A memory from the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union has come back to haunt me. In the 1960s there was talk that Russian military and political strategists had reached the conclusion that the United States could not be defeated by an external force. Instead they determined that America’s might was vulnerable through its own internal strife. Back then, the idea of internal strife in America was ludicrous. But five decades later, Putin is probing that vulnerability.
Divisions between our two political parties appear custom-made for Putin’s exploitation. The 2016 election campaign provided him with an opportunity to tamper with our electoral process. His objective was to create strife, regardless of who might win. His success was beyond measure. Chaos and internal strife exploded in America, with Trump’s election. The philosophical and ideological difference between the political factions have become the political divide. Our American family squabble emboldens Putin to be aggressive in expanding the perimeter of Russian influence.
A recent news headline revealed that the FBI had initiated a counter-intelligence investigation of President Trump. That was at the time when FBI director James Comey was fired. Trump’s favoritism toward the Russians during the election campaign, his firing of the FBI director, and his deference to Putin on the world stage in Helsinki, became suspect. Trump’s jubilant celebration of Comey’s firing, with Russian diplomats in attendance in the Oval Office, implied that Trump might be acting on Russia’s behalf.
But Trump is far too self-serving to merely serve the Russians. His goal is more simplistic. It’s self-aggrandizement. In his insatiable hunger for power, he borrows pages from the Russian strategist’s manual. He foments internal strife, weakens our government institutions, and re-staffs them with his loyalists and sycophants. Emulating the world’s dictators, Trump strives to establish himself as “the strong man.”
Building his financial empire, Trump had no board of directors in any of his corporations (Google). Consensual agreement in decision-making is contrary to his personality. According to Bob Woodward, he transposed his style of management to his presidency. Trump’s staff and cabinet members work in a hostile environment, fearing to displease him.
In the first year of the current presidency, Trump’s supporters decided to let Trump be Trump. Trump-ism has run rampant for the past two years. When he took control of the GOP, John Boehner, former Speaker of the House remarked, “There is no Republican Party anymore. There is only the Trump Party.”
At Christmas, Trump shut down the government when Congress did not allocate funding for his “Wall of Shame.” After ending the 35-day government shutdown, Trump chose to declare a national emergency.
The true national emergency, however, lies in the strife evidenced by our political divide, which polarizes and weakens us as a nation just as Russians had theorized. Worst of all, it erodes our trust in one another. In this chaotic mix, Trump is the catalyst for his own gains. While the opposition struggles to contain him, America and the GOP best not forget that Trump is “the scorpion riding on the frog’s back.”
Fred Natkevi, a longtime Oak Park resident, grew up in Eastern Europe.