Russian president Vladimir Putin has been praising Donald Trump, who has been returning the favor. When it was brought up that Putin has a habit of killing his critics, Trump said that our country also does a lot of killing. (See details after the jump.)
It isn’t just that the two have a mutual admiration society going. David Ignatius says that Trump is America’s Putin.
I think what we are seeing is the strongman syndrome. Democracies, by their nature, make for weak central governments and so have trouble “getting things done.” So when things get bad, at some point, the very people who constitute the democracy, turn to a “strongman” to solve their problems, even though he will also do away with their rights.
This happened with the Greek democracy and the Roman Republic. It happened when the French revolution turned to Napoleon and when the Russian revolution turned to Stalin. It happened again after the fall of Communism, when the Russian people turned away from the messy democracy they had been trying in favor of the authoritarian Putin. It happens regularly in Latin America. Isn’t this what is happening in this country with the popularity of Donald Trump?
From Ron Radosh, The Unlikely Trump-Putin Bromance | PJ Media:
It looks like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have formed a mutual admiration society. A few days ago, Trump was very pleased to hear that Putin had praised him as “an outstanding and talented personality,” and “a bright and talented person.” And Putin in turn was pleased: “He says that he wants to move to another level of relations, to a deeper level of relations with Russia. How can we not welcome that? Of course we welcome it.” Trump’s response: “It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond.”
But when Trump called in to MSNBC’s Morning Joe as he has done many times, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski did not give him the kind of reception he is accustomed to. Scarborough told Trump that Putin was “also a person who kills journalists, political opponents, and invades countries. Obviously that would be a concern, would it not?” “He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader,” Trump replied. “Unlike what we have in this country.”
“But again,” Scarborough said, “he kills journalists that don’t agree with him.” Trump responded that there was “a lot of killing going on” around the world, and that “our country does a lot of killing also, Joe.”
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