It’s not just that tRump is Putin’s puppet through admiration and/or “kompromat”. It’s not only because of the ties between Bannon, Cambridge Analytica, Manafort and the NRA and Russia. There is another dynamic that has been around for over 2 decades.
Russians and the American right started plotting in 1995. We have the notes from the first meeting.
Moscow’s shift into a bastion for social conservatism was a bright, blinking red light for social conservatives in the United States — many of whom started coming out in droves to defend Russia’s increasing return to dictatorship, becoming some of Putin’s staunchest defenders in the West. Franklin Graham began lauding Russian policies, claiming Russia maintained the moral high ground over the U.S., as did notorious creationist Ken Ham. Praise started to flow in from paleo-conservatives like Pat Buchanan and theocrats like Bryan Fischer.
The swelling ties between Russia and American social conservatives continued in the years that followed, at least as long as Barack Obama was in the White House.
In 2015, Franklin Graham — perhaps America’s leading evangelical, who has run defense for Trump’s immoralities at every possible turn — posted a photo in which he’s shaking hands with Putin, claiming during a visit to Russia that Obama was interested only in “promoting atheism.” Graham even announced a “World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians” in Moscow, although that was later moved to Washington.
What started back in 1995 now has become an overt political alliance.
The axis between Russian Orthodox and American evangelicals is intact
While some people fear that relations between Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and their respective entourages have been too warm and cosy, others feel that those relations ought to be even closer.
Advocates of closer ties include American evangelicals who insist that the two countries’ leaders should be working together against common foes, ranging from secular liberalism to jihadist terrorism. Perhaps the most vocal supporter of this line is Franklin Graham, a hugely influential evangelical preacher who prayed at Mr Trump’s inauguration.
These two religious political movements have been tapped by tRump and Putin to achieve power. They probably exchange notes about how.
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump’s great success in exploiting the rise of nationalist Christianity
In Russia, the numbers of people claiming to be “Orthodox” increased from 31% to 72% between 1991 and 2008, while regular church attendance barely shifted, growing from 2% to 7%. In such a context, the potential power granted by Christian trappings should not be underestimated. Putin most recently shored up his image as a national saviour just ahead of Russia’s election, positioning himself as nearly single-handedly saving an old monastery. A documentary film showing Putin’s visit to the monastery created a strong picture of an almost mythic figure.
Whatever their involvement in immoral activities, Putin and Trump seem assured of the populist support of modern Christians who long for a return to power, no matter what the cost in lives or souls.
Things are changing in Russia towards theocracy.
For the First Time, Russia Ranked Among Worst Violators of Religious Freedom
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which flags religious freedom violators for the State Department, listed the former Soviet state among six new Tier 1 “countries of particular concern” (CPC) in its latest annual report, released Wednesday.
It is the first time in the commission’s almost 20-year history that Russia has made the list. A total of 16 countries currently hold the CPC designation, and another dozen are being reviewed as Tier 2.
Russia is the only country whose repression of religious freedom has both intensified and expanded into a neighboring state by means of military occupation since USCIRF began monitoring it, officials said. The report dedicated seven pages to its problematic policies, from the “persecution of religious minorities in the occupied areas of Crimea and Donbas” to recent moves against non-Orthodox Christians in its heartland.
Theocracy is what the Russian Orthodox and American Trump supporting evangelicals want. Both countries are going through internal cultural wars and the religious right in both countries seem to be working together. Both follow political leaders that are clearly not religious but promise them what they want.
What I see down the path if Putin’s puppet remains in power is a new world order where Putin rules and where Christian nationalists (?) become the dominant religion in America, Russia and elsewhere.
If you do some reading you may conclude, as I do, that Putin’s totalitarian theocracy is ahead of what tRump’s fundies envision or do and it shows what to watch out under tRump if his fundie base takes the same path as Putin.
Pussy Riot in front of St. Basil cathedral.Ask Pussy Riot.
These are useful sources;
Russian Orthodox Church under attack, Patriarch Kirill tells huge Moscow crowd
Vladimir Putin embraces the Russian church
How Putin is using the Orthodox Church to build his power
This November is as existential for America as Gettysburg was.
The blue wave will be the turning point of this cultural war.