Trump-Putin performance further subverts democracy
President Donald Trump got trolled by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Group of 20 world leaders summit in Osaka. He was having so much fun joking with Vladimir, he seemed blissfully unaware.
Just before the summit, Putin gave an interview to the Financial Times in which he detailed his belief that the Western order is crumbling.
“The liberal idea has become obsolete (and) has outlived its purpose,” he said bluntly. He has made no secret of his desire to expedite the downfall of the Western order.
Judging by Trump’s performance in Osaka, the U.S. president is determined to help him.
“Don’t meddle in the election,” a smirking Trump told a smiling Putin, in front of reporters.
Of course, the Mueller report found that Russia made “multiple systemic efforts” to interfere in the 2016 election.
No bother to Trump. Trump gushed: “It’s a great honor to meet with Putin. A lot of very positive things are going to come out of the relationship.”
Contrast this with Theresa May’s meeting with Putin in Osaka. Unsmiling, she told him Russian efforts to poison a former spy on British soil “can never be repeated.” Putin denied any Russian role in the poisoning. But, unlike Trump, May stood firm in the face of his lies.
The issue is much bigger than Russian meddling or assassinations.
“Putin talks incessantly about the end of the old U.S.-led unipolar order that didn’t give Russia a role,” says Angela Stent, author of “Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and with the Rest.” “He talks about moving into the post-Western order.”
The Russian leader presents himself as the guru of a new “illiberal” governing model that allows elections but curtails or dismantles democratic institutions.
Nationalist populist leaders in Hungary, Italy, France and elsewhere look to Putin, while Russian propaganda encourages European voters to move in a populist direction.
But Putin doesn’t need to encourage the populist nationalist Trump.
Trump still endorses Putin’s denials of election meddling. This is a gift to the Kremlin that keeps on giving.
Another gift is Trump’s repeated verbal attacks on the media when he meets with autocrats. “Fake news is a great term, isn’t it,” Trump commiserated with Putin, in front of reporters. “You don’t have that problem in Russia.” Of course, the Kremlin controls most major media, and pesky Russian reporters are murdered or jailed.
In his Financial Times interview, Putin returns the favor. He cynically promotes the mantra of populists. He cites the “the gap between the interests of the elites and the overwhelming majority of the people” in Europe and America. Then Putin insists that “traditional values” such as religion “are more stable and more important for millions of people than this liberal idea, which, in my opinion, is really ceasing to exist.” Never mind that Putin presides over a regime disdainful of moral values.
Putin never mentions that true “liberal order” stands for democratic values of tolerance, individual liberty, free courts, free press and rule of law. Instead, he promotes an alternative where fake democratic trappings disguise a lack of such values.
And Trump, at the G-20, gravitated toward this autocrat who curbs courts, voters and press in a way that the president may wish he could or aspires to do by different methods, such as Supreme Court decisions. All Putin had to do was grin.