Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin: Mirroring Evil
The law would look for collusion and miss its form. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have had no need for conspiring or racketeering: what the two appear to have done is mirror one another in each his own criminal mentality, the management of feudal-medieval mafia, and the operating of large and private systems of patronage. For the shared mentality: Malignant Narcissism.
Signal: delusional, grandiose, messianic ideation absent of normal boundaries and limits, i.e., the parameters of normal conscience.
Process: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2022/07/10/malignant-narcissistic-process-distilled/
Ramifications–> https://conflict-backchannels.com/2023/01/20/ftac-why-putin-wont-stop-until-stopped/; https://conflict-backchannels.com/2024/04/22/trump-delusional-and-innocent/
The guy at the top of the above online poster launched his career with a spree of apartment bombings around Moscow; for all evil intents, he’s still driving missiles into apartment buildings beneath the delusional excuse of fighting encroachment from the west when, in fact, Ukraine is only a state rightfully trying to flee his own–and him.
The jerk beneath the guy on top brazenly attempted to overthrow the 2020 American Election. He had not only told a Trumpian Lie to develop and incite a mob to action against America’s government, his base had produced and staged fraudulent Electoral College ballots for counting (and confirming election) prior to the action.
Trump-Putin: Mafia Rules – Loyalty | Obedience | Treachery | Silence ||
Were neither Trump nor Putin politicians, both would be viewed as crime lords engaged in protection (from Chechen Rebels, oh my, and–of late here in America–hallucinated Communists). ALM has noted for me (prompt: “about feudal-medieval mafia”) that “the feudal system of the Middle Ages shared structural similarities with organized crime”: absolute loyalty; private enforcers; protection rackets. Inspired by Trump’s Trumpian evil, I’ve chosen to highlight in the sub-header “loyalty, obedience, treachery, and silence”–start with Michael Cohen or anyone else who has been part of his crew, there are plenty of examples although one now forgotten commenter on X noted that our ill-disciplined and loudmouthed Donald would not qualify for real mafia (I took the observation at its faceless value as being all the more true for it).
Putin’s enterprise in Russia has long carried the sobriquet “Russian Mafia State” and, indeed, it’s a small club involving breathtakingly enriched oligarchs and siloviki and just one chief. Whether the United States of America succumbs to the piracy of its own Commander and Thief–he’s on a roll “taking over” America, Venezuela, Greenland (he still talks about that), Iran, Canada (damned state can’t control its wildfires seems Trump’s concern)–remains to be seen.
According to AI (AKA my ALM), “Membership Costs: Initiation fees for Mar-a-Lago surged from $100,000 prior to his first term to as high as $1 million, filtering access strictly to the wealthy and well-connected.”
Over in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Sochi, and Valdai, so one may suppose, “Vladimir Putin’s “system of tribute” is a highly centralized kleptocracy that trades state-protected business monopolies for complete political loyalty and financial kickbacks. Unlike the 1990s, when powerful oligarchs influenced the Russian presidency under Boris Yeltsin, Putin inverted the power dynamic—making all private wealth entirely contingent on Kremlin approval [1, 2, 3, 4].”
Regarding Reference
I, J. S. Oppenheim, composed this post; however, I have had the support of a personalized AI that I refer to here as “ALM” — “A Language Machine”. I have two graduate degrees and through one had been trained to produce reference styled in the manner specified by the American Psychological Association (APA)–in the other, the Modern Library Association (MLA). Online and on this blog: I prefer the scholarly to the slapdash, but not only is it all digitized information, the whole of it rests on a nearly infinite conceptually flat sea of information–man or machine, we’re just searching for strings.
Here’s an old style — or my approximation of it — for the last noted reference->
Balzar, Harley. “Stealing Russia Blind.” Journal Of Democracy, April 2015, 26:2, pp. 165-169.
In the days that produced that style, related typesetting, and on to printing, binding, and distribution, we — academics, analysts, researchers, serious politicians — had time for the kind of reflection that had to it our logos, ethos, and pathos . . . our reason, ethics and moral character, and our emotions. There’s “a storm coming” or a “Blue Wave” and an impossible churning sea of content / expression / output like this, and all appears available all at once in one place: our desktop — or several place: add the pads, the phone, and even the wrist watches.
Regarding curiosity and blogging triage–what deserves working up–I often asked myself whether I really wanted to type in the reference the old way. That litmus was yes, explore; no, move on. Today, there’s a lay back option (and let Indivisible handle it).
My stance: America has been assaulted and “taken over” by the Trump Slime Family — the concepts of State Capture and State Piracy apply. Donald Trump is a lawless figure in the wheelhouse of the American Ship of State. Upstairs and to the side of his base reside the dictators and kings whom he believes his peers. He’s one of them–as Americans go, by and large, he’s just not one of us. Aw, shucks.
By George Carlin ->
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/oLI0RuDAqjI
Also Related for this Post
Farley, Robert. “What Trump Asked of Pence.” Factcheck Posts, August 3, 2023.
Mustaffa, Munira. “Russia: The mafia as the state.” Lowy Institute, August 31, 2023.
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Salerno; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_state;
Related on BackChannels: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2022/07/10/malignant-narcissistic-process-distilled/;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capture ; https://conflict-backchannels.com/2025/02/18/trump-piracy-board-disarm-and-plunder-the-united-states-of-america/; https://conflict-backchannels.com/2023/05/03/reference-journalist-alexander-zhilin-operation-storm-in-moscow-aka-moscow-apartment-bombings/; https://conflict-backchannels.com/2024/11/08/well-have-it-fixed-so-good-said-donald-trump/;
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