there was ghastly news out of Haiti, as there habitually is. I will quote only a headline: “Gang in Haiti opens fire on a crowd of parishioners trying to rid the community of criminals.” If you can stand the article, go here.

I am reminded of something that Tony Daniels said. Anthony Daniels, as you may know, is the writer who also writes under the pseudonym “Theodore Dalrymple” and has traveled all over the world — the most wretched places included.

He told me once that Haiti was the worst: the most degraded, the most shocking, the most hopeless.

I also think of my friend Fred Kirshnit, who worked in humanitarian aid for many years. Once, there was a natural disaster in Haiti — a really bad one. Forgive me, but I don’t remember whether it was a hurricane or an earthquake. It doesn’t really matter.

Fred told me something like this: “Frankly, there was not much difference, before and after. Haiti is always in desperate need. It’s like an ongoing disaster.”

These are things you don’t forget, when people tell them to you.

• The phrase “only the tip of the iceberg” hit me, hard. A headline from the Associated Press reads, “Sweeping study finds 1,000 cases of sexual abuse in Swiss Catholic Church since mid-20th century.” The article quoted a statement by two historians: “The situations identified surely amount to only the tip of the iceberg.”

• Let me at last turn to something heartening. I’m glad that the Center for Free Enterprise exists. Free enterprise is in bad odor, on left and right. It needs its defenders and explainers. (And practitioners, of course!) Recently, Doug Ducey, the former governor of Arizona, assumed leadership of the CFFE. They have put out a video. The video is cheesy, maybe — but that doesn’t mean it isn’t right.

An additional note (neither here nor there): The Center for Free Enterprise calls itself “CFFE.” I would say “CFE.” There’s no need to indicate the preposition “for” . . .

• Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R., Colo.) has pulled a “Do you know who I am?” act, apparently. To read a report in the Denver Post, go here. And here is a tweet from a former U.S. senator:

“Do you know who I am?” is still in business. But recently, a friend of mine suggested that it had been overtaken by something else: “Google me.”

• It is a pleasure to read a reader on reading. Over the summer, Michael Dirda, the eminent literary critic, wrote about his book habits: here. He laid out 29 rules for reading — and I have to admire his unwillingness to think of an extra, just to have an even 30.

Let me excerpt a little:

Make a mark

Except for beautifully printed or rarely found books, I read almost everything with a pencil in my hand. I mark favorite passages, scribble notes in margins, sometimes even make shopping lists on the end papers. To paraphrase Gibbon on the Roman Emperor Gordian’s 22 acknowledged concubines, my books are for use, not ostentation.

How about this?

Keep a notebook handy

I regularly copy favorite sentences and passages from my reading into a small notebook I’ve kept since I was in my early 20s. Examples? “Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.” — Immanuel Kant. “The primary function of education is to make one maladjusted to ordinary society.” — Northrop Frye. “Love is holy because it is like grace — the worthiness of its object is never really what matters.” — Marilynne Robinson.

What a good idea, such a notebook. (I regret that I lack the discipline.)

Maybe one more excerpt:

Leave old books as they are

Any bowdlerization, “sensitivity editing” or rewriting of older literature is absolutely wrongheaded. Books aren’t something one approves or disapproves of; they are to be understood, interpreted, learned from, shocked by, argued with and enjoyed.

The remainder of Dirda’s paragraph, I’ve quoted in my “New York chronicle” — a music chronicle — in the current New Criterion. Here is how Dirda continues:

Moreover, the evolution of literature and the other arts, their constant renewal over the centuries, has always been fueled by what is now censoriously labeled “cultural appropriation” but which is more properly described as “influence,” “inspiration” or “homage.” Poets, painters, novelists and other artists all borrow, distort and transform. That’s their job; that’s what they do.

Yes. That’s their job; that’s what they do. Thank you, Michael Dirda (and for the article at large).

• “Richard Davis, Gifted Bassist Who Crossed Genres, Dies at 93.” That is the headline over an obit by Andrey Henkin in the New York Times. I was interested in — even touched by — the following:

. . . he started playing the bass at 15. As he recalled in a 2013 interview . . .: “I was just enthralled by the sound. The bass was always in the background and I was a shy kid. So I thought maybe I’d like to be in the background.”

One of the most interesting questions you can ask an instrumentalist is, “How did you choose your instrument? Or did it choose you?”

• Man, is this good. Southerners, in each of the respective states, giving directions (to travelers in cars). A friend shared it with me. Hope you will like.

This has been a strange mixture of topics, hasn’t it? But that is the nature of Impromptus. Thanks for joining me and I’ll catch you soon.

If you would like to receive Impromptus by e-mail — links to new columns — write to jnordlinger@nationalreview.com.