Trump as Russian Oligarch -- his business-political model

[pnwmom]

This is a very interesting article, but when I went back to get an excerpt, I got shut down by a box saying I couldn't get any more free articles. Could someone else please post an excerpt? Thanks!

http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2016/08/23/Trump-as-Russian-oligarch-his-business-political-model-Anne-Applebaum/stories/201608310091

[alfie]

1. Here you go...

"During the course of a long career, Paul Manafort, the ousted boss of the Donald Trump campaign, has helped oligarchs and crooks of all kinds come to power. He worked for Ferdinand Marcos and Jonas Savimbi; in Ukraine, he helped transform an ex-convict, Viktor Yanukovych, into a corrupt president who fired on demonstrators and eventually fled the country. Given all of that, recent reports that Yanukovych’s party allotted Manafort $12 million in off-the-books cash should hardly have come as a surprise.

Now he’s been pushed aside by the differently sinister figure of Stephen Bannon. But before Mr. Manafort fades from view, it’s worth looking at what his affiliation with Mr. Trump tells us about both of them. Quite a lot has already been written, including by me, on the multiple connections between Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the Trump campaign. But the deeper point has not really been driven home: The real problem with Mr. Trump isn’t that he is sympathetic to Russian oligarchs, it’s that he is a Russian oligarch, albeit one who happens to be American."

snip...
"But if Mr. Trump wins, that may be what we get. He isn’t running a campaign designed to help his party or his country, or even to push a coherent set of ideas. He’s running a campaign for the same reasons a Russian oligarch would: to build a brand, to stoke an ego, to make money. It’s the kind of campaign that succeeds in failing states and autocracies. If he wins, America could become one too."

[pnwmom]

2. Thank you!

[meow2u3]

3. Trump as the megalomaniac he is

His transition from donor to candidate, although partly motivated by megalomania, has also been designed to shore up his businesses. Just as Russian businessmen use political power to direct money to their own companies, so does Mr. Trump. Federal records in June showed that a fifth of his campaign spending was being directed toward his own businesses, ensuring that he makes a profit whatever happens. He has used campaign events to promote Trump products and a campaign visit to Scotland to promote a Trump golf course. Now those around him are hinting that even if he loses, he can turn his mob of angry followers into the foundation of a media company.

As a candidate, Mr. Trump has used the same kinds of tactics that Mr. Manafort, on behalf of Russian and pro-Russian clients, deployed in Ukraine: pumping up ethnic (in Mr. Trump’s case, white ethnic) discontent, playing on public fear and hatred, undermining trust in democracy. In 2006, Mr. Manafort instructed his client, Mr. Yanukovych, to begin talking up the possibility of election fraud. Mr. Yanukovych’s party began training election observers. It’s an amazing coincidence, but these are exactly the same tactics that Mr. Trump has also deployed.