MRGA: Making Russia great again

Jennifer Rubin:

As tragic events unfold in Ukraine, take a moment to consider that the foreign policy goals of defeated former president Donald Trump and his MAGA movement bear a striking resemblance to those of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

What does Putin want? His aims go well beyond Ukraine. As the Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum summarizes: 

He “wants to put so much strain on Western and democratic institutions, especially the European Union and NATO, that they break up. He wants to keep dictators in power wherever he can, in Syria, Venezuela, and Iran. He wants to undermine America, to shrink American influence, to remove the power of the democracy rhetoric that so many people in his part of the world still associate with America. He wants America itself to fail.”

Trump’s foreign policy sought to do much of what Putin wants to achieve, including intimidating Ukraine by withholding vital defensive weapons. 

Trump, like his role model in Moscow, favored weakening NATO, elevating dictators (from China to Turkey to North Korea to Hungary to Russia), undermining democratic elections, demonizing the media (the best check against power-hungry politicians) and finding common ground with kleptocratic-style governments....