The Putinization of America
A Conversation with Garry Kasparov
“I come from a country where the language of “enemies on the inside” was commonplace. I come from a country where the regime privatized the levers of power, so that authority was not concentrated in a body of law, but with one man surrounded by sycophants.
“And now it is here—the Putinization of America.” — Garry Kasparov, former World Chess Champion, Russian dissident, Founder Renew Democracy Initiative.
Happy Sunday.
On today’s “To the Contrary” Podcast, Garry Kasparov argues that “Putinization” is the model that best explains Donald Trump, because the usual ideological categories don’t really capture the mixture of authoritarianism, deception, and greed that hangs like a cloud over Trumpism. In a post last night, Kasparov described the formula Putin used to make Russia “into an oligarchic mafia state: nationalize the expenses, privatize the profits. The USA is just another casino or real estate project for Trump to wring dry for personal gain.”
In a recent speech, Kasparov laid out the stakes:
Like so many others who grew up behind the Iron Curtain on the wrong side, American democracy, American values, and American institutions were my North Star. Next year marks two and a half centuries since the signing of one of the greatest documents ever written: the Declaration of Independence. If next year's momentous anniversary is ultimately a way point on the road to American decline, it will have been a choice we all made.
But there is another choice…. The 250th anniversary of US independence will be a turning point. The first chapter in an American democratic renewal that shines the light of freedom into even the darkest corners of the planet.
Ten generations have passed that torch down from the founders. Now it is our turn.
You can watch or listen right here or on YouTube / Listen (and subscribe) on Apple/ Spotify / iHeart / RSS Feed.
Some of the highlights of our conversation
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
Speaking of Putinization
On Saturday, the id of the Trump regime posted this full throated attack on judicial oversight:
“The judicial coup must end. Washington did not endure that brutal winter at Valley Forge so that, 250 years later, a cabal of unelected communist judges could force us to empty the worst criminals of the third world into our towns. That is not freedom, it is forced dispossession.”
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Two days after two Israeli embassy aides were gunned down in DC, the Administration that claims that it is waging war against antisemitism did this: “Pentagon promotes Kingsley Wilson to press secretary despite history of antisemitic comments.”
Kingsley Wilson, a deputy press secretary at the Department of Defense who has come under fire from Democratic and Republican lawmakers and Jewish communal organizations for promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories, has been promoted to serve as the department’s press secretary, the Pentagon announced on Friday….
When Wilson was named deputy press secretary in March, she faced widespread condemnation for dozens of tweets viewed as antisemitic and racist. On two different occasions, she attacked the Anti-Defamation League for sharing its origin story — the organization was founded after the lynching of Leo Frank, an Atlanta Jew widely believed to have been wrongly convicted of raping and murdering a white child over a century ago.
“Leo Frank raped and murdered a 13-year-old girl,” Wilson wrote in 2023 in response to a post from the ADL, and repeated the claim a year later. “He also tried to frame a black man for his crime. The ADL is despicable.” (The tweet has not been deleted.)
In addition to such posts, Wilson has frequently boosted the antisemitic “Great Replacement Theory”; celebrated Christian nationalism; called Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general, “one of the greatest Americans to ever live”; praised the far-right Alternative for Germany party, which has downplayed the Holocaust, while using a slogan with ties to neo-Nazis; suggested that women should not be police officers; and compared the murder of Israeli babies by Hamas to abortion shortly after the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks, among other claims.
She also repeatedly opposed sending U.S. military aid to Israel during its war with Hamas in Gaza, and has vocally criticized U.S. engagement in the Middle East.
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Speaking of addled Presidents
On Saturday, Trump spoke to the cadets at West Point and went on a barely coherent rant about ( I kid you not) “trophy wives.”Summaries do not do this addled tirade justice:
Wearing a red "Make America Great Again" hat, the president decided to discuss pioneering real-estate developer William Levitt…
"He sold this company and he had nothing to do," he told the future military leaders. "He ended up getting a divorce, found a new wife. Could you say a trophy wife? I guess we can say a trophy wife. It didn't work out too well, but it doesn't –– and that doesn't work out too well, I must tell you."
"A lot of trophy wives doesn't work out. But it made them happy for a little while at least," he continued.
"But he found a new wife, he sold his little boat and he got a big yacht; he had one of the biggest yachts anywhere in the world. He moved for a time to Monte Carlo, and he led the good life. and time went by and he got bored and 15 years later, the company that he sold to called him and they said, 'The housing business is not for us.'"
WTAF? Seriously.
Sunday dogs
Auggie.
Eli on watch.
WTAF indeed! And not a word out of the MSM regarding this insane speech. Imagine if Joe Biden, Clinton or Obama had given this speech? I am literally speechless.
I didn't listen to Trump's speech so to get the context of his riff about Levitt, I read the transcript. The business about Levitt and his trophy wife fit in seamlessly because the whole speech was an incoherent rant.