WASHINGTON - He promises to restore his country's greatness, without offering a specific plan. He uses crude, vulgar expressions that make him sound like an ordinary guy, even though he's a billionaire. He's a narcissist who craves media attention. And for all his obvious shortcomings, he's very popular.
Who am I referring to? Russian President Vladimir Putin, of course. But the parallels with a certain American politician known as the "The Donald" are obvious.
Donald Trump is in some respects an American version of Putin. Like the Russian leader, he seeks to reverse his country's losses and return its former glory. He promises a restoration of power and prestige without trifling about the details.
"We have no victories," Trump complained to NBC's Chuck Todd on "Meet the Press" last Sunday. "As a country, we don't have victories anymore. And it's very sad."
Trump's official slogan is "Make America Great Again!" It's a line borrowed from Ronald Reagan's acceptance speech at the 1980 Republican convention, when the Gipper promised a "crusade to make America great again." But really, this kind of talk is the mainstay of politicians around the world who campaign on a platform of national restoration. Their message is as much psychological as political.
"Chuck, it'll work out so well," Trump enthused last Sunday. "You will be so happy. In four years, you're going to be interviewing me and you're going to say, 'What a great job you've done, President Trump.'"
The appeal of such politicians is partly their brash self-confidence. They don't explain the mundane details of national revival; they just assert it.
Putin, like Trump, seems to understand that power and showmanship are inseparable, especially for a nation that is traumatized by military and economic losses. It's a confidence game. "Within the system, Mr. Putin has developed his own idealized view of himself as CEO of 'Russia Inc.,'" write Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy in their book "Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin."
Putin laid out his vision of revival in a December 1999 speech that became known as the "Millennium Message." He stressed the importance of building a strong state that could restore national self-confidence: "Russia has [just] experienced one of the most difficult periods in its many centuries of history. She faces the real danger of becoming not just a second- but even a third-tier country. To prevent this from happening, we need an immense effort from all the nation's intellectual, physical and moral forces."
Trump is more nakedly self-promoting than Putin. Trump's website promotes him as "the very definition of the American success story," gliding over his four corporate bankruptcies. His blunt comments speak to a nation that's sick of political double-talk.
Trump's tirades about illegal immigration, his loudest campaign theme, are part of a long and ugly story in America. Within 70 years of the republic's founding, a party aptly dubbed the "Know-Nothings" was bashing immigrants, especially Catholics. Over subsequent decades, nativists were attacking every new thread of the American quilt - Irish, Italian, German, Slavic, Jewish, Chinese and African, as John Higham explains in his landmark history, "Strangers in the Land."
What's surprising about Trump is that he has attracted such a wide following. He's Reagan without Reaganism, running a campaign nearly devoid of ideas. Americans have had flirtations with demagogues, from Father Charles Coughlin in the 1930s to Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. But the bullying authoritarian personality - the Putin style - usually doesn't work here. This summer has been an exception, but history suggests that it won't last.
Washington Post Writers Group