Fate takes you places where your memory wants to reveal itself. Like a petulant child, the amalgam of your thoughts and memories draw distinct conclusions you couldn’t see before and help connect the dots.
For no apparent reason, I was drawn to my upstairs study. I instinctively picked up “A History of Russia” by Nicholas Riasanovsky. I read it in college more than 30 years ago. Who would have known Russian history and Española politics were uncannily identical? The pageantry, the entitlement to rule by so-called birthright and the fact that no tsar remains in power without a sycophant on the sidelines.
The Romanov dynasty spanned over 300 years of single-family rule from 1613 to 1917. Nicholas II became the last Romanov to ascend to the title of tsar in 1894 after his father Alexander III’s death. According to the author, Nicholas “possessed certain attractive qualities, such as simplicity, modesty, and devotion to his family. But these positive personal traits mattered little in a situation that demanded strength, determination, adaptability and vision. He proved to be both narrow-minded and weak. A good man, but a miserable ruler lost in the moment of crisis.” Sounds resoundingly similar to our current state in Española.
Incompetence and entitlement led to Nicholas II’s ultimate demise. Though family dynasties existed in the form of autocratic rule for hundreds of years, one could argue that they have actually done some good. There is a lot of family pride that goes into serving the local constituency and members of the family take their responsibility seriously, but there remains extreme consternation when the throne is expectant to a young tsar. It goes to their head. Rules get broken and they think laws don’t apply to them.
People allegedly get poked in the chest and are told to do as the “mas chingon” mayor says or else. Threats are made and the house of cards at the city begins to fall — Russia itself begins to crumble.
A leader’s lack of capability inevitably leads to the fall of any government. During World War I Nicholas II was distracted by the war. It took away time and energy he needed to serve his people. Nicholas ignored the needs of his citizenry, which is the gravest sin a ruler can commit. Russians had no coal to heat their homes and the shortage of bread made life impossible. Inflation ran rampant.
In Española, while the mayor toils, shopping carts litter the city, budgets somehow run $3 million short and local businesses are suffering.
Overwhelmed by personal shortcomings and legal problems, the tsar left all government decision-making to the most unlikely of characters, Grigori Rasputin. In Española, that would be the mayor pro tem. No incompetent mayor rises to power without the help of a devoted enabler.
Rasputin was born in 1869 to a peasant family and by all accounts remained an odd advisor to the tsar and de facto ruler of all of Russia. He befriended Nicholas’ wife/family with promises that he could help them. He literally worked his way into family influence by selling snake oil — promising fame and power. He had no real skills that qualified him to rule. Although Rasputin went to school, he remained illiterate throughout his life, yet he oversaw the ministers of the local government on behalf of the tsar. They began to answer only to him though he was never elected to such a high position. Sound familiar?
In Española, it is said that during a critical council meeting, the mayor pro tem beseeched her audience, crying that she never intended or desired to be mayor. She claimed that if she had tried, she certainly would have won the election and would have defeated all the mayors of the world to become the supreme ruler, should she have chosen to do so. But she never wanted it. That is to say, of course, unless it became available.
Then certainly one must entertain such a coronation, right? Ahhhh … silly Rasputin!
That’s what sycophants and side-liners do. They wait for their opportunity to seize power. After enabling, participating and covering up the actions/lack of capability of a tsar or mayor — only then do they turn to spit on them. Only now there is an urgency to fix the budget that she has silently witnessed go downhill for three years. Only now do we see the problems of the city, just like the downfall of Russia. But we have to ask ourselves, did the sycophants only sit on the sidelines to watch as the dynasty crumbled or did they actively push it down with their enabling hand and desire for power?
Russia saw the end of a dynasty at the hands of an inept ruler and his trusted advisor who had nothing but snake oil to sell, ensuring ruin and degradation. Fate has a way of connecting the dots. Who would have thought Russia and Española were so much alike?
Javier Sanchez is a former Española mayor and is an El Rito Media investor.