Notes From Underground (#6): "Putinism Has Won in the United States"
The Take From "Putin's Philosopher" on Fareed Zakaria GPS
Putinism has won in America, Alexander Dugin—a.k.a., “Putin’s philosopher”—declared in his latest book titled The Trump Revolution.
Chilling words coming from someone widely seen as the brain behind Putin’s muscle. Remember that this is the same man that has served to justify Putin’s cutthroat rise to power, his brutal clampdown on human rights across Russia, and his crimes against humanity in Ukraine.
In a normal world, the so-called “Leader of the Free World” would shudder at the thought of getting the highest compliments from such a man. But alas, Trump is not really a Leader of the Free World.
In fact, Dugin’s interview with Fareed Zakaria on Fareed Zakaria GPS could tell us as much. According to Dugin, “we [Russia] have many points in common with America” (emphasis mine).
Really, you might ask? America, a democracy, has many points in common with Russia, a brutal dictatorship that kills its president’s political opponents? Well, it all starts with Trump’s reelection. Trump, you see, “has done something very special” in Dugin’s eyes: as Dugin himself put it, Trump has brought about a “huge transformation of the global system.”
More specifically, Trump has replaced the global system with one that allows for “sovereign national states” with “traditional values” (like Russia and today’s United States) to dominate over and above international checks and balances like international human rights organizations and standards.
Under Trump’s abandonment of globalism, Dugin argues, Putin “stops [being] the main evil guy.” Because, in Trump/Putin world, no one cares about ICC warrants, the killing and jailing of political opponents like Alexei Navalny and many others, or the violation of smaller nation’s borders by larger ones.
Indeed, Dugin brags that “Trumpists will understand much better what Russia is, what Putin is, and the motivation of our politics.” Translated into American English, that means that Trumpworld will finally have a much greater sympathy for Putin’s thirst for absolute power and for the glory days when empires could oppress their people unchecked by representative government and democratic norms.
In Dugin’s telling, Trump (and America at large) will discover that Putin “has absolutely nothing against the U.S,.” Except that Putin has been a sworn enemy of the United States and its tradition of true representative government for the past 25 years, as demonstrated by his behavior, his rhetoric, and his desire to rebuild a hostile empire to combat American power.
At any rate, Steve Bannon seems to have gotten the Dugin memo. To him, Russia and today’s America “are two white Christian nations trying to preserve their sovereignty” (emphasis mine).
But I digress. Let’s allow Dugin to continue to speak for himself, Putin, and for the Trump Administration. Both America and Russia, Dugin explains, are believers in “realism.” And “[r]ealism believes in the absolute freedom of the countries [i.e., the big countries] to have as they wish” or what they could “bestow [i.e., take] by force” (emphasis mine).
And the beauty of it is that “there is no supranational [international] legitimate” body “that could say, ‘stop! Don’t do it!’ because sovereignty is incompatible with that” (emphasis mine).
“This approach,” as Dugin put it, “is common with Trump & Putin.” Who could disagree? Whether it’s Ukraine, or Greenland, or even Canada, the logic is all the same.
Naturally, Dugin has a lot to say about Ukraine as well. “Ukraine could be theoretically sovereign if it would manage its neutrality” (emphasis mine). Against whom, you ask? Against European globalists and liberals. And if Trump’s America withdrew from “fighting Russia in Ukraine,” then perhaps Russia and America could combine forces against these same globalists and liberals.
On days like these, we can see the importance of taking a look behind the curtain. Yes, we could take a look at the current news cycle, and ask ourselves why Trump just launched an insane illogical trade war that even the leading advocates of “fair not free trade” are calling a massive screw-up, or why Trump just slapped tariffs on small remote islands with more penguins than people.
But we should also ask ourselves the more concerning question of why Putin’s philosopher thinks so highly of Trump’s America. Or why he believes that the United States and Russia “have many points in common.”
Unfortunately, as it stands now, America’s government is not just failing to be a beacon of democracy; to the contrary, it is an active threat to governments of the people, by the people, and for the people across the globe.
Though here is where Dugin is wrong: “Putinism” has not won in America just yet. So long as we the people still care enough to rise up against it.
Power to the people! At least, while we still have the power.