Latest news with #Trump-whisperer
Winnipeg Free Press
25-04-2025
- Politics
- Winnipeg Free Press
Trump and electoral coattails
Opinion The dictionary defines a 'horse whisperer' as 'someone who is skilled at training horses using gentle, non-violent methods based on understanding horse behaviour and psychology.' By that standard, the only 'Trump-whisperer' in Europe is Vladimir Putin (although Hungary's Viktor Orbán and Italy's Giorgia Meloni might get bit-parts in the movie). The other far-right parties in big European countries (Rassemblement National in France, Alternative für Deutschland in Germany, PiS in Poland, Reform in the United Kingdom) don't know which way to look. They know that the U.S. Republican Party is in the same tradition, but European history has also taught them to recognize fascism when they see it. They all do well in elections by being fascist-adjacent, but they start to shed votes if they get too explicit about their ideas. Nowhere do they get more than a third of the votes, whereas Donald Trump got more than half in the United States this time. They cannot follow him where he seems to be going, and many of them wouldn't even want to. A better measure of how Trumpism does in the export market will be found in the other parts of the 'Anglosphere,' and happily there are two elections in that zone in the next two weeks, in Canada and Australia. They couldn't be farther apart geographically, but with the great exception of the 'French fact' in Quebec they couldn't be closer in their history and politics. The beauty of this experiment is that just three months ago, the opposition party in both countries was fairly far right and becoming more so — and that both parties were led by men who could reasonably be characterized as Trump-whisperers, or at least Trump wannabes. Most importantly, both parties expected to win the impending elections in a walk. Both prime ministerial candidates, Peter Dutton of the conservative Coalition in Australia and Pierre Poilievre of the Conservative Party in Canada, concentrated on Trump's main themes: immigration, crime, an end to the 'indoctrination' of children in schools, and big cuts to 'wasteful' government services. Dutton even proposed an agency like Elon Musk's DOGE. Indeed, while Poilievre has had great difficulty in taking his distance from Trump, Dutton has not even cut the umbilical cord. Not only did he promise to cancel offshore windfarms (a Trump obsession), but he even echoed The Donald's claim that they harm whales. Australian pollster Peter Lewis says simply that people think Dutton is 'too much like Trump.' There is no doubt that it was Trump and only Trump who turned the elections in both Canada and Australia from surefire victories into certain defeats for the right-wing parties. When Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20 of this year, both conservatives were far ahead of their opponents, but their numbers began to slide almost immediately. In Australia, a safe distance away from the United States, other factors were also in play, but a swing of almost ten points in three months suggests that the Trump factor was decisive. In Canada, where there was a swing of more than 20 points in two months, there can be no doubt that it was Trump who enabled Poilievre to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. To explain this we must move from the realm of facts and calculations to the slippery world of motives and emotions, because it seems pretty clear that these votes did not shift because of self-interest or ideological conviction. They were mostly driven, I think, by revulsion at the character of the man Donald Trump. In Canada there was also a change of leader from the deeply unpopular Justin Trudeau to the relatively unknown Mark Carney, which lured some people back into the big Liberal tent. There was certainly outrage at Trump's threats to crush the economy and take over the country, which doubtless moved more votes to Carney. But none of that applies to Australia. There it is simple guilt by association that has brought Peter Dutton low and will probably cost him the election. It's unworthy of me, I know, but I take a certain comfort from that. Gwynne Dyer's new book is Intervention Earth: Life-Saving Ideas from the World's Climate Engineers.
