Now that Vladimir Putin is slated to become a good friend of the new president, it is important to know more about Putin. Start by learning about Aleksandr Dugin, who is known as “Putin’s Brain.” Dugin is a Russian nationalist. He proudly calls himself a fascist. He despises secularism and modernity. He strongly opposes the U.S. and our allies. He foresees a new Russian-Arab alliance and longs for the restoration of the Soviet empire.

 

The Economist wrote about parallels between Dugin and Trump’s Advisor Steve Bannon.

 

“ALEXANDER DUGIN, the Russian philosopher of religion and geopolitics who has been described as “[Vladimir] Putin’s brain” is absolutely delighted by the American election result. On the website of this apostle of anti-Americanism, there is an article rejoicing in the fact that the United States need no longer be treated as an enemy, because the good guys are winning there: the next step, it hints strongly, will be to ensure further victories for anti-liberal forces in Europe, beginning with the French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen.

 

[Dugin wrote:]

 

“Anti-Americanism is over. Not because it was wrong, but exactly the opposite: because the American people themselves have started the revolution against precisely the aspect of the US which we hated….So let us [now] drain the European Swamp…What is the structure of the Swamp? First of all, the Swamp is an ideology, Liberalism. We need a Nuremburg Trial for Liberalism, the last totalitarian political ideology”
“Who is Mr Dugin? An exponent of “Eurasian” geopolitical thought which dreams of a great Slavic-Turkic land empire under Moscow’s command, he saw his influence soar during the early months of the conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Along with some figures on the nationalist fringe of Russian Orthodox church, he gave moral support to the leaders of the Russian-backed rebellion against the government of Ukraine. Mr Dugin sometimes describes his credo as Orthodox Eurasianiam, but he is not much interested in Christian theology as such: more in Orthodoxy as a mark of distinction from the West. Among the thinkers whose guiding hand he acknowledges is Julius Evola, an Italian guru of the far right; he also draws on a “traditionalist” school of religious philosophy which sees wisdom in many ancient and elaborate faiths and loathes secular modernity.”

 

This is a quote from one of his books:

 

“In principle, Eurasia and our space, the heartland Russia, remain the staging area of a new anti-bourgeois, anti-American revolution. … The new Eurasian empire will be constructed on the fundamental principle of the common enemy: the rejection of Atlanticism, strategic control of the USA, and the refusal to allow liberal values to dominate us. This common civilizational impulse will be the basis of a political and strategic union.”

 

Dugin and Bannon, says The Economist, have major differences, but they have common enemies: They “secularism, multi-culturalism, egalitarianism and modernity.”

 

More on Dugin.  See here.

 

This is my favorite quote in his Wikipedia entry, written in 2007. Dugin wrote:

 

“There are no more opponents of Putin’s course and, if there are, they are mentally ill and need to be sent off for clinical examination. Putin is everywhere, Putin is everything, Putin is absolute, and Putin is indispensable” – was voted number two in flattery by readers of Kommersant.”

 

I wonder which quote was voted number one in flattery by readers of Kommersant?