As Alexei Navalny tragically died in harsh Russian custody for daring to expose Putin’s corruption, Donald Trump’s latest self-pitying comparison/complaint is unconscionable.
As Navalny sacrificed his life to expose tyranny, Trump spat on his body with a self-glorification that portrayed himself as a messianic martyr on the same level.
By equaling his 91 criminal indictments and civil action against him for financial crimes and sexual assault allegations that resulted in multi-million-dollar fines to the murder of a dissident, Trump once again reveals a distorted authoritarian worldview, and a willingness to cross the extremes of reality for his own puffery.
Trump managed to equate the enforcement of adjudicated civil cases and criminal indictments as interchangeable with sacrificing everything to fight for democratic freedoms. He did so without eliciting even a minor shock from the FOX host or the audience, even as he indulged in the false equivalence of the application of law to him and those in power with the brutal silencing of those speaking truth to power. The scary truth is that millions of Americans cannot tell the difference and have begun to parrot his words.
Unlike the bravery of Navalny who went to Russia knowing he would face arrest, the only “persecution” Trump has faced is due scrutiny for his actions and for abusing his office and evading consequences through privilege.
Prosecuting fraud and sexual misconduct is not oppression of a “political leader”, as Trump frames it; rather, it is the social contract in action—the powerful facing the same justice as citizens.
Trump’s false martyr complex is an insult to every activist who has fought for democratic ideals against repressive regimes, it should be an insult to every thinking human being. From Gandhi to Mandela to Liu Xiaobo to Navalny, true reformers have endured jail, torture, and death for their values. Trump shares nothing in common with those heroes beyond his relentless self-promotion as a messianic figure.
In actuality, the legal inquiries Trump faces stem from a lifetime of using his wealth to mold the law to his benefit before and during the presidency. For decades, Trump has treated the law as an inconvenience to be circumvented through intimidation lawsuits, tax evasion and corporate bankruptcy. His presidency was no different.
Critics point out that unprincipled self-dealing has characterized his life even in the role of a public servant. For Trump, even public service is an avenue for self-service, and he has managed to convince millions of Americans that that is the American way.
Now, in perhaps the crowning irony of his shameless projection, Trump actually dares to compare himself to reformers who have sacrificed everything for their principles.
At its most, accountability for Trump so far means parting with a minuscule fraction of what the counts have determined are ill-gotten billions, or finally facing consequences for one act of sexual misconduct amid accusations from over 20 women.
For Navalny, Mandela and others, accountability meant years stolen away in squalid prisons, subjected to conditions they knew might cost them their lives. They endured this persecution as a price for exposing crimes against humanity in their nations.
By equating global paragons of justice with his own petty legal nuisance, Trump demeans the concept of fighting for greater freedoms. His rhetoric implies that what the courts have determined were multi-decade illegal enrichment schemes should go unpunished to avoid “persecuting” the perpetrator who decided to run for the US presidency.
Trump complains that there were no victims to his fraudulent overrepresentations of his wealth to obtain loans and favorable terms, to the applause of the classes that were robbed of the opportunity to obtain those funds by his false claims. This upside-down framing treats universal rights as a threat to the powerful rather than protection for the vulnerable.
Of course, this distorted narrative is perfectly consistent for a man who paints historically marginalized groups as the “real oppressors” in modern society. For Trump, social justice reformers working to dismantle systemic racism, sexism and class barriers represents the same intolerant force as the authoritarians those movements struggled against. No one has exploited false moral equivalencies more cynically or dangerously than Donald Trump.
By casting common legal processes as persecution and himself as the embodiment of “truth”, Trump delegitimizes the very idea of accountability for the powerful. His rhetoric implies any consequence for elite misconduct must flow from a shadowy political agenda, not impartial justice.
Let us take a look at how the world and the media responded to Brazilian President Lula's controversial comparison of Israel's treatment of Palestinians to the Holocaust rightly provoking intense backlash from Jewish groups, Western leaders, and mainstream media outlets.
