Putin’s recent actions, and Trump’s, fit the usual pattern: bad leaders nearly always get worse. They get worse in four phases, each more ominous and compounding than the one before. The progression usually starts slowly — perceptible, perhaps, but unremarkable. Then it picks up steam. Finally, if leaders are left to their own devices, their bad behaviors metamorphose from insignificant to significant, and finally to malignant and malevolent.