Latest news with #SovietRussian
News.com.au
23-04-2025
- Politics
- News.com.au
First Lady Melania Trump's outfit at a recent event has sparked a heated debate
Melania Trump and Jesus. Now there are two people who know how to stage a comeback. After what feels like an age and a day since being spotted anywhere near the Beltway, the First Lady has reappeared in Washington and didn't even have to go to the bother of rolling back a rock. (Hell on the nails, I'd imagine.) On Monday, Mrs Trump made her third trip back to D.C. since the inauguration to host the staple, annual White House Easter egg Roll where she presided over thousands of children, a reported 30,000 eggs, and a giant bunny that had a real knack for awkwardly lurking near her husband Donald Trump. As far as First Lady activities goes, the Easter egg Roll is up there with obsessing about the drapery, fussing with china sets, and politely feigning disinterest if you hear a stray cabinet secretary indiscreetly gabbing about an air strike. It's 101, brass tacks, nuts and bolts stuff. But we are not talking a bog-standard, bust out the pearls First Lady are we? Mrs Trump has never been one for the neatly prescribed which extended to her choice of outfit for the Roll. Right at the moment that Mr Trump's White House is involved in an ongoing war of words and tariffs with Canada, at a moment of heightened tensions with their poutine-loving sibling to the north, what did his wife choose to wear? Why, an off-white trench coat from Montreal-based luxury outerwear label Mackage. The parsing, the analysis, and the divining for meaning began immediately. MORE: Melania Trump slams Obama's White House act It's been a positive age since a First Lady's fashion choice sparked such a flurry of theorising about possible geopolitical subtext, probably since that one time Pat Nixon accidentally wore a Maoist collar to a Thanksgiving turkey pardoning. One interpretation of Mrs Trump's Mackage trench might be that this was a strategic show of support for Canada from a woman schooled, thanks to a childhood under Soviet Russian rule, in the language of the coded gesture. Or maybe it was about her presenting a reassuring image of calm in all the sky-is-falling yelling about a possible global trade war. Or maybe she just didn't bother to read the label or maybe… Here's another theory: That not only her choice of brand but even her very un-spring-like choice of the sort of coat better suited to some soignée Upper East Side crime solving tells us something else entirely. Mrs Trump is remaking the job of FLOTUS into something which is distinctly hers entirely. The dog-eared First Lady binder, I'm assuming left behind by Nancy Reagan, full of handy tabs about what to serve when Liberace comes for supper or if a Bush wife gets loose in the Rose Garden? That's of no interest to Mrs Trump. That approach extends to the model turned political plus one even transplanting her whole life to Washington. Since the inauguration and prior to Easter, the 54-year-old largely flown so far under the radar you would need Pentagon stealth technology to find her. What has Mrs Trump been doing since Mr Trump returned to the Oval Office? The answer to that question is probably closely guarded a secret as where Jimmy Hoffa is buried, who killed Marilyn and how many interns have lost fingers toiling in the Kardashian-Jenner social media workhouse. The only generally accepted detail about Mrs Trump's life is that she has most likely been spending much of her time in New York where the Trumps' son, 19-year-old Barron, is attending university. (I'm assuming so she can pack his daily lunchbox PB & J sambo to send him off for a day of higher learning surrounded by about as many security guards as are stationed outside certain nuclear missile silos.) The bottom line: Mrs Trump has not and will not be conforming to fit into any pre-cut, pre-fashioned First Lady mould, no matter how good a state Eleanor Roosevelt left it in. There has been a clear vibe shift in Mrs Trump's look since her first go in the White House. During her debut few months in 2017, the mother-of-one opted for a much more colourful wardrobe, busting out baby blue, red, more red, khaki, pale green, rich emerald green, and even added in the occasional vivid pattern. This time around, her look has been much more pared back and minimalist with her sticking to a palette of navy, black, white, tan and grey. (The one outlier – the leopard print coat she wore to the Women of Courage Awards.) This evolution is perfectly encapsulated by what she wore to her debut Easter egg Roll in 2017 – a floaty, soft pink frock – compared to her 2025 trench. You have to give it to Mrs Trump. She is not conforming to expectations but wearing what she wants. Her style is hers and hers alone. And there's a clear upside to her choice of Easter coat. Handily, should she ever decide, on a wet New York afternoon, to embark on a side hustle of investigating upper crust whodunits, maybe with a wise-cracking but loveable sidekick, well, she's already got the very chic wardrobe to match.
