After repeatedly praising strongman Vladimir Putin as a real "leader" on the campaign trail, Donald Trump has spent his first months in office buddying up to a cabal of brutal leaders whose sole concern is their quest for unchecked power. It's not limited to Trump’s latest jaw-dropping appraisal of North Korea's Kim Jong-un as "a smart cookie" or his White House invite to murderous Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte. As the Washington Post's Philip Rucker notes:
Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi has had his opponents gunned down, but Trump praised him for doing “a fantastic job.” Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha is a junta chief whose military jailed dissidents after taking power in a coup, yet Trump offered to meet with him at the White House. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has eroded basic freedoms, but after a recent political victory, he got a congratulatory call from Trump. [...]
Every American president since at least the 1970s has used his office at least occasionally to champion human rights and democratic values around the world. Yet, so far at least, Trump has willingly turned a blind eye to dictators’ records of brutality and oppression in hopes that those leaders might become his partners in isolating North Korea or fighting terrorism.
Indeed, in his first 102 days in office, Trump has neither delivered substantive remarks nor taken action supporting democracy movements or condemning human rights abuses...
Look, anyone who is waiting for Trump’s stand against human rights abuses other than when his daughter is upset by a highly publicized and outrageous chemical weapon attack may as well gear up to be waiting in perpetuity. In fact, the evidence that Trump is inspired by the totalitarian hold these “leaders” have over their people rather than repelled by it has spilled out from his administration since Day 1. Closer to the truth, Trump and his minions are systematically working to emulate these regimes by eroding the checks on his power here at home.
In the last week alone, Trump and his top officials have attacked the independence of “unelected” judges, said they are looking into changing libel laws, and are now starting to push the idea of nuking the Senate filibuster. Taken together, that's an all-out assault on the entire system of checks and balances on executive power: the independent judiciary, a free press, and congressional oversight.
Far from looking the other way when he praises authoritarian leaders who do pretty close to whatever they want with impunity, Trump aspires to join this deplorable strongman’s club.