Will America become Russia?
We'll find out today.
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A persistent theme at any Trump rally is MAGA’s utter contempt for America, which Donald Trump has repeatedly called a “garbage can for the world.”
The MAGA movement is actively hostile to the America that currently exists — a diverse, inclusive multicultural democracy (even if it’s hanging by a thread). So on Election Day, it’s worth unpacking the ways in which Trump offers his supporters the promise of an America that’s eerily similar to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, a white male-dominated kleptocracy with rampant cronyism and corruption where a not-so-free press submits to the will of an authoritarian ruler.
Trump openly admires Putin, a thuggish dictator with a long history of killing his political opponents and critical journalists. At his hate rallies, Trump repeatedly refers to the media and non-MAGA politicians as “enemies within” that might need to be suppressed with force.
It’s increasingly obvious that MAGA and Putin’s goals are closely aligned. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Elon Musk, a close Trump ally, has been in regular contact with Putin and other Kremlin officials since late 2022. This was around the same time that Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, which he later renamed “X” and transformed into an online suppository for hate speech, disinformation, and pro-authoritarian content.
Musk’s critics have described the billionaire CEO as a “useful idiot” for Putin, but that supposes Putin has manipulated a clueless Musk. In reality, Musk’s fondness for Putin is just as sincere as Tucker Carlson’s. Carlson, you might remember, earlier this year went on a grand tour of Russia, which he described as superior in every way to modern American society.
Carlson raved about the cheap price of groceries (without mentioning the context that Russia is a much poorer country) and low crimes rates (based on misleading Russian propaganda).
It’s been suggested that Putin has some artificial “hold” over Trump that explains his apparent deference to the dictator. A more terrifying truth, though, is that Trump and other prominent MAGA figures consider Putin’s Russia a model of the “anti-woke,” patriarchal society they desire for America.
No Kompromat needed
Trump is the leader of a personality cult, so it stands to reason he’d relate more to strongmen rulers. He’s wished that “his people” would stand at attention the way North Koreans do for dictator Kim Jong Un, and he’s called himself a “big fan” of Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Trump said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who our European allies rightly shun, is “a great man, a great leader.” Orbán respects the rule of law about as much as Trump does.
Putin has received considerable praise from Trump, who’s called him a “genius” and savvy” after he invaded Ukraine.
“They say, ‘Trump said Putin’s smart.’ I mean, he’s taking over a country for two dollars’ worth of sanctions,” Trump said at a 2022 fundraiser.
After his January 6-related indictments, Trump literally quoted Putin, who said the charges against Trump revealed “the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy.”
Russian elections are more like predetermined “events” than a true democratic process, but it’s possible that Trump is both gullible and stupid enough to buy the Russian propaganda that Putin commands high approval from voters (particularly women) because of his dominant masculinity.
MAGA finds strongmen rulers appealing because they don’t answer to a democratic society that they consider weak and overly feminized. A recent Turning Point Action event illustrated this. Tucker Carlson described America as “a two-year-old smearing the contents of his diapers on the wall” and “a hormone-addled 15-year-old girl slamming the door and giving you the finger.”
“There has to be a point at which Dad comes home,” Carlson said, referring to Trump’s possible re-election. “Dad comes home and he’s pissed … and when Dad gets home, you know what he says? You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now. And no, it’s not going to hurt me more than it hurts you.” (Watch below.)
Trump has adopted similarly paternalistic rhetoric. He’s posted all-caps rants on Truth Social saying, “WOMEN WILL BE HAPPY, HEALTHY, CONFIDENT AND FREE! YOU WILL NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION!” He told women at a September rally, “I am your protector, I want to be your protector. As president I have to be your protector.”
The dehumanizing has only gotten worse: Last week in Wisconsin, the adjudicated rapist declared that he would “protect” women whether they “like it or not.” (Watch below.)
MAGA men are greatly disturbed at the possibility that women voters will deny Trump a second term. Charlie Kirk and Jesse Watters have both complained about (presumably white) women defying their husbands and voting for Kamala Harris. This is the sort of concern one would typically associate with countries like Russia, which has a patriarchal, overtly misogynistic government.
Russian women are underrepresented in parliament and earn 30 percent less than their male counterparts. They’re barred from supposed “strenuous” occupations like aircraft repair, construction and firefighting. One in five Russian women face domestic abuse every year, and in 2017, Russia’s legislative body decriminalized domestic violence that does not require hospital treatment.
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Russian journalist Yevgenia Albats wrote in 2018 that in Russia, “women have a single role: that of a subservient and silent subordinate who knows her place.” (The #MeToo movement mostly skipped Russia.) Musk hasn’t tried to hide that he thinks along similar lines. Last month, he amplified a post on X stating that "people who can't defend themselves physically (women and low T men)” are "very malleable to brute force manufactured consensus."
