His other theory was that Mr. Trump sees himself as a sort of superhero who would forge a strong bond
with Mr. Putin “to show he has the ability to do things that no other president has been able to do.”
And this is a Republican who hopes to do business with the Trump administration
These are the techniques that Mr. Putin used to great effect in his first years in power,
and they are very much the same tactics and clash-of-civilizations ideology being deployed by Mr. Trump today.
Like Mr. Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan today, Mr. Putin’s version of making Russia great again wasn’t particularly ideological,
but its gauzy patriotic nationalism basically summed up the Putin plan for making a weakened and demoralized superpower feel better about itself.
Since the inauguration, we have accumulated some hard facts, too: Both Mr. Trump’s rhetoric
and actions as president bear more than a passing resemblance to those of Mr. Putin during his first years consolidating power.
And that, too, may be part of what Mr. Trump, another unlikely president still so insecure about his rise to the White House
that he constantly brings up his election, sees in Mr. Putin and authoritarian rulers like him.
We are four weeks into Donald J. Trump’s presidency,
and Mr. Putin, in power 17 years and not going anywhere anytime soon, is everywhere in American politics.