Critics accused Lula of trivializing the Holocaust and went so far as to say that he was promoting anti-Semitic attitudes by equating the systemic genocide of 6 million Jews with the complex Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In contrast, Trump's self-aggrandizing analogy between his legal troubles and Navalny's assassination attempt has been met with far less outrage anywhere, especially from those who enable Trump's demagoguery.
While some international voices have lightly ridiculed Trump's callous rhetoric, his loyal followers continue excusing his false martyrdom narrative. Major right-wing media outlets perpetuate his distortion, whereas Lula's comments were swiftly rebutted across the global spectrum.
This muted response to Trump reveals a normalization of his authoritarian maneuvering that poses grave dangers. By failing to resoundingly reject this false and insidious equivalency, we invite further erosions of truth and assaults on democracy across the globe.
There has been no mass denouncing Trump's cynical exploitation of Navalny's suffering, instead, news reports accept it, and their repetition of the statements regularizes it as just another thing to consider.
The vigorous condemnation of Lula's insensitive Holocaust comparison is at the very least a model for the firm global repudiation of Trump's dangerous self-aggrandizement. The media coverage and global response is instead emboldening the betrayal of universal liberal values.
Trump’s brand of corrosive demagoguery erodes basic notions of right and wrong, allowing criminality in high places to proliferate. It is the worldview of dictators, strongmen and mafia bosses who treat legal restraints on their power as categorically unjust.
Of course, Trump’s Theater of the Oppressed is aimed at white rural Americans and it should fool few outside his unshakeable base. But broader America and the global community have failed to forcefully reject this twisted narrative and its thinly veiled authoritarian goals.
The idea that no leader should enjoy impunity for corruption or sex crimes because jailing them is “political persecution” cannot be allowed to take hold in the ranks of the young in a democracy. This cynical mindset treats the privileged as exempt from moral and legal codes that bind normal people. It is the opposite of what leaders should model.
By voicing faux outrage that the powerful ever face consequences, Trump reveals he does not actually believe his “Law and Order” rhetoric. Like most authoritarians, laws and justice in Trump’s worldview are cudgels to be used against enemies and inconveniences for his supporters to ignore.
His complaints of persecution communicate that norms and ethics are for the little people, not ensconced elites like him. This privileged disposition mocks the very concept of equal protection under the law.
It is sadly unsurprising that Trump seeks to reframe accountability as injustice. More alarming is how many self-proclaimed conservatives find this dangerously anti-democratic charade convincing.
These warped tactics resonate because the American right has abandoned principled notions of law and order in favor of authoritarian power. Pesky details like facts, ethics and logic can be subordinated if the messaging feeds grievances and culture war bloodlust.
This devolution of conservatism into an ends-justify-the-means movement should trouble all who care about sustaining liberal democracy. So should the relativistic mindset of “might equals right” embodied by Trump and his enablers.
Their entitlement to flout laws and demonize reformers as the true threat to freedom represents a complete inversion of just governance, and it is one step too far to now remain quiet as Trump twists the fate of a principled defender of democracy and values into something even remotely similar to his sordid tale.
Trump may be an extreme specimen when it comes to cultivating persecution and victimhood delusions. But he is far from alone among modern strongmen practicing the dark arts of distortion and projection to amass unjust power. The global resurgence of far-right nationalism rides similar waves of manufactured grievance and subversion of truth.
It is a precarious moment for global democracy; silence or acquiescence equate to complicity. No healthy civil society can allow leaders to portray systemic corruption as heroism, and legal accountability as persecution.
Trump’s obscene comparison of his legal troubles to Navalny’s death should summon the world a moral turning point as this self-pitying false equivalency exposes to the entire planet a rampant and pathological lack of integrity that cannot be accepted by civilized nations. It summons ghosts of despots and demagogues who consolidated power by hook or by crook, confusing constituencies with demagoguery that numbs thought.
The danger is that the arrogant lawlessness that Trump embodies is already infecting our global culture, perhaps irreparably so. It may be that millions of Americans are too enamored by his rhetoric that they are ready to give Trump a pass for this latest outrage and hand him the keys to the White House again; but for all the world, the future of accountable government and human rights depends on it.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.