Putin Says Western Elites Are the Enemy

 If ever there was a question, about whether there was an affinity between Vladimir Putin and the Trumpist movement in the United States, any doubt was extinguished by Putin’s speech at a conference in Russia on Thursday. Echoing the racist canards of the MAGA crowd and other autocratic leaders in the West, Putin declared that they had a common enemy, namely Western elites. Dripping with antisemitism, and using the dog whistles of the ultra-right, he identified these elites as aggressive, cosmopolitan neoliberals who are trying to impose their “pretty strange values on everyone else “. Putin contrasted these “common enemies “with those in the West who follow traditional, Christian values.

Trump and his following may decry evidence of collusion with Putin, in past elections and current rhetoric, but the handwriting is on the wall. There is a growing coalescence in both the West and the East to find scapegoats for unpopular policies and a justification for abandoning democratic government.