Members of the Russian opposition unite! You have nothing but your composure to lose!

To be fair, Russia's a surprising and dispiriting place these days, especially if you're in the opposition. You turn around for five minutes, and Russia has suddenly grown a new peninsula. You go to bed a “liberast”—the Kremlin bots’ preferred nomenclature for us, a hybrid of “liberal” and “pederast”—and wake up a “national traitor,” a “yid-fascist,” or a member of a “fifth column.” You open Facebook and see people dumping boiling cauldrons of emotion on those who dare to criticize our imperial achievements.

Still, my fellow liberals are doggedly hanging on to hope: Open the pages of Vedomosti, the last independent Russian newspaper, and see yet another public intellectual sinking his teeth into Putin and counting the days until his regime collapses.

And yet, stubbornly, it doesn’t collapse. In fact, it only gets stronger, day by day. Putin’s approval rating is through the roof, while Russia’s standing the world is slipping steadily in the opposite direction, as if these numbers are being ladled from the same pot: The more one gets, the less is left for the other.

It’s hard to observe what’s happening with the cold, rational eye of a cyborg. I can’t do it. At first, I laughed. Then, when it stopped being funny, I got angry. I protested, I gloated, I despaired and gave up, I flew into a rage—and not one of these reactions helped me make peace with Russia’s new political reality.