Trump’s love of a monster
I am what you might call, in a stretch, one of Vladimir Putin’s victims. You see, in June of 2018, Putin attacked the English village I live in with a deadly binary nerve agent called “Novichok.” One of my neighbours died, another was seriously injured. The municipal hall (to which I held the keys at the time) was contaminated and thereby rendered as uninhabitable as the surface of Mars for more than a year. A full Wikipedia article is devoted to the attack.
I tell you this not to garner sympathy or undue identification with Putin’s dead victims. I was and remain just fine. I tell you this to convey the idea that, to me at least, Vladimir Putin’s policy of murder and terror is more than just theoretical. It’s more than something you read about online or hear about in the mainstream media. It’s real. It has weight and immediacy. I had a real-life, real-time, pre-pandemic encounter with a deadly Russian monster and lived to tell the tale.
So when I learned of the recent death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, I knew immediately what had happened. Putin murdered him, just as surely as if he’d stood in front of him and fired a bullet into Navalny’s heart. Whenever I look at Putin I see a murderer. Since the attack on my village and the death of my neighbour I cannot see anything else. It’s personal.
That is why, to me, one of the most disgusting things about the MAGA claque of the Republican Party is its continued devotion to Vladimir Putin and his corrupt and evil regime. Putin is a cold, cold monster, as cold as the grave, as indifferent to human suffering as a rotting headstone. And there’s one reason and one reason only why MAGA loves Putin: because Donald Trump loves him. But why?
Some say it’s because Putin has something terrible on Trump and is blackmailing him with it. I don’t believe that for a second. Trump’s love of Putin is open and uncomplicated by any subterranean motive. I believe Michael Cohen has the answer. Cohen explains that Trump’s admiration for the Russian dictator is simple and immediate. First, Putin is rich. Some suggest he could be the richest man on earth, with wealth equivalent to all the Russian oligarchs put together, combined with the nearly limitless resources of a vast and powerful nation.
Second, Putin’s power is virtually unlimited. People fear him, and rightly so. He commands a huge army and a huge nuclear arsenal responsive to his every whim. He can also have someone murdered any time he doesn’t like them and for any reason. Trump loves that. Trump wishes he could have people murdered too. Trump’s list of people he wants murdered is probably longer than Putin’s. When Putin murdered Alexei Navalny, it was the Russian equivalent of Trump murdering Joe Biden. I have no doubt that it makes Trump green with envy.
Because Trump loves and admires Putin, and wants to be just like him, Trump has become a Russian whore, and he’s converted all of MAGA into a Russian whorehouse. Trump’s recent, brazenly overt invitation to Russia to invade any NATO country that hasn’t paid its NATO dues is an artefact of his admiration of Putin and of his hatred of America’s allies. We don’t know whether or not Trump has turned over to Putin some of the classified documents he stole from the American people, but it’s a vestige of Trump’s unbridled and open envy of the dictator that few would be surprised if he had.
Murdering your political opposition is the ultimate elegant recipe for election interference. It’s January 6th writ even larger. Putin doesn’t need an insurrection, he has Murder Incorporated on his team. If Trump had such an instrument of power he certainly wouldn’t worry about re-election. Or criminal trials. Or vast and crippling civil judgements. There can be no doubt that Trump loves and admires Vladimir Putin, and the reasons for his love and admiration are immediate and obvious. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.