The Axis of Tyranny in America and Russia

Trump and Putin are stronger allies than we even knew. This is bad news for Ukraine if Trump wins the election, and bad news for American democracy.

Friends,

We’ve learned from a forthcoming book by journalist Bob Woodward that in 2020, while he was president, Trump secretly shipped Covid-19 testing equipment to Russian president Vladimir Putin for his own personal use at a time when Americans could not get it.

The author of The Art of the Deal did not demand in return that Putin forego attacking Ukraine or release Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed, two Americans being held by Russia at the time and later released under the Biden administration.

The Trump campaign denies this story, but on Wednesday the Kremlin confirmed it.

Woodward also reported that Trump and Putin have had “as many as seven” personal conversations since Trump left office in 2021.

Let’s be clear about the implications of all this: If Trump wins the election, he’ll likely do whatever Putin wants, including allowing Putin to take much, if not all, of Ukraine.

Trump has repeatedly avoided criticizing Putin, even going so far as to praise him as a “genius” and “very savvy” for his unprovoked invasion. At the same time, Trump has been critical of the Biden administration’s aid to Ukraine in the wake of Russia’s invasion.

During the presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris last month, Trump refused to say he wanted to see Ukraine win the war against Russia.

Earlier this year, Trump suggested he’d encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” if a NATO ally wasn’t paying their fair share to the alliance.

I used to believe seven things about the 21st century that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Trump’s presidency and current neck-and-neck race with Kamala Harris have shown me to be false. I assumed:

1. Nationalism is disappearing. I was wrong.

I expected globalization would blur borders, create economic interdependence among nations and regions, and extend a modern consumer and artistic culture worldwide.

But both Putin and Trump have exploited xenophobic nationalism to build their power. (Putin’s aggression has also ignited an inspiring patriotism in Ukraine.)

2. Nations can no longer control what their citizens know. I was wrong.

I assumed that emerging digital technologies, including the internet, would make it impossible to control worldwide flows of information and knowledge. Tyrants could no longer keep their people in the dark or hoodwink them with propaganda.

But Trump and Putin have filled the media with lies. Putin has also cut off Russian citizens from the truth about what’s occurring in Ukraine. Putin filled American social media with lies in favor of Trump and against his opponent in the 2016 election and apparently is doing so again.

3. Advanced nations will no longer war over geographic territory. I was only partly right.

I thought that in the “new economy,” land was becoming less valuable than technological knowhow and innovation. Competition among nations would therefore be over the development of cutting-edge inventions.

I was only partly right. While skills and innovation are critical, land still provides access to critical raw materials and buffers against potential foreign aggressors.

4. Major nuclear powers will never risk war against each other because of the certainty of “mutually assured destruction.” I was wrong.

I bought the conventional wisdom that nuclear war was unthinkable.

I fear I was wrong. Putin is now resorting to dangerous nuclear brinksmanship in Ukraine.

5. Civilization will never again be held hostage by crazy isolated “strongmen” with the power to wreak havoc. Wrong.

I assumed this was a phenomenon of the 20th century and that 21st century governments, even totalitarian ones, would constrain tyrants.

Trump and Putin have convinced me I was mistaken.

6. Advances in warfare, such as cyber-warfare and precision weapons, will minimize civilian casualties. I was wrong.

I was persuaded by specialists in defense strategy that it no longer made sense for sophisticated powers to target civilians.

Utterly wrong. Civilian casualties in Ukraine are huge. Meanwhile, since October 7, 2023, Benjamin Netanyahu has created a bloodbath in Gaza as well — another arena where xenophobia and a “strongman” unconstrained by democratic norms have wrought havoc.

7. Democracy is inevitable. I was wrong about this, too.

I formed this belief in the late 1990s, after the Soviet Union had imploded and China was still poor. It seemed to me that totalitarian regimes didn’t stand a chance in the new technologically driven, globalized world. Sure, petty dictatorships would remain in some retrograde regions of the world. But modernity came with democracy, and democracy with modernity.

Both Trump and Putin have shown how wrong I was on this, too.

Meanwhile, Ukrainians have demonstrated that Trump’s and Putin’s efforts to turn back the clock on the 21st century can be addressed only with a democracy powerful enough to counteract autocrats like them.

They have also displayed with inspiring clarity that democracy cannot be taken for granted. Democracy is not a spectator sport. It’s not what governments do. Democracy is what people do.

The resistance to Putin in Ukraine should remind us that democracy survives only if people are willing to sacrifice for it.

Some sacrifices are smaller than others. You may have to stand in line for hours to vote, as did tens of thousands of Black people in America’s 2020 and 2022 elections. You may have to march and protest and even risk your life so others may vote, as did iconic civil rights leaders like the late John Lewis and Martin Luther King Jr.

You may have to knock on hundreds of doors to get out the vote. Or organize thousands to make your voices heard. And stand up against the powerful who don’t want your voices heard.

You may have to fight a war to protect democracy from those who would destroy it.

The people of Ukraine have also reminded us that democracy is the single most important legacy we have been bequeathed by previous generations who strengthened it and risked their lives to preserve it. It will be the most significant legacy we leave to future generations — unless we allow it to be destroyed.

Putin and Trump have convinced me I was wrong about how far we had come in the 21st century. Technology, globalization, and modern systems of governance haven’t altered the ways of tyranny.

In a few weeks, we will see how much the people of the United States value democracy — for ourselves, for Ukrainians, and for others around the world.