Life in Putin’s Pocket
Set aside the narratives, and one thing becomes perfectly clear
Putin owns Trump. There. I said it. Now I’ll explain.
To begin, let’s set a few ground rules. Over the years, there have been many claims about Trump’s association with Russian gangsters, Russian money, and Russian influence. There have been reports, investigations, impeachments, and so on. And while I have strong beliefs about many of these claims, and internal certainty about others, I do not actually know they are true in the “beyond a reasonable doubt” sense of the word, so I am intentionally leaving all of them out of this argument, not because I doubt them, but because I simply don’t need them. Instead, we will focus specifically on what we are certain of, and what we can prove beyond any and all doubt. This should leave us with the simplest explanation for what just happened in Alaska on Friday. Here goes:
Trump is volatile, and he lashes out when challenged.
Time and again we see him bully anyone who stands in his way. He’s especially quick to shout down reporters and press types. His social media is littered with attacks against anyone and everyone who dares disagree with him out loud. He especially enjoys tormenting female reporters who don’t properly stroke his ego, ironically attacking them as unintelligent. He bullies debate opponents, political rivals, and anything and everything female or brown. He also enjoys pushing foreign leaders around, sometimes quite literally.
Trump bullies everyone, friends and foes alike.
While Trump saves the majority of his rage for political opponents, he attacks his supporters as well. Over the years, he has had as many conflicts with right-wing people and groups as he has had with the people who oppose him, and he isn’t afraid of attacking his own base. Remember, to this point, Trump has only passed two major pieces of legislation, and each was an outright attack on the very people who put him in office. He is loyal to no one, and he has never been anything else.
Trump fights even when he knows he will lose.
Trump is so unable to ignore even the smallest slight that he often engages in fights he has no chance of winning. He sues people who speak out against him, only to withdraw the suits once they are no longer in the news cycle. He signs Executive Orders that the courts strike down again and again, and then he defies the courts for as long as he can, only to cave at some point down the line. It’s become so common that even the right-wing hosts roll their eyes when reporting on it. The fight is often not a real one, but just the appearance of a fight, but there is never a time when he simply lets a slight go. He always responds, and he always does so in some kind of faux-alpha manner designed to make him look tough.
Which leads me to my point:
Only one person on planet Earth is exempt from everything written above, and that person is Vladimir Putin.
While an argument can be made that Trump has “an affinity for strongmen” and therefore treats Putin like he does other dictators (like Viktor Orban in Hungary, Xi Jinping in China, or Kim Jong Il of North Korea) but the reality here is that even among the world’s most brutal tyrants, Putin is special to Trump. He never criticizes Putin, and even when Trump pretends to oppose Russia’s warmongering in Ukraine, he is conspicuously careful about praising Putin in the process. And while many have forgotten, Trump even praised the Russian dictator for invading Ukraine, calling the invasion “savvy” and labelling Putin a “genius” for pulling it off.
And while I could certainly delve deeply into the many reports, investigations, special counsels, etc., in the end, I don’t really need to. Just by reading what’s right on the surface and plain to see for everyone willing to open their eyes, it is easy, ridiculously easy to come to the conclusion that Putin owns Trump. And Friday in Alaska, when Putin was greeted by kneeling American soldiers literally rolling out a red carpet for him, just gave us more evidence that we never really needed. Vladimir Putin came to America to walk his favorite dog, and that is exactly what he did.
And by now, that should surprise absolutely no one.
Brett Pransky is a writer, a teacher, a father, and a husband, but rarely in that order. He spends his days amplifying the voices of freedom and democracy as an Editor right here at The Political Voices Network, and he spends his nights trying to fix the world one clever sentence at a time.