Otago Daily Times
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
Galloping away from The Donald
The dictionary defines a horse whisperer as "someone who is skilled at training horses using gentle, non-violent methods based on understanding horse behaviour and psychology." By that standard, the only Trump-whisperer in Europe is Vladimir Putin (although Hungary's Viktor Orban and Italy's Giorgia Meloni might get bit-parts in the movie). The other far-right parties in big European countries (Rassemblement National in France, Alternative fur Deutschland in Germany, PiS in Poland, Reform in the UK) don't know which way to look. They know that the US Republican Party is in the same tradition, but European history has also taught them to recognise fascism when they see it. They all do well in elections by being fascist-adjacent, but they start to shed votes if they get too explicit about their ideas. Nowhere do they get more than a-third of the votes, whereas Donald Trump got more than half in the United States this time. They cannot follow him where he seems to be going, and many of them wouldn't even want to. A better measure of how Trumpism does in the export market will be found in the other parts of the Anglosphere, and happily there are two elections in that zone in the next two weeks, in Canada and Australia. They couldn't be further apart geographically, but with the great exception of the French fact in Quebec they couldn't be closer in their history and politics. The French fact can be ignored on this occasion, since all francophones are united in thinking that it's bad enough living as a large minority (22% of the population) in a country that is familiar with the concept of language rights and in some parts is legally or at least de facto bilingual. The threat of annexation by the United States is existential for French-speakers, who would be only a minuscule fraction (2.6%) of the enlarged country's population. The prospect has converted almost every francophone into a devout Canadian nationalist, at least for the time being. The beauty of this experiment is that just three months ago the opposition party in both countries was fairly far right and becoming more so and that both parties were led by men who could reasonably be characterised as Trump-whisperers, or at least Trump wannabes. Most importantly, both parties expected to win the impending elections in a walk. Both prime ministerial candidates, Peter Dutton, of the conservative Coalition in Australia, and Pierre Poilievre, of the Conservative Party in Canada, concentrated on Trump's main themes: immigration, crime, an end to the "indocrination" of children in schools, and big cuts to "wasteful" government services. Dutton even proposed an agency like Elon Musk's DOGE. Indeed, while Poilievre has had great difficulty in taking his distance from Trump, Dutton has not even cut the umbilical cord. Not only did he promise to cancel offshore windfarms (a Trump obsession), but he even echoed The Donald's claim that they harm whales. Australian pollster Peter Lewis says simply that people think Dutton is "too much like Trump". There is no doubt that it was Trump and only Trump who turned the elections in both Canada and Australia from surefire victories into certain defeats for the right-wing parties. When Trump was inaugurated on January 20 of this year, both conservatives were far ahead of their opponents, but their numbers began to slide almost immediately. In Australia, a safe distance away from the United States, other factors were also in play, but a swing of almost 10 points in three months suggests that the Trump factor was decisive. In Canada, where there was a swing of more than 20 points in two months, there can be no doubt that it was Trump who enabled Poilievre to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. To explain this we must move from the realm of facts and calculations to the slippery world of motives and emotions, because it seems pretty clear that these votes did not shift because of self-interest or ideological conviction. They were mostly driven, I think, by revulsion at the character of the man Donald Trump. In Canada there was also a change of leader from the deeply unpopular Justin Trudeau to the relatively unknown Mark Carney, which lured some people back into the big Liberal tent. There was certainly outrage at Trump's threats to crush the economy and take over the country, which doubtless moved more votes to Carney. But none of that applies to Australia. There it is simple guilt by association that has brought Peter Dutton low and will probably cost him the election. It's unworthy of me, I know, but I take a certain comfort from that. • Gwynne Dyer is an independent London journalist.
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
All President's Men: Inside the closed world of Putin's key advisors
In Russian politics, all eyes are focused on one man: Russian President Vladimir Putin. But as ceasefire talks continue, the world's attention has also been drawn to those sent forward to do the Kremlin's bidding — whether at the negotiating table in Saudi Arabia or in the backrooms of Washington D.C. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and former Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Yuri Ushankov, leading the talks in Saudi Arabia, are both savvy political operators who possess the Kremlin's trust and confidence. Meanwhile, Russia's Direct Investment Fund CEO Kirill Dmitriev had little public spotlight prior to being catapulted to holding talks with U.S. President Donald Trump's envoys in Washington. All of these men have access to the Kremlin's most exclusive power networks. These are groups based on personal relationships and proximity to Putin, bound with a tightly woven worldview. But that does not mean Putin's court is peaceful or effective. Russian news outlet Agenstvo reported in early April that when Lavrov and Ushankov arrived in Saudi Arabia for talks on Feb. 18, they were surprised to see that they were not the only Russian negotiating team. Dmitriev and his team were also present and seen talking with other officials — although Dmitriev was ultimately not given a seat at the table. While Russia's elites are keen to mimic Putin's ideology, they are ultimately forced to play a political guessing game and are prone to squabble among themselves. This Kremlin can exploit this — and should peace talks fail due to a lack of Russian