Among the issues that divide Democrats and Republicans is their attitude toward Russia and Vladimir Putin.  A February 2020 survey by Pew Research approached the question from several angles and found:

• 82 percent of Democrats expected Russian interference in the 2020 election compared to 39 percent of Republicans.
• 31 percent of Republicans trust Putin to do the right thing when it comes to world affairs as opposed to 10 percent of Democrats.
• There is a 30 percentage point difference between Democrats (65%) and Republicans (35%) when asked if “Russian power and influence posed a major threat to the well-being of the United States.”

Since the residents of MAGA world have such an affinity for Russian and Putin, perhaps we should encourage them to look to Russia as a model which explains the current state of their movement.  I will use two examples.  One from personal experience during a trip to Moscow in November 1994.  The other extracted from this weekend’s headlines.

My trip to Moscow, as a representative of the National Governors Association, was in support of the U.S. State Department’s efforts to promote government decentralization by aiding the creation of a Russian counterpart made up of the governors of Russian oblasts, the regional geopolitical entities most analogous to U.S. states.  To understand the challenges these Russian officials might face, I participated in a seminar sponsored by the commercial attaché assigned to the U.S. embassy.  Also, attending were several graduate students from Moscow University, many who pursued careers in engineering.

Among the topics covered were the students’ career expectations pre- and post-dissolution of the former Soviet Union accompanied by government reforms.  I quickly learned any transformation from “cradle to grave” dependence on central planning would not be easy.  This was best captured when one student was asked, “What do you think you will do when you graduate?”  His reply?  “We have to wait until the government tells us what needs to be done.”

I was reminded of my Moscow experience when I saw the following headline on January 20th on POLITICO.COM.  “Trump leaves QAnon and the online MAGA world crushed and confused.”  Was Joe Biden taking the oath of office any different from December 25, 1991 when, as reported by the U.S. Office of the Historian (who knew there was such an office):

On December 25, 1991, the Soviet hammer and sickle flag lowered for the last time over the Kremlin, thereafter replaced by the Russian tricolor. Earlier in the day, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned his post as president of the Soviet Union, leaving Boris Yeltsin as president of the newly independent Russian state.

While it is easy to imagine Trump followers waiting for someone to tell them what needs to be done next, the Russian example is also a cautionary tale about ignoring their sense of loss and lack of direction going forward.  Even if Trump is gone, his supporters will look for a new leader as did the Russian people, culminating in Putin’s rise to power.

Which brings me to the second instance in which Russia can be instructive, in this case, for Republicans who want to take back their party from the Trump insurgency.   They need only draw on efforts by Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny to expose Putin’s corruption and abuse of power.  The difference between the situation in Russia and the GOP is the emergence of a champion who is willing to speak truth to power.  Or as the NRA president Wayne LaPierre might say, “The only thing that can stop a movement with a bad leader is a movement with a good leader.”

That responsibility cannot fall to a “never Trumper.”  It has to be someone who has been part of MAGA world.  Someone like Navalny, who believed the Russian people were more interested in the truth than sound bites as evidenced by the two-hour video in which he laid out, point by point, the harm Putin has inflicted on the Russian population.  Someone like Navalny, who knew he would face persecution upon returning to his homeland.

My nominee is Arizona governor Douglas A. Ducey, Jr.  Though Ducey has neither been poisoned or jailed for refusing to join Trump’s conspiracy to overture the 2020 election, he is now a persona non grata within the GOP, having been censured by the Arizona Republican Party.  Up until November 3rd, Ducey had been a fervent Trump supporter, campaigned with him and even accompanied him to “the wall.”

Just imagine if Ducey pulled a Navalny and produced a video in which he offered a mea culpa.  If he told MAGA world he too had high hopes for the Trump administration, but now realizes he was duped.  And lays out each instance of Trump’s corruption and abuse of power over the last four years, and admits he too wore blinders that limited his ability to recognize the danger that culminated with the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th.

I know some of you will say hard core Trump cultists will not be easily convinced.  And you may be right.  But what if you are wrong.  New York Times reporters Anton Troianovski and Andrew Higgins were surprised how quickly support for Navalny spread across Russia’s 11 time zones.

The demonstrations did not immediately pose a dire threat to President Vladimir V. Putin’s grip on power. But their broad scope, and the remarkable defiance displayed by many of the protesters, signaled widespread fatigue with the stagnant, corruption-plagued political order that Mr. Putin has presided over for two decades.

If you believe Joe Biden’s current 69 percent approval rating is less due to his executive orders or policy proposals and more to the contrast with four years of Trump fatigue, maybe the situations are not as different as one might think.  And now is the best opportunity to wrestle Trump’s grip on the GOP from his cold, small hands.  (Sorry, the NRA is just too ripe for parody.)

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP