Yet another mournful lamentation on Putin and Trump.

Yesterday, 2/22/22, Trump had words of praise for Putin’s move into Ukraine with “peace keeping” forces. He used the word “savvy” in his praise of the tactic. This is in addition to his spoken admiration of Putin in past years. But he also said that if he were in office this wouldn’t have happened. Trump’s acolyte, Tucker Carlson, seems to be issuing forth the same kind of spew. So, what is Trump really saying?

During Trump’s term he proved to be cool on NATO and America’s place in it. So much so that he spooked EU countries. By most accounts, he had little if any recognizable foreign policy and left a great many important posts unfilled in the State Department. Foreign affairs just didn’t capture his interest. Yet, he says he could have prevented Putin’s invasion if he hadn’t been cheated out of the presidency. I guess the invasion is maybe the fault of Biden supporters.

I have come think of Trump as a wannabe despot who admires Putin the despot (and others) as one professional may admire the work of another. Putin as leader is accustomed to having considerable control of Russia. Trump was in control of numerous private companies and thus not accountable to public shareholders. Both characters are used to the exercise of unquestioned power. Maybe it’s not surprising that there is mutual admiration.

Will Trump followers be disappointed by his open admiration of Putin? It seems doubtful. His supporters have an evangelical zeal for the man. A great many of his followers are conservative evangelical Christians who believe that Trump’s appearance on the scene meshes with their end-times theology. His appearance is related to the beginning of the apocalypse of prophesy. These supporters believe that the man is here due to supernatural forces that must play out and cannot be dissuaded.

If this is your belief, then it must be comforting for you. For the rest of us, it is an incoherent and destructive kind of nonsense. How can it be that the same religion that preaches love and gave us the Beatitudes would also give us a leader the likes of the ethically disabled Trump. Somehow the creator of the universe, the one who set the galaxies spinning and knows the movements of every flea in the tail feathers of every sparrow, gave us a malignant narcissist like Trump. It is not a question shrouded in religious mystery. It is what it appears to be- absurd. Ambitious and destructive characters like Putin and Trump have appeared regularly throughout history. And through the lens of history we can make some good guesses as to what they can do. Both are threats to democratic civilization in their own way and must be contained.

As to the original question, what did Trump mean by his comments, I don’t know. He makes things up as he goes and lies profusely. I don’t think that even he knows what he means.