http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439977/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-bad-model
In any case, it doesn’t seem too much to ask when indulging a strongman that he leave his country stronger. Putin isn’t doing that. His is an ailing and sometimes chaotic but rich and cultured nation, and his gift has been to transform it into something between a second-rate oil emirate and a first-rate crime syndicate, Norway as run by the city fathers of Chicago. That’s not a model for an American president. It isn’t even a good model for the Russians.
— Kevin D. Williamson is National Review’s roving correspondent.
That this even needs to be said is astounding to me. But it seems that many on the right are losing their taste for democracy (or at least their taste for universal suffrage) given that demographic trends seem so unfavorable. Rather than create some new, more diverse, winning coalition they are attracted to Putin's ethnic nationalism like moths to a lantern. A similarly bad fate awaits all who go there.
I don't agree that people on the right are "losing their taste for democracy." As far as Putin and Trump, I think it's more accurate to say that most Trump voters are just shrugging it off as insignificant. Maybe it is or maybe it isn't. But I don't get the impression that too many are cheering it -- more like tolerating it. I, for one, think Vladimir Putin is an authoritarian menace who would love nothing more than to get the old band back together again.
As for the nationalism, I think most conservatives would say (and not without reason) that the prospect of a "more diverse" coalition necessarily means one that is far less devoted to the core principles of conservatism. In other words, they take a look at a place like California -- the state which once produced Reagan, but where today elected Republicans are an endangered species and conservatism is extinct -- and say "If that's what the finished product of a nation teeming with Hispanic immigrants looks like, then we want no part of it." And that's certainly understandable. As I've long said, if the lion's share of these immigrants tended to be conservative Republicans, then it would be liberals and Democrats talking about deportation, borders, and walls.
So, no, what you're talking about really has nothing to do with Putin-envy. It has to do with political survival instincts -- and the belief, right or wrong, that there's no place for American conservatism in a more Hispanic America. After all, when measured by our political spectrum, the political pendulums throughout virtually all of Central and South America (plus Mexico) tend to swing between center-left and far-left. So it's no surprise that conservatives are wary of taking on more and more of those nations' voters.
I'm not sure that the changing demographics (wait...what happened to us having net negative immigration in recent years?) are going to continue towards the future projections. But whether they do or don't, I think a far better solution for my fellow conservatives is to change the game from one of identity politics (which is a game conservatives can never win) towards one of expanding the ranks of capital ownership. Because, while it clearly has long been the case that non-white people are far more likely to vote for Democrats, it's just as clearly the case that this disparity is significantly less-pronounced among owners of capital assets who are, naturally, less likely to embrace grievance politics.
I've told the story before of when Bob Kerrey asked Pat Moynihan why so many of their fellow Democrats were wary of reforming Social Security from a program that only provided sustenance income in non-working years to one that provided both income AND accumulated wealth. Moynihan's bluntly honest answer was "They're afraid it will turn Democrats into Republicans."
Well, on one hand, I can understand why they'd fear that. That they do probably ought to be instructive to Republicans who are looking for ways to win converts. On the other hand, that kind of attitude towards public policy is infuriating. Essentially that means that those politicians Moynihan was referring to would prefer fewer people have private, intergenerational wealth of any significance and more people to have a high degree of reliance on government checks for their daily sustenance.....because of the political ramifications of such an arrangement.