commitment, there would be plenty of available scapegoats. "If different sides dislike each other, they'll constantly try to outdo one another, believing that they've read these signals of Putin. That gives Putin plausible deniability (if something goes wrong)," says Stephen Hall, assistant professor at the University of Bath. "It's divide and conquer." Read also: Who is Kirill Dmitriev, Putin's Trump-whisperer The men surrounding Putin can be broadly split into several key groups. Most infamous are the so-called siloviki: men with a background in either the military or the state security services. These include officials such as Alexander Bortnikov, director of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), Sergey Naryshkin, the head of the country's Foreign Intelligence Service, and Putin's aide Nikolai Patrushev, who led the FSB prior to Bortnikov. Most of those at the top have been close to Putin for a number of years and, in many cases, first met the president when he was still working for the Soviet Union's state security service, the KGB. "They're concerned about securitization and see Russia as a besieged fortress," says Mikhail Suslov, an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen. "I think this is something which sits so deeply in their mind that it becomes their second nature." Then, there are the technocrats: men with a background in finance or business who are often more keen to maintain stability and the status quo. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, best known for his under-the-radar presence and his long-term role managing Russia's tax system, falls into this category. "What they care about is a stable and straightforward international world order that provides them with the possibility to stay in power for as long as possible. They're rational: they're not religious, they're not about security, they're about doing business as usual," says Suslov. But these distinctions only go so far. Putin's inner circle is a uniform group. With the exception of a few figures such as Valentina Matviyenko, chairwoman of Russia's Federation Council (Senate), and Central Bank Chief Elvira Nabiullina — neither of whom is considered a true insider — they are almost exclusively men, and most are close to the president in age. More importantly, Putin's inner circle adheres to a similar conservative, anti-Western worldview. Rather than simply rejecting or hating the West, they believe that the West has cheated Russia, says Suslov. "That's a feeling of injustice, the feeling that the West has treated Russia unfairly, that is absolutely common," says Suslov. "To a very large extent, that drives their perception of the world and their decisions." In this warped reality, Russia has the right to all post-Soviet republics, among them Ukraine, which is seen as a battleground between Russia and the West. These views are a direct projection of Putin's own speeches and writings, while Putin himself also cherry picks similar phrases and sentiments from the writings of those close to him." Kremlin technocrats in particular are more likely to see that Russia needs more connection with the West and the world at large to fuel areas such as the country's tech industry, says Hall. But while men like Mishustin are more dove-like in their outlook, they don't necessarily have the president's ear. And in Moscow, ultimately, it is only proximity to the president that truly matters. "In that close group, I think we're seeing hawkish hawks and hawkish doves rather than any real doves right now," says Hall. The result is that the Russian president is surrounded by a small group of people who reflect his own life experiences and ideology — and are highly motivated not to challenge that worldview and lose the president's favor. "(People close to Putin) don't want to give him information that doesn't fit into his perception of reality. That seems to have been quite clear for quite a long time," says Hall. "You don't go to the tsar with bad news. You don't tell him what he doesn't want to hear." This dynamic leaves Russia's most powerful men trapped in a feedback loop. Putin is not a weak or nameless dictator who can be bent to the whims and opinions of his advisors. Neither is Putin's inner circle incapable of forming opinions of their own: when they tell the Russian state press that Western powers are conspiring to bring Russia down, it is likely they believe it. But, with nothing and no one to question the status quo, these two groups continually reinforce each other's beliefs. "This is a mutual, two-way process. Putin is definitely not a political thinker. He's tapping all the time into a pretty fixed set of intellectuals around him," says Suslov. "At the same time, people around him are trying to guess what Putin wants them to say." This dynamic also pushes each group towards embracing ever more extreme declarations and viewpoints as courtiers battle to grab the president's attention. Anti-Western sentiments spill easily into the realm of conspiracy theories. Bortnikov, for example, has publicly and repeatedly accused the West of trying to destabilize Russia, including claims that the United States aided the terrorists who attacked Moscow's Crocus City Hall in March 2024, killing 145. "When Putin makes a decision that tends to be final — but like any leader, he's always open to being pushed towards a certain point," says Hall. "So you come up with something that fits with his narrative, and you get the ear of the tsar for a while." With little in the way of fresh blood on the horizon and an increasingly small number of trusted confidantes, political turnover is very low. Each promotion or fall from grace is in itself a major event. Patrushev, a long-term Putin ally, lost his position as secretary of Russia's Security Council in a seeming fall from grace during a cabinet reshuffle in May 2024. He now heads the newly formed Maritime Board of Russia, a position lacking the clout and prestige of his former role. Meanwhile, the rise of Dmitriev, who has found himself at the heart of talks with the United States, is another tectonic shift and a signal that the Kremlin is open to bringing in newer, younger technocrats. The 49-year-old investment banker is well-versed in social media and Trump-speak. He decries media outlets as "pushing fake, negative narratives about Russia to undermine peace" and is excruciatingly unsubtle in his heavy-handed praise for Donald Trump. Yet even