Alexei Navalny, born on June 4, 1976, was murdered this week in an Arctic Russian penal colony at the age of 47. With his passing, a ray of hope has been extinguished.

The long list of influential Russians who have been killed or died after opposing, criticizing, or otherwise crossing Russian President Vladimir Putin just got longer. Generals fall to their deaths from balconies like Autumn leaves, opponents' jets conveniently explode in mid-air due to “mechanical failures,” and political opponents are regularly poisoned or shot dead in the daylight, execution-style.

After the assassination of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group, in a plane crash along with his top associates on August 23, 2023, Alexei Navalny was one of the few remaining opposition voices in Russia to give President Vladimir Putin any resistance to his dictatorial rule for life.

Trained as a lawyer, Alexei, despite having been sprayed with a green antiseptic dye that left him with impaired vision, and poisoned with the nerve agent that put him in a coma for weeks, still had the moral strength to return to Russia, knowing full well that he could die there.

All that brings us to the subject of America and the state of our democracy. 

With our presidential election less than nine months away, it is clear that neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump are the best leaders this country could have produced. As evidenced by our national debt well into the economic red zone, our southern border leaking like a sieve, and the proxy wars we are engaged in in Ukraine and Israel, America is certainly not in its best shape. That said, at least she still has a functioning democracy.

Despite the poor political and economic conditions in which we find ourselves, I bristle when I hear Tucker Carlson praise the beauty and cleanliness of Moscow and, once again, thank my guardian angels for allowing me to live in America, faults and all, as I remain confident that better days are ahead with the eventual emergence of stronger leaders.

May Alexei Navalny rest in peace, and may his vision for Russia come to fruition in our lifetime.

— Sina