Sergei Mitrokhin’s blog post on the Ekho Moskvy website, 13.08.2017

The developments in Charlottesville, Virginia, make us put a question – what is the reason for such a surge of national radicalism in the USA?

I have no doubt that the main reason is Trump and his nationalist rhetoric before the elections as well as after them.

The fascists, who took action in Charlottesville, had heard the “America first” slogan from the President himself (the German translation for it is “über alles”) and had been inspired all out by it. All they had to do was to vote but they went on. They spilt blood. They showed that it is not only ISIS that supplies terrorists but also the American right-wing forces.

Of course Trump said that this was inadmissible. He truly believes that he has nothing to do with it. But he did the main thing within a year: warmed up the topic, jacked up the stakes of ultra-rightists, sharpened their emotions and expectations. Now they realised that the old man will not go any further and began acting on their own.

It is instructive to compare the situation with nationalism in the USA and the RF.

Putin tightened the stranglehold on the topic here in Russia as well. Except for verbally shouting “Russia first!”. But he has Kiselyev for this purpose, who solemnly says on a regular basis – “the whole world stands against us!”. [TN: Odious TV presenter Dmitry Kiselyev].

Trump came into office boosting the national inferiority complex and Putin is using it to retain the power.

It is easier for him because while mass media is Trump’s enemy, Putin holds it under the sole of his Salvatore Ferragamo boot. Another dictator’s advantage over a president of a democraic country is also of great significance: Putin is capable of establishing a monopoly on national populism not only in mass media.

He realises that among all present ideologies nationalism is the strongest means of influence on the masses. A monopoly on it is as important as control over firearms. If you have the monopoly, you can restrain its most ugly forms, which are destructive for the society.

This is why Russian nationalists suffer so much from Article 282 [of Russia’s Criminal Code against inciting hatred or enmity] and other Articles these days. Potkin and Demushkin serve their sentences for the reason that they breached Putin’s monopoly on nationalism not because they are nationalists. This is what real extremism is, according to Russia’s Themis. But there is no such an article on the Criminal Code, thus, she has to arrest nationalist activists under ridiculous pretexts.

But Trump does not have these very resources. The murderer will definitely get a most severe punishment. But in the US they cannot confront hundreds and thousands of his circumstantial masterminds the way they do it with Demushkin in Russia.

Therefore, Trump will lose this battlefield. We will fail to establish a presidential monopoly on the explosive ideology.

Putin has the means to keep it under control but Trump does not.

Does it mean that a nationalist flame will flare up in the USA?

This will not happen due to the fact that there are “fire-prevention” forces represented by the civil society and the above-mentioned independent mass media in that country. It is likely that nationalistic excesses will take place again and even multiply but fascists will not become an influential political force in the USA, not to mention that they will not come to power.

However, I wouldn’t be so optimistic about Russia. Limiting extreme excesses of nationalism Putin vigorously feeds our population with this ideology via the state TV channels. In case Putin’s power weakens or he retires, they will stop limiting the “excesses” and the consequences of the feeding will remain. And it will be a long time before someone begins weeding this field because Putin has been as enthusiastic about exterminating the civil society as the radicals.

Under such conditions Article 282 will be as ineffective as the Constitution articles on the freedom of speech and assemblies. Imagine how many old fascists, who went into inner emigration under Putin’s rule, and the ones, of Putin’s call up, actually, will show up and multiply.

Heaven forbid that one will even see such a horrible thing in a dream. Imagine Putin sitting somewhere in Cuba, Syria or Venezuela watching a TV report about the development in Russia saying: “See, they drove me out and got fascists!”.

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