"This is why a Republic of high status males is best for decision making,” the post read. “Democratic, but a democracy only for those who are free to think.”
The blurry line between Putinism and Trumpism
Musk is a born again member of the Trump cult, and and his personal political radicalization fits seamlessly with Russia’s extremist policies.
Musk has argued that the “woke mind virus” is a threat to “modern civilization.” According to his biographer Walter Isaacson, “Musk’s anti-woke sentiments were partly triggered by the decision of his oldest child, then 16, to transition.” Thus, Musk’s purchase of Twitter was both personal and political. He’s vowed to destroy the “woke” ideology that he believes cost him his child, who no longer speaks to him. He believes “wokeness” has “infected” America, and that the former Twitter suppressed rightwing and “anti-establishment” voices.
It might seem absurd that a billionaire would not consider himself part of the establishment, but MAGA has long coded the “establishment” as overly feminine and minority-driven.
After California passed a gender identity law, Musk announced that he was moving SpaceX and X to Texas. Trump’s campaign has spent millions on anti-trans ads that air in battleground states on NFL and college football games. Meanwhile, Trump keeps repeating the absurd, sick lie that schools perform ad-hoc gender-reassignment surgeries on students.
“You know, they take your kid,” he said on Fox & Friends last month. “There are some places, your boy leaves the school, comes back a girl. Without parental consent. What is that all about?" (Watch below.)
Putin shares Musk and Trump’s contempt for trans people. He’s personally rails against what he describes as the West’s “degradation and degeneration,” specifically trans people, and his rhetoric wouldn’t stand out at a Trump rally.
Putin’s transphobia is unchallenged law in Russia, which actively persecutes transgender people. Parents can lose their children simply because they’re trans. Russia’s Supreme Court ruled last year that the “international LGBTQ movement” is an “extremist organization” that incites social and religious discord. Russia’s gay propaganda law bans all public information or activities that support LGBTQ rights or display non-heterosexual orientation. There’s no exception for the arts or education.
Indeed, Putin has promoted Russia as a sort of “anti-woke” haven. The Moscow Times reported in September that Putin had approved “an extension of temporary residence permits to those disillusioned with the identity politics and militant wokeism rampant across the West.” In this regard, Putin sounds like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who claims his state is where “woke goes to die.” (Musk originally supported DeSantis’s face-planting presidential run.)
When “woke” is the enemy, economic concerns take a back seat. Trump’s word salad policies won’t seriously improve anyone’s financial situation. In fact, Musk himself said at a town hall last month that Americans must accept "temporary hardship" once Trump is elected. (It’s unlikely the billionaire will share in that hardship.) That echoes similar words from JD Vance, who once argued that people should willingly suffer economically just so they can stick it to the “woke” corporations.
That’s consistent with a brand of fascism where dictators sweep into power after stoking cultural grievances and scapegoating “others” for everything wrong in the world. Putin has promoted rigid gender roles and “traditional family values” as a way to divert attention from his own rampant corruption. That’s been Trump’s entire 2024 platform.
Meanwhile, MAGA’s attacks against Kamala Harris are offensively sexist and vulgar. Musk’s America PAC ran a social media ad declaring, “Kamala Harris Is A C Word” —an obvious reference to the gendered slur.
Tim Walz has called Musk Trump’s “running mate,” which is not entirely hyperbole. The billionaire CEO has spent at least $118 million in an effort to re-elect Trump. He’s basically a human ATM for a campaign that Harris outraised three to one. Trump has floated putting Musk in his cabinet as a “secretary of cost-cutting.” If Trump’s reelected, Musk’s ambitions are probably greater than receiving a generous tax break.
Liberals have observed the inherent contradiction of Musk’s prominent role in Trump’s inner circle, considering his campaign’s open hostility to immigration. At the Madison Square Garden rally, Stephen Miller declared that “America is for Americans and Americans only,” echoing Hitler’s ethnonationalist declaration that “Germany is for Germans only.” German Jews under Nazi rule would see their birthright citizenship denied. That’s why it’s so scary when Trump and Vance call Haitian migrants with protected status “illegal aliens” subject to deportation. The law doesn’t matter to them.
Musk is an immigrant, who possibly worked in the US illegally, but MAGA welcomes him without question. He’s a white, cis male who’s hostile to multicultural democracy — an identity that Musk and Trump share with Putin. Together, they hope to advance MAGA’s white nationalist movement across the globe.
Today’s election is probably MAGA’s last best opportunity for an anti-democratic “merger” with Russia. For the sake of our country and world, let’s hope their authoritarian aspirations are denied at the ballot box.
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That’s it for today
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May the blue wave leave us a better nation. Godspeed, Madame (Vice) President!
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