Reverence for Putin on the Right Buys Trump Cover<br />Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters, which has tracked the conservative media’s depiction of the Russian president, described Mr. Putin as taking on "a Paul<br />Bunyan-esque persona among this audience." Mr. Putin’s mystique for conservatives resembles in many ways the image that Mr. Trump has cultivated for himself.<br />"A great leader," "very reasoned," and "extremely diplomatic," was how Mr. Trump himself described Mr. Putin that same year.<br />We are decadent." Mr. Trump’s opponents have tried repeatedly to make an issue of the mutual admiration between him and the Russian president, anticipating<br />that Republicans would not tolerate any whiff of sympathy from one of their own toward the leader of what Ronald Reagan called the "evil empire." But Mr. Trump has never had to wait long for conservatives to leap to his defense — and often Mr. Putin’s as well.<br />Kimberly Guilfoyle, a Fox News host who once said Mr. Trump had considered naming her as his press secretary, said<br />that she wished Mr. Putin could be president of the United States for just 48 hours.<br />"And they imagine Russia and Putin as the kind of strong, traditional conservative leader whom they wish they had<br />in the United States." To these conservatives, she added, "Russia is the true defender of Christian values.<br />That way, as she put it, "