Yahoo
06-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - Trump and Putin are making the same error about patriotism
Their rhetoric is replete with references to nation and country, but the one thing among many that Presidents Trump and Vladimir Putin don't understand at all is the actual power of nationalism and patriotism. And it's perfectly clear why. Both are empire builders who believe they have a sacred duty to expand the borders of their realms — regardless of what anybody might say, do or think. Putin aspires to revive the Soviet Russian empire, including all 14 non-Russian republics and as many of the East European countries as he can gather in. Trump, meanwhile, hopes to annex Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal and even the Gaza Strip. As Putin saw it, Moldova, Georgia, Belarus and Ukraine appeared ripe for the taking. After all, the Belarusians and Ukrainians are really Russians, as Putin and his subalterns have repeatedly claimed, while Moldova and Georgia were too small to resist. Trump's logic is similar. The Canadians are really Americans. And Greenland, Denmark, Panama and Gaza are too weak to say no to the American behemoth. Putin expected his invasion of Ukraine and his hegemony over Belarus to be a cakewalk. Instead, the war against Ukraine has been a disaster for Russia's army, economy and people. Even Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus's wily leader, has cleverly managed to retain more breathing room than Putin would have wished. Trump appears to have similar expectations regarding his imperial targets. Like Putin, he will discover that empire building in the age of nationalism and patriotism is no easy task. Moldova has resisted total annexation by Russia for three decades, as has Georgia. Belarus retains a surprising level of semi-sovereignty, most clearly shown by Lukashenko's refusal to get directly involved in Putin's genocidal war against Ukraine. And Ukraine, which was supposed to have been captured in a few weeks, has successfully resisted Russian imperial aggression for many reasons, the most important being that Ukrainians have responded to his invasion by becoming full-fledged nationalists and patriots. They believe that their nation deserves to have its own sovereign state and they have come to love their country. Canadians, Greenlanders, Danes, Panamanians and Palestinians in Gaza have reacted in precisely the same way. Canadians and Greeenlanders in particular have almost universally rallied around their flag and country and are determined to resist Trump's aggression. They too have become ardent nationalists and patriots. Putin and Trump don't 'get' nationalism. They don't understand that the desire for independent nation-statehood has defined modernity since at least the American and French Revolutions. Nor do they get nation, country and patriotism. Nations have arguably existed since ancient times (the Israelites were surely a nation by any definition), whereas country and love of country are at least as old as the Latin word 'patria' and the Biblical Promised Land. Like it or not, the world is divided into nations, most of which aspire to independent statehood, and into countries, which always manage to elicit the emotional support of their countrymen and women. Like it or not, nationalism and patriotism rule the day. As imperialists with imagined divine mandates, Putin and Trump don't see any value in the existence of other nations and countries; only their own matter. As a result, they regard resistance to their imperial schemes as temporary aberrations that need not be heeded. Such a dismissive attitude may have worked during the age of European imperialism in the 19th century, but it is doomed to failure in the 21st. For one thing, just about everybody is a nationalist and patriot today, usually without even being aware of it. Persuading the world that it's wrong, or forcing it to acquiesce to the sword, won't work anymore. For another, resistance is so much easier. Most of the world is educated, has its own elites and access to material resources. People have become aware of their power, especially in the age of the internet. Technology has also contributed to leveling the military playing field, as the Russians killed by swarms of Ukrainian drones have unhappily learned. Finally, today's resistance movements generally have the support of large popular constituencies and are firmly rooted in their cultures. For better or for worse, cities can be demolished and their residents deported or placed in concentration camps, but the spirit of resistance cannot so easily be destroyed. It's thus no surprise that the age of empires ended in the 20th century, during the age of nationalism and patriotism. Putin and Trump will both learn the same bitter lesson as did the Europeans before them: You can kill nationalists and patriots, but you can't kill nationalism and patriotism. They will inevitably prevail and serve as the gravediggers of both imperialist misadventures. Alexander J. Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, as well as 'Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires' and 'Why Empires Reemerge: Imperial Collapse and Imperial Revival in Comparative Perspective.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
