"Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, long entwined, continue on vile parallel paths: They would rather destroy their countries than admit they have lost."

"They have each created a scrim of lies to justify lunatic personal ambition.... As our ancestors did, the Ukrainians are fighting an abusive overlord, against all odds, for democracy. It’s especially inspiring as a split screen with Trump and his MAGA forces trying to bulldoze democracy and rip away women’s rights. The Ukrainians are battling for a luminous ideal — unlike Trump and Putin, who are smashing a luminous ideal for their own benefit, driven by their dread of being called losers. Both thugs are getting boxed in, Trump by a bouquet of investigations into his chicanery and Putin by an angry public pushback against his bloody vanity war.... Both Putin and Trump are famous for accusing everyone else of their own sins.... It would be poetic justice to think the walls were closing in on Putin and Trump at the same time, because at some point, all this will become unsustainable...." 

Maureen Dowd, in "Solo Soulless Saboteurs" (NYT).

Would it be poetic justice for the walls to close in on Putin and Trump at the same time for the same reasons?

From Wikipedia:

Poetic justice is a literary device in which ultimately virtue is rewarded and viciousness is punished.... Notably, poetic justice does not merely require that vice be punished and virtue rewarded, but also that logic triumph. If, for example, a character is dominated by greed for most of a romance or drama, they cannot become generous. The action of a play, poem, or fiction must obey the rules of logic as well as morality. During the late 17th century, critics pursuing a neo-classical standard would criticize William Shakespeare in favor of Ben Jonson precisely on the grounds that Shakespeare's characters change during the course of the play. When Restoration comedy, in particular, flouted poetic justice by rewarding libertines and punishing dull-witted moralists, there was a backlash in favor of drama, in particular, of more strict moral correspondence.

We watch the news, but do we watch it as if it's a play and expect it to follow conventions of plot? Or do we just think it would be satisfying if it stories resolved themselves like a theatrical plot? And yet, while you're waiting for good to be rewarded and evil punished, you may find you've stumbled into a Restoration comedy.