The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union. The Alliance’s creation was part of a broader effort to serve three purposes: deterring Soviet expansionism, forbidding the revival of nationalist militarism in Europe through a strong North American presence on the continent, and encouraging European political integration.(history.gov.com). Understanding the need to establish NATO after World War II to protect Europe from the Soviet Union makes Trump’s attacks on NATO during his presidency a more obvious attempt to aid Putin in achieving the goal of initiating murderous takeovers of European countries. Like Trump, Putin has an insatiable hunger for power as well as delusional thought patterns rooted in the past, not the present. By occupying Ukraine, Putin believes he will restore the status of the former, fallen Soviet Union.
Watching Putin spread lies about his reasons for waging an inhumane invasion of Ukraine is like watching reruns of Trump lying to the American people over and over again to support his cruel agendas. Putin announced he was “sending “peacekeepers,” as he ordered his military machine to move into Ukrainian territory. His soldiers went into Ukraine to supposedly “de-Nazify” — smearing the Nazi label on a country that is a democracy, whose president happens to be Jewish. He claimed Moscow needed to move in to defend Ukraine’s Russian people from a nonexistent “genocide” by Ukrainians (a tactic made infamous of World War II).” (CNN Opinion, Feb. 25th, 2022).
Putin’s government controls what the Russian media reports to the Russian people. Any information that is not propaganda generated by Putin is labeled ” fake news.” Anyone who has studied Putin’s governing style and heard his rhetoric recognizes that Trump was performing an identical impersonation of him throughout his presidency. The voluminous memes of Trump being Putin’s puppet were created by people observing Trump’s obsequious adoration for Putin and his use of disinformation and conspiracy theories to win the support of unsuspecting Americans vulnerable to likes of a false, dangerous idol. In Russia, only narratives that Putin prefers- even if wrong- are broadcast to the Russian people.
Trump, the MAGA movement elected officials, and media outlets like Fox demonstrate Russian-like information control by calling proven facts reported by journalists in the mainstream media “fake news.” That’s a Russian term and tactic that Trump claimed as his, but was stolen from Putin and aligns him with the authoritarianism of the vicious Russian war criminal. The enduring support Trump still maintains despite being on the verge of being indicted for crimes against our democratic system of government reveals a dangerous progression of Putin’s influence on the American political system. If Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the murdering of children and families by targeting hospitals and apartment buildings don’t awaken Republicans to the danger of Trump and his love of authoritarianism, American democracy will remain under severe domestic attack. Children may not be being blown up yet for the “good of the state”; however, tear-gassing peaceful protesters who happen to be black might be a precursor of atrocities to come in America if Trumpism survives.
