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The natural affinity that appears to exist between Trump and Putin is tempered only by the divergence of their personal interests. To each his own. Each enjoys presidential immunity for his acts and omissions. Putin’s is for life. Trump’s ceases with his presidency.

Their attitude towards the law is different but the result is the same. Putin uses the law and adapts it wherever necessary to fulfill his political goals. Trump considers himself to be above the law, irreproachable, and able to do whatever he likes, regardless of the law.

Where the law is not applicable, one might hope there is at least a sense of morality. Is there ? Their fans and supporters would surely affirm that both have a great sense of morality. Putin likes to demonstrate his religious faith in the company of his ex-KGB comrade, Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church. Trump maintains relations with the New Apostolic Reformation whose figures promote pro-Trump policies and are influential within the Trump administration. Following his attempted assassination in Pennsylvania, Trump declared: "God has now spared my life not once, but twice".

Both Putin and Trump benefit from presidential immunity. Both are irresponsible before the law. Both avoid discussing religion, instead emphasizing success, power, and dominance. Their reluctance to discuss themes of humility, repentance, or service—central to Christianity—has led some critics to argue that their faith is more of a political tool than a guiding principle.

So what should we expect from two irresponsible presidents whose morality is a means to an end in achieving their political ambitions ?

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67 activist judges in the US lower courts have issued temporary orders halting or temporarily undoing Trump government decisions. Trump has abided by all those rulings where possible and is seeking to have them overturned in higher courts as per the constitution and the rule of law.

When a SCOTUS ruling on student loans went against him, the Biden regime simply ignored it and bragged about that.

But Trump is abiding by the law even though he will probably eventually have all these lower court rulings overturned legally.

When you hear of Putin allowing his power to be curtailed by lower court judges you can come back and tell us how he and Trump are the same.

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Dear mhaze,

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You wrote :

« 67 activist judges in the US lower courts have issued temporary orders halting or temporarily undoing Trump government decisions. »
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The roots of judicial activism trace back to the early 19th century, when the U.S. Supreme Court began asserting its authority. A key example is Marbury v. Madison (1803), where Chief Justice John Marshall established judicial review, empowering courts to invalidate laws inconsistent with the Constitution.

This decision set a precedent for judicial involvement in shaping public policy.

Chief Justice John Marshall was an American statesman, jurist, and Founding Father, who served as the fourth chief justice of the United States from 1801 until his death in 1835. He remains the longest-serving chief justice and fourth-longest serving justice in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court, and he is widely regarded as one of the most influential justices ever to serve.

Among the “67 activist judges” that you mention are the following :

• John Coughenour, a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, nominated to the federal bench in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan. He has a reputation for being a tough judge and has presided over high-profile cases, including the trial of Ahmed Ressam, the "millennium bomber" who was convicted of plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport on New Year's Eve in 1999.

Coughenour was the first judge to block Trump's executive order denying birthright citizenship to the children of people living in the U.S. illegally, calling it "blatantly unconstitutional" in a lawsuit brought by four states.

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(Continued …)

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(Continued …)

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• Royce Lamberth, a senior judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, was nominated by Reagan in 1987. He served in the Army from 1967 to 1974 and worked in the District of Columbia's U.S. attorney's office before his nomination to the federal bench.

Lamberth temporarily blocked prison officials from transferring transgender women to men's facilities and terminating their access to hormone therapy. He is presiding over a lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C., on behalf of three transgender women who were housed in women's facilities before Trump signed an executive order that requires the federal Bureau of Prisons to ensure that "males are not detained in women's prisons or housed in women's detention centres."

• Joseph Laplante, a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire, was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2007. He previously worked in the U.S. Attorney's Offices in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Laplante became the third federal judge to block Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship for children of those in the U.S. illegally, saying he wasn't persuaded by the administration's defense. He said he would issue at a later date a longer preliminary injunction explaining his reasoning, according to the Associated Press.

• Carl Nichols, a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, was nominated by Trump himself in 2019. He worked for the Department of Justice between 2005 and 2009 and was in private practice before his nomination to the bench.

Nichols ordered a temporary halt to plans to put almost 3,000 U.S. Agency for International Development employees on paid leave and agreed to stop the 30-day deadline for USAID staffers to return home at government expense.

But he said in a hearing that his order was not a decision on a request from two federal employee associations to roll back the administration's dismantling of the agency, the AP reported.

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mhaze,

Banjo never claimed Trump and Putin are identical, or that Trump has the same level of unchecked power as Putin. It points out something more nuanced: both leaders, in their own contexts, benefit from presidential immunity and exhibit a pattern of irresponsibility that comes with it. It’s less about legal mechanics and more about attitude - the way they each approach power, law, and morality.

That Trump's complied with 67 lower court rulings doesn’t refute the broader argument, and it doesn’t erase the fact that he frequently attacked the legitimacy of the courts, publicly undermined judges, and treated any legal resistance as partisan sabotage. That sort of behaviour demonstrates the very attitude Banjo was critiquing (i.e. acting as though the law is something to overcome or delegitimise, rather than be bound by.)

Your pivot to Biden and student loans is textbook whataboutism deflection - a tu quoque fallacy.

//When you hear of Putin allowing his power to be curtailed by lower court judges you can come back…//

This is a bit of a false test. It suggests that unless Putin and Trump are identical in how they handle power, then any comparison is meaningless. But that’s not how critique works. Nobody said they were the same in scale - just that they both show signs of using their power irresponsibly, and using faith or patriotism as props more than principles. It’s a comparison of traits, not of regimes.

If you want to defend Trump’s conduct meaningfully, try challenging the claim that he acts above the law or uses religion cynically. But turning the conversation toward Biden and setting up binary comparisons weakens your position.

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Trump fails to dampen public support of Americans for Ukraine

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For those who may have missed it, on the 14th of March, the Washington think tank, Brookings Institution, published the results of a public opinion poll to determine which of the two countries, Ukraine or Russia, most Americans supported.

The poll was carried out a week after the White House meeting between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and a few days after the White House announced it was suspending aid to Ukraine.

59% of Americans say they sympathize more with Ukraine while 2% say they sympathize more with Russia. And only a little more than a third (35%) say they support Trump’s decision to suspend aid to Ukraine.

The survey was fielded by SSRS on its Opinion Panel Omnibus platform from March 7-9, 2025, among a sample of 1,004 respondents. The margin of error is +/-3.7% at the 95% confidence level. The data were weighted to represent the target population of U.S. adults ages 18 or older.

Here is the link :

http://www.brookings.edu/articles/trump-fails-to-dampen-public-support-for-ukraine/?utm_campaign=This%20Week%20in%20Foreign%20Policy&utm_medium=email&utm_content=352900290&utm_source=hs_email
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No doubt Trump and his advisers were among the first to become aware of the results of this poll – which may partly explain the slightly more amenable tone of Trump’s recent exchanges with Zelensky.

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