As Trump has just reminded me, America has never faced such a catastrophic choice of presidential candidates, two corrupt and incompetent individuals, both with links to a hostile foreign power.
The power in question is Putin’s Russia, of which Trump is a fan. Putin, he said yesterday, “has been a leader far more than our president has been.” The KGB thug, he added, “has great control over his country”.
So had the gentlemen in this photo. So had Lenin, Stalin and Mao. Pondering such similes, one begins to think that leadership by itself is meaningless unless it’s directed towards a worthy destination.
Yet many seem to believe that leadership is self-redemptive, and no extraneous considerations matter. This dangerous fallacy produces adulation of evil foreign chieftains, rendering the country helpless to resist them.
Trump is trying to establish his own credentials by syllogistic association: Putin is a strong leader. Putin likes Trump (“I think when he calls me brilliant I’ll take the compliment, ok?”). Ergo, Trump too is a strong leader, and isn’t that what we all need?
It isn’t. What we need is a strong society, not a strong leader. It’s only weak and wicked countries that above all else require a strongman to control them. In healthy societies the leader’s personality counts for much less.
Political leadership does matter – but with many qualifiers that each may be more important than what they qualify. A good leader must be wise, just, selfless, prudent yet courageous, knowledgeable of political philosophy and history.
It’s those qualities that are worth highlighting before uttering the buzz word ‘leader’. But Trump wouldn’t understand that: neither his experience nor his intellect stretch that far.
It’s wrong to think that modern business experience, even if less marred by controversy than Trump’s, provides perfect training for high political office. If it does, it’s only by serendipity.
For example, today’s businessmen see nothing wrong in concentrating most of their bailiwick’s wealth in their own hands and those of their nearest associates. Interestingly, in the second half of the nineteenth century the average ratio of income earned by US corporate directors and their employees was 28:1. Yet in 2005 that ratio stood at 158:1.
Trump must admire the aspect of Putin’s leadership that, according to Credit Swiss data, has produced the worst wealth inequality in the world, with only 111 Russians owning 19 per cent of the country’s household wealth. Putin himself is much richer than Trump, and the Donald is trained to worship wealth, however amassed.
He also must see a parallel between a small board of directors headed by a ‘leader’ running a huge corporation and a Russia run by the KGB junta of a dozen men or so. What’s sauce for the corporate goose is sauce for the political gander.
In both cases, appearances of popular support are often maintained. In theory, a stockholder with a few shares has a vote that may change corporate policy. In practice, public ownership is dissipated so widely that no single vote matters. Control remains firmly in the hands of the board, usually ready to bend to the will of its ‘leader’.
Modern ‘democratic’ politics is similar. What decides the issue isn’t each vote but a winning voting bloc. Once it has been put together, the winner becomes for all intents and purposes unaccountable to the populace. Modern ‘leaders’ respond to Burke’s prescription of acting according to the electorate’s interests, not wishes, by acting according to neither.
This is the sort of leadership that Trump’s business experience has prepared him for. That’s why he has a QED expression on his face when saying “[Putin] does have an 82 per cent approval rating.”
He’s too ignorant to know that in a fascist country, into which Putin is rapidly turning Russia, approval ratings (or for that matter votes) are meaningless. Stalin had approval ratings of 105 per cent while running history’s worst tyranny. Ceausescu had an approval rating of 97 per cent the day before he was shot in the gutter, with crowds joyously dancing in the streets.
Trump is also too stupid to realise that such approval ratings, even if genuine, which Putin’s aren’t, testify to two things only: the absence of free press and the brainwashing effectiveness of mass propaganda.
Actually, ignorance and stupidity are the best possible explanations of Trump’s affection for Putin’s kleptofascist dictatorship. The recent statement by Trump’s son Don hints at a worse possibility: “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets… We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”
What part of Trump’s mind and experience has prepared him to ignore such naked self-interest? Probably none.
Russia’s sabres are rattling all over the world, half its budget is spent on the military, Putin has amassed 100,000 armoured troops on the Ukrainian border, his fighters cause near-collisions by flying, as one did yesterday, within 10 feet of US planes, his Goebbelses scream about turning America into radioactive ash – what a time for the US to have a president who admires the ‘leader’ cast in the mould of history’s worst tyrants.
The harrowing thought is that Hilary Clinton is just as bad, with possibly even stronger financial ties to Putin. The forthcoming election does evoke the old cliché about turkeys voting for Christmas.