The US press coverage of the Trump-Putin summit— variously dubbed the “surrender summit” and the “treason summit” — has focused almost entirely on the president selling out his own intelligence institutions and US democracy itself to an adversary.
It is self-evident to all Americans who came of age in the cold war, and to many born since, that Russia is an adversary. But it is time to stretch our imaginations and picture the world — and the world order — that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin would create if they could, and to take that vision seriously.
The Helsinki summit was a meeting between two macho megalomaniacs. Each identifies his country’s interests with his own personal aggrandisement. But both men also tap into a deep current of anger, resentment and nostalgia for an imagined past that was orderly, predictable and patriarchal. In this lost era, men were the heads of households and nations; their masculinity was measured in toughness, swagger and spoils. Women were obedient and decorative. White people were superior to non-whites; children married within the tribe in clearly demarcated cultures.