06-04-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Trump and Putin are making the same error about patriotism
Their rhetoric is replete with references to nation and country, but the one thing among many that Presidents Trump and Vladimir Putin don't understand at all is the actual power of nationalism and patriotism. And it's perfectly clear why. Both are empire builders who believe they have a sacred duty to expand the borders of their realms — regardless of what anybody might say, do or think. Putin aspires to revive the Soviet Russian empire, including all 14 non-Russian republics and as many of the East European countries as he can gather in. Trump, meanwhile, hopes to annex Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal and even the Gaza Strip. As Putin saw it, Moldova, Georgia, Belarus and Ukraine appeared ripe for the taking. After all, the Belarusians and Ukrainians are really Russians, as Putin and his subalterns have repeatedly claimed, while Moldova and Georgia were too small to resist. Trump's logic is similar. The Canadians are really Americans. And Greenland, Denmark, Panama and Gaza are too weak to say no to the American behemoth. Putin expected his invasion of Ukraine and his hegemony over Belarus to be a cakewalk. Instead, the war against Ukraine has been a disaster for Russia's army, economy and people. Even Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus's wily leader, has cleverly managed to retain more breathing room than Putin would have wished. Trump appears to have similar expectations regarding his imperial targets. Like Putin, he will discover that empire building in the age of nationalism and patriotism is no easy task. Moldova has resisted total annexation by Russia for three decades, as has Georgia. Belarus retains a surprising level of semi-sovereignty, most clearly shown by Lukashenko's refusal to get directly involved in Putin's genocidal war against Ukraine. And Ukraine, which was supposed to have been captured in a few weeks, has successfully resisted Russian imperial aggression for many reasons, the most important being that Ukrainians have responded to his invasion by becoming full-fledged nationalists and patriots. They believe that their nation deserves to have its own sovereign state and they have come to love their country. Canadians, Greenlanders, Danes, Panamanians and Palestinians in Gaza have reacted in precisely the same way. Canadians and Greeenlanders in particular have almost universally rallied around their flag and country and are determined to resist Trump's aggression. They too have become ardent nationalists and patriots. Putin and Trump don't 'get' nationalism. They don't understand that the desire for independent nation-statehood has defined modernity since at least the American and French Revolutions. Nor do they get nation, country and patriotism. Nations have arguably existed since ancient times (the Israelites were surely a nation by any definition), whereas country and love of country are at least as old as the Latin word 'patria' and the Biblical Promised Land. Like it or not, the world is divided into nations, most of which aspire to independent statehood, and into countries, which always manage to elicit the emotional support of their countrymen and women. Like it or not, nationalism and patriotism rule the day. As imperialists with imagined divine mandates, Putin and Trump don't see any value in the existence of other nations and countries; only their own matter. As a result, they regard resistance to their imperial schemes as temporary aberrations that need not be heeded. Such a dismissive attitude may have worked during the age of European imperialism in the 19th century, but it is doomed to failure in the 21st. For one thing, just about everybody is a nationalist and patriot today, usually without even being aware of it. Persuading the world that it's wrong, or forcing it to acquiesce to the sword, won't work anymore. For another, resistance is so much easier. Most of the world is educated, has its own elites and access to material resources. People have become aware of their power, especially in the age of the internet. Technology has also contributed to leveling the military playing field, as the Russians killed by swarms of Ukrainian drones have unhappily learned. Finally, today's resistance movements generally have the support of large popular constituencies and are firmly rooted in their cultures. For better or for worse, cities can be demolished and their residents deported or placed in concentration camps, but the spirit of resistance cannot so easily be destroyed. It's thus no surprise that the age of empires ended in the 20th century, during the age of nationalism and patriotism. Putin and Trump will both learn the same bitter lesson as did the Europeans before them: You can kill nationalists and patriots, but you can't kill nationalism and patriotism. They will inevitably prevail and serve as the gravediggers of both imperialist misadventures. Alexander J. Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, as well as ' Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires' and ' Why Empires Reemerge
