What does an ideal world look like for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump? In a word: ugly.
Trump’s embrace of Russia’s dictator, his bullying of a weakened Ukraine, his musings about new US territorial conquests, and his dismantling of US democratic institutions would, in any other age, have resulted in his immediate removal from office.
And yet he has succeeded in beating his political opponents into submission, while his cultish following applauds every fresh outrage he visits on America’s friends, and every undeserved boon he grants its enemies.
