Exposing Trump’s Strongman Bluster – Russia Isn’t Great and America Won’t Be Either

Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:10 pm

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You could spend the rest of your life trying to figure out Trump’s policy positions, assuming he actually has any. It takes rather less time to imagine what the Trump cult of personality would do to America.

All you have to do is look at his praise of Putin to find out what his ideal state looks like. In 2007, Trump told Larry King,

“Look at Putin — what he’s doing with Russia — I mean, you know, what’s going on over there. I mean this guy has done — whether you like him or don’t like him — he’s doing a great job in rebuilding the image of Russia and also rebuilding Russia period.”

Paul Krugman has already demonstrated just how much Putin has done for Russia:

CNBC cites one analyst as saying,

“Over the past year, the average Russian’s monthly wage fell 9.5 percent, slipping below $450 dollars — less than in China, Serbia and Romania.”

Less than Serbia. Less than Romania. Is that Trump’s definition of “great”? CNBC went on to note that,

“While the United States and Europe continue to eke out a steady economic recovery, very little is going right for Russia.”

This morning Krugman had more to say on the subject: ever the economist, he explains that Russia is a petrostate, and as oil prices plunged, “so did the Russian economy, which has done very badly in the past few years,” and “Russia wasn’t going to realize its technology potential under a regime where business success depends mainly on political connections.”

“Political connections.” Add “business connections” and that sounds an awful lot like Trump. So what Trump wants to give us is Putin redux, which sounds awfully good for Donald Trump – Putin is doing rather well for himself, after all – but not so good for the rest of us.

Good neither economically nor First Amendment-wise, given that Trump seems to like criticism no more than Putin.

Bill Moyers writes,

In one way or another, this is the oldest story in our country’s history: the struggle to determine whether “we, the people” is a metaphysical reality — one nation, indivisible — or merely a charade masquerading as piety and manipulated by the powerful and privileged to sustain their own way of life at the expense of others.

Trump says he doesn’t approve of the Russian “system” but this seems a weak protest. He would seem to prefer the latter of Moyer’s options, as his praise for Russian strongman Vladimir Putin demonstrates. Putin is a dictator. You don’t question him.

How valid then is Putin’s 82 percent approval rate? President Obama is nearer 60, but you don’t go to prison for disagreeing with Obama.

Trump has displayed an affinity for this sort of thinking, as his comments about changes he wants to make to the free press reveal. As Paul Krugman mocks, “Oppose the Putin regime, and you’re likely to end up imprisoned or dead. Strong!”

That’s not an America of “we, the people.” Not at all. It’s an America that looks, in fact, an awful lot like Russia, which is nothing to aspire to.

President Obama correctly identified Russia as a regional power. The United States is a world power. Looking at “soft power,” Krugman makes the point that, “Russia has very little — except, maybe, among right-wingers who find Mr. Putin’s macho posturing and ruthlessness attractive.”

Trump ruthlessness and macho posturing may fire the loins of white supremacists and ultra-nationalists, but it’s an unreasoning posturing that relies on fantasy rather than fact. America is strong, Russia is not, by comparison, anything to write home about.

Yet Trump says Putin is a strong leader and Obama is a weak leader. This reasoning makes no sense. America, by any reckoning, is already great.

It is clear that Trump’s praise of Putin isn’t based on any concrete accomplishments by the Russian leader. As Trump said at the NBC News commander-in-chief forum, “If Putin says great things about me, I’m going to say great things about him.”

Mutual praise sans facts is not much of a recommendation for greatness, but it’s awfully good for overblown egos at the heart of a cult of personality.

Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.