Eugene Robinson, in a recent column, claims that President Donald Trump’s whole enterprise “has been a lie, a fraud, a grift, a cruel deception … to obscure inconvenient truth.” In this, Trump is ably matched by his beloved Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, who, after the Kursk disaster in 2000 where the whole crew died, blamed the media, stating, “Television? They are lying! They are lying! They are lying!”

After that, Putin took over the media, and under his control, a new truth emerged and the old truth was no longer the truth.

Of course, Putin goes on to lie about Russian soldiers in the Crimea, that a Russian German girl was raped by an Arab (a totally fake news story that caused German Chancellor Angela Merkel great problems), etc.

So, we have two identical leaders who use lies in their attempt to control the media and everyone. One large difference: In the U.S., the media are still free, and one reason why Trump so adores Putin is that he actually owns and controls the media, so his fake news becomes the truth.

It is in this context that the advice of Father Zosima to Fyodor Karamazov, in Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov,” would be appropriate advice to these two charlatans.

“And mainly, and the most important — do not lie. … Mainly, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to those lies arrives at a point where he cannot distinguish any truth either in himself or in those around him and has no respect for himself or for those around him. Having no respect for anyone, he ceases to love and having no love devotes himself to passions and coarse pleasures in order to occupy and distract himself, and then reaches complete bestiality in his vices. And this all comes from lying to people and to himself.”

While it seems that neither Trump nor Putin reads anything nor takes advice from anyone, it might do them great good to take Father Zosima’s advice seriously and it might, just might lead them to some sorely needed reflection on themselves and on their actions.