Wind of Change
As Russian tanks roll across Ukraine, and Putin raises the threat of nuclear war, I wonder (dare I?) if the rise of authoritarianism, Putinism, and Trumpism in the United States is finally reaching its logical limit.
When the Trump phenomenon began seven years ago, it seemed that only he and a handful of other Republican leaders were in Putin’s pocket. But since then, Trump’s unflagging subservience to Putin, along with Putin’s obvious efforts to help Trump in both of his campaigns and to convince the American right that their cause is his, have resulted in a disturbing growth in Putinism (and authoritarianism) among conservatives, so much so that open displays of support for Russia over America have become fairly commonplace.
This embrace of Putinism and authoritarianism by the right in the United States has not only maimed our democracy and blighted the soul of one of our two major political parties, it has also corresponded with a rise in right-wing domestic terrorism. What a change for the GOP, whose main geopolitical organizing principle for decades was opposition to the Evil Empire.
The tidal flow of madness reached another high-water mark last week, when Trump gushed over Putin, calling him a genius, while several hosts on Fox otherwise ran interference for Putin as his troops massed on the Ukrainian border. Tucker Carlson’s apology for Putin was later replayed on Russian state TV – another propaganda coup for the Russian strongman.
Now maybe playing footsie with a kleptocratic tyrant known for poisoning dissenters has added a frisson of excitement to what must be a rather boring game for some conservative hucksters. This is, after all, the allure of Trump, and authoritarianism – the ability to be the bully, to seize by force one’s place at the top of the hierarchy. Or maybe they started to believe their own hype about Putin, just as they have for Trump – surely a three-dimensional chess master wouldn’t embark on the biggest invasion in Europe since World War II unprovoked. Such a savvy operator must be bluffing.
But now that Putin has actually gone through with it, now that innocent people are pointlessly dying every day at the hands of this sociopath with whom Trump is infatuated, the right finds itself casting about for a coherent response. Whereas before the attack, rhetorical water-carrying for Putin was routine, suddenly Republicans have become more circumspect.
Recall what led to Trump’s first impeachment – a phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky, who said, “We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps. Specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.” Trump replied, “I would like you to do us a favor, though, because our country has been through a lot, and Ukraine knows a lot about it.”
In the run-up to that impeachment, Ted Cruz tried to muddy the water by advancing a made-up narrative of Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election. Republican Senator Ron Johnson also promoted the fiction that Ukraine interfered against Trump in the 2016 election, despite warnings from the FBI that his source for the theory was “a conduit for Russian disinformation.” Two years ago, Mike Pompeo, Trump’s Secretary of State, shouted obscenities at a reporter and asked her, “Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?” And just before the invasion, Pompeo said of Putin: “Very shrewd. Very capable. I have enormous respect for him.” Like Carlson’s remarks, Pompeo’s were also replayed on Russian state TV.
Currently, Trump is trying to consolidate his power over the party for 2024, while pretenders to the throne jockey for position. If I were a Republican with designs on the presidency, the favorite’s yearslong (and well-documented) sycophancy towards a ruthless Russian dictator who just decided to invade another sovereign nation would be an easy opportunity to draw contrast. Not only would this be a welcome development on the particular question of Putin and authoritarianism, but if it proves politically advantageous, it could open the door to further breaks with Trump, and with that, potentially his hold on the party itself.
Sure enough, Ted Cruz is now calling the Russian invasion “devastating” and blames it on Biden. Ron Johnson is blaming Democrats for weakening Ukraine by impeaching Trump for withholding military aid from Ukraine (good luck trying to understand that logic). Not to be outdone, Mike Pompeo now blames Biden for Putin’s invasion, and refers to Putin as “a Russian dictator . . . terroriz[ing] the Ukrainian people”.
On Monday, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, who many view as Trump’s strongest challenger for the 2024 nomination, called Putin an “authoritarian gas station attendant”. Also on Monday, once and future presidential candidate Chris Christie, who ironically bears much of the blame for elevating Trump to the White House, directly attacked Trump for his praise of Putin, tweeting: “How can anyone with any understanding of the world call Putin's decision to invade Ukraine 'genius' and 'very savvy' as we watch him unite the rest of the world against Russia in nearly an instant?”
Even Trump, never one to admit error, has since called Putin’s invasion “appalling.” Your guess is as good as mine how it can be both appalling and genius at the same time. Incidentally, Ukrainian soldiers are now firing Javelin missiles on Russian tanks – the same type of missiles that President Zelensky asked Trump for on that fateful phone call.
Some pieces of polling right now are encouraging – 74% of Americans say Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is unjustified, and 76% have an unfavorable view of Putin. It’s rare these days to see that many Americans agree on anything. Since the invasion, inspiring news of Ukrainian resistance keeps coming across the wire, including that of brave President Zelensky, who declined a potentially life-saving American offer of transport out of Kyiv, instead requesting more ammo.
Granted, we know the next chapter of this story – the right-wing propaganda machine will kick into high gear until it finds a reassuring message that Republicans can tell themselves in order to remain on board, in spite of the collapsing scenery. It happened with the “grab ‘em by the p***y” tape, and countless times since, including both of Trump’s impeachments.
Hope springs eternal though, especially hope in one’s country. I have no choice – I’m American; I live here; I belong here; my future is here. And at each successive fathom, I’ll always wonder whether the right has finally reached a depth past which it can’t comfortably sink. Admittedly, the distance from the controversy helps. Putin isn’t Trump; Russia isn’t America. It’s easier to ditch the foreign leader of a foreign nation when the going gets tough at home.
As for the Ukraine war itself, hopefully Putin finds a way to reconsider it all with his ego intact. Otherwise, it’s increasingly looking like it will be a long, bloody slog. And even if Russian troops ultimately succeed in conquering Ukraine, exerting sustained control over a large country of forty million famously defiant souls will be much more difficult. If campaigning is done in poetry and governing in prose, the same goes for military campaigning versus occupying. As the weeks and months wear on, the daily footage of bombed-out Ukrainian apartment buildings and dead children will make any past support of Putin seem utterly barbaric. And as depressing as it is to point out, the fact that the dead children will be white Christian Europeans, rather than say, brown Muslim Syrians, will make a difference to many conservative Americans.
It’s too late for Trump to memory-hole his fealty to Putin, and in any case, Trump has never owned up to a mistake in his life. But other Republicans might still have a chance to finesse it. This issue is as ugly as it gets, it’s not going away any time soon, and Trump will always choose himself over his party or country, as he has amply proven. If faced with the choice, many of his supporters would also side with Trump over the GOP.
The United States is nothing if not a land of contradictions, one of which is a fondness for the underdog. And maybe it’s precisely because we’re the richest, most powerful country in the world that the opposite of that is appealing to us. But sympathy for the little guy is also embedded in our history – America’s founding story is a David and Goliath one, of thirteen ragtag colonies’ rebellion against the world’s biggest empire. The story is renewed with each generation of immigrant underdogs who make it to our shores and build their own American Dreams, against all odds.
The point is, even though the United States can be a bully, we don’t like to think of ourselves that way. That changed over the last few years for Republicans, but here’s hoping that Putin’s catastrophic overreach will force them, for the first time in too long, to take a good look in the mirror.