newcomers to the ranks of the elite come from tried-and-tested channels. Dmitriev's star truly began to rise when he married his wife, Natalia Popova — a close friend of Putin's daughter, Katerina Tikhonova. While Dmitriev may have made his mark in finance and technology, personal relationships and patronage truly sealed the deal. New faces are remarkable in this closed world, but wider innovation remains lacking. Other upcomers are also treading familiar paths. Forty-two-year-old Maxim Oreshkin, deputy chief of staff of the Presidential Executive Office, earned his stripes like a fleet of technocrats before him in the Russian Finance Ministry. Alexey Drobinin, a rising star in Russia's Foreign Ministry and director of Foreign Policy Planning, is making his name known with screeds on beloved Kremlin topics such as traditional values and "multipolar worlds." "They are trying to bring a bit of new blood into the Kremlin. The Kremlin think tanks around the Valdai Club, for example, have a whole galaxy of people who are around the age of 40 and slightly older," Suslov says. "This is the beginning of the new political elite who will probably dominate the Russian international relations, and especially expert think tanks, in the years to come." For negotiators, this closed Kremlin echo chamber has consequences. It adds uncertainty as to which information or propositions may make their way back to Putin himself. "I don't necessarily think there is an awful lot of information leaking its way up to Putin because how can it?" says Hall. "We've seen enough times that Putin believes that Russia is the third biggest economy in the world. We've seen that he believes that Ukrainian deaths are astronomical, but Russian deaths are very few. I don't think he's receiving the information. It would make it very hard to see a viable reality in terms of negotiation." Yet such concerns also assume that the Kremlin is genuinely looking for peace. The uniform ideology in Moscow corridors or power should ensure a united front at the negotiating table. But reports that different Russian negotiators have been given different information or even pitted against each other suggest that there are no intentions of seriously using such a front. We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Yahoo
06-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Moscow announces beginning of 'respectful dialogue' and new talks with the US
Kremlin negotiator Kirill Dmitriev announced on April 6 that new contacts between Russia and the United States could take place as early as next week. Dmitriev, in an interview with Russia's state-controlled TV Channel One, expressed "cautious optimism" about the renewed diplomatic engagement and emphasized the importance of restoring bilateral ties. 'Of course, the big focus is on restoring Russian-American relations, I have been busy with this for a long time, for many years. Of course, the focus is on economic and investment cooperation... We see the beginning of a respectful, good dialogue,' he said. The announcement comes amid broader Russian efforts to re-engage with the West, including discussions on sanctions and frozen assets. Dmitriev played a role in backchannel diplomacy between Moscow and Trump when he was first elected in 2016. The official was then appointed by Putin as his representative for foreign economic relations and was involved in early U.S.-Russian negotiations in Riyadh in February. Moscow has shown signs it is unwilling to move forward on a peace deal with Ukraine, and Russian authorities have listed maximalist demands in ceasefire negotiations with Ukraine and the U.S. As a result, U.S. officials have grown increasingly frustrated with Moscow's slowness in negotiations, according to Bloomberg reports. However, Dmitriev has praised the administration under Trump for its 'constructive and respectful' dialogue with Russia. Additionally, according to Reuters, talks between Russia and the U.S. have also included the potential restoration of direct flights, U.S. companies re-entering the Russian market, and cooperation in areas such as rare earth metals and Arctic development. Read also: Who is Kirill Dmitriev, Putin's Trump-whisperer We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Yahoo
06-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
US neo-Nazi terrorist group pays recruits to carry out attacks in Ukraine, Guardian reports
A U.S. neo-Nazi terrorist group with links to Russia is offering locals payment to carry out attacks, the Guardian reported on April 5. Russia actively tries to recruit civilians in Ukraine to spy on military targets and carry out terrorist attacks throughout the country. On April 3, at least one person was killed in a Kyiv . The Base is a neo-Nazi terrorist group established in 2018. The group's leader, Rinaldo Nazzaro, is a U.S. citizen who now lives in , Russia. Nazzaro is a former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Pentagon employee. Locals are being asked to conduct attacks on "electric power stations, military and police vehicles, military and police personnel, government buildings, (and) politicians' in various cities, including . "Given Russia's connections to the leadership of the Base, including offering sanctuary to its leader Rinaldo Nazzaro, there is a strong chance that this could very well be a Russian intelligence operation," geopolitics expert Colin Clarke the Guardian. The terrorist group was extensively investigated by the FBI since its founding in 2018. Under U.S. President administration, the FBI has cut back on investigations into far-right groups. Previously, the Base did not align itself with . The change likely means the terrorist group is carrying out sabotage across Europe, experts told the Guardian. "Supporting and directing violent non-state actors, including racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists, is just another tool in the Kremlin's hybrid warfare toolkit, and one which has repeatedly demonstrated that it's willing to use," Clarke said. The Base is designated as a terrorist group in various jurisdictions, including , the EU, and the U.K. On April 4, Yuriy Fedko, an official in Dnipro, was killed in a . Police say several possible scenarios are being investigated, including an attack ordered by Russia to destabilize the situation in Ukraine. Read also: Who is Kirill Dmitriev, Putin's Trump-whisperer We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
