“A lot of good
things could happen with Russia if we get along with Russia,” Trump asserted in
December.
This is exactly what Putin dreams of. He has long wanted to
negotiate a pact with Washington like the post-World War II Yalta agreement
that divided Europe into spheres of influence. In this new Yalta, Putin want
Barack Obama to recognize Russia’s “special interests” in ex-Soviet republics.
The fact that the age of great colonial empires is over has been lost on Putin.
He’s convinced that Americans don’t agree to it only because they think Russia
is too weak and can be ignored. And so to prove Obama wrong he sends Russian
planes to bomb Syria.
In Trump, Putin has found a ready partner for this kind of
deal-making. Trump also has no idea how the modern world works. Plus, Trump
prides himself on being a tough negotiator. He will emerge from his powwow with
Putin declaring that he got America to “keep” Poland and the Czech Republic –
and who gives a damn about Ukrainians? Trump probably thinks of them as a
Russian version of undocumented Mexicans..
If Trump wins the White House, he will be a disaster for the
world, America and Western civilization. For Ukraine, a President Trump may
prove fatal.
Since he entered the presidential race, Trump has been blamed
for its noxious tone. But his Republican rivals – Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Chris
Christie and even Jeb Bush – have
quickly risen to the challenge. They’re matching his nastiness tit for tat, and
their only problem is that they are not as good at it.
Trump didn’t create his electorate. Rather, the other way
around. There has been pent-up demand for this kind of leader. Trump, ever a
good businessman, merely supplies the
product.
Surprisingly, Trump’s voters are quite similar to folks in
Russia who support Putin, admire his in-your-face behavior on the world stage
and thrill to his aggressive rhetoric and thuggish language. Both groups are
angry and aggrieved, pining away for their countries’ imperial greatness. Putin
declares that he has raised Russia from its knees – i.e., ended its post-Cold
War humiliation. There are uncanny
echoes of this in Trump’s claims that the world has no respect Obama’s United
States and promises “to make America great again”, as his campaign slogan
states.
For Putin’s supporters and Trump’s voters alike, national
greatness is not measured in scientific or cultural achievements – and,
apparently, not even in material well-being – but in military might. They
believe that it is better to be feared than loved, admired or respected. Putin
is rattling his rusty military hardware and Trump’s supporters cheer the talk
of bombing the living daylight out of ISIS and waterboarding terror suspects.
Note that other Republicans are eagerly competing with Trump to be a greater
war criminal.
Both groups pine away for their country’s’ Golden Age, the
difference being that Russians see it as an idealized Soviet Union and their
American twins, Norman Rockwell’s white, small town, Christian America. Both
have their ideal leaders, Stalin for Russians and Reagan for Americans.
(I wonder what the Gipper would have thought about this
parallel. Also, as Trump feuds with Pope Francis, it’s hard to resist recalling
Stalin, who famously quipped: “The Pope? How divisions has he got?”)
The question is why so many Russians and Americans find
themselves falling for cartoonish strongmen and revelling in their bullying. In
Russia’s case it is perhaps more
understandable. It has suffered a loss of its great power status and is
nursing its bruised national ego. But the United States is still rich, powerful
and has the world’s strongest military.
The answer perhaps lies in the fact that the United States,
just like Russia, has become a commodity exporting nation. Russia produces oil
and sells it in world markets, while the United States exports paper dollars.
Both nations therefore consume more than they produce. Their dependence on
their main commodity export is strikingly similar: Russia earned $350 billion
in 2013, the last year of high energy prices, from oil and gas exports, while
the United States had a current account deficit of $377 billion, representing
the amount of dollars it exported.
Modern industrial economies need liberal democracy. They are
open and multicultural because their stock of trade is ideas, which come from
unexpected sources and require freedom of expression. They require both
acceptance of differences and protection for the rights of minorities.
Commodity exporters are distributive economies. They tend
toward homogeneity and collective thinking. They hate diversity and despise
immigrants – because they see them as competitors for freebies, not as
productive members bringing in their energy, desire to succeed and new ideas.
Commodity exporters are almost universally a mess. They feature
enormous income differentials and they have majority rule rather than
democracy, appointing charismatic leaders by popular acclaim – and often for
life. The leaders safeguard the interests of their cronies while feeding
nationalist rhetoric to adoring crowds.
Russia is a classic commodity exporter. Its population is poor,
its infrastructure, housing stock and health care is often medieval. Yet, it
has 88 official billionaires according to Forbes – and many more hidden ones
among top bureaucrats. It is rabidly nationalistic and intolerant and displays
other classic characteristics of a commodity exporter, including a strongman
ruler.
The United States is a highly productive, innovative industrial
economy. However, in the past three decades since the US Federal Reserve
started printing money – and especially after the 2008 financial crisis when
massive liquidity was infused into the banking system at zero percent interest
rates – a new nation has started to emerge alongside it, one that shares many
characteristics with Russia and other commodity exporters.
For example, US income differentials have widened and a new
super-rich class has emerged. Many of them are bankers, hedge fund managers and
other finance professionals. They are near the financial spigot and are helping
themselves to the lion’s share of the commodity the United States produces.
Others come from the corporate hierarchy and the ranks of successful
entrepreneurs. They would have been wealthy anyway, but the trillions that the
Fed has printed supersized their fortunes.
Trump’s voters are the inevitable corollary to this enrichment:
the masses of resentful, unhappy losers. They’re richer than ordinary Russians,
but just as angry – and equally quick to blame others for the way things have
worked out. The amazing thing is that this new nation actually calls itself
conservatives.
In South Carolina, which holds its Republican primary on
Saturday, the new America is well represented. A quarter of the state’s voters
are either active or retired US military personnel and their families. Among
them, George W. Bush remains popular, since he used government money to fight
two wars providing lucrative employment servicemen. Political analysts have
been puzzled why they are coming out in droves in support of Trump. But there
is no surprise if we see him as a typical charismatic leader of a commodity
exporting nation, such as Putin or Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.
