Source: The Daily Beast
by David Gardner
“An explosion of enthusiastic applause for Joseph Stalin followed a Communist Party conference in 1937. The ovation went on for three minutes, four, five … Palms were getting sore, arms were aching, and the older members of the audience were panting with exhaustion. According to dissident author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the clapping continued for 11 minutes. … It was only after the director of a local paper factory, ‘an independent and strong-minded man,’ sat down that the hall finally fell quiet. ‘They had been saved,’ wrote Solzhenitsyn. ‘The squirrel had been smart enough to jump off his revolving wheel.’ During Tuesday’s marathon 3-hour and 16-minute Cabinet meeting at the White House, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff offered a masterclass in sycophancy.” (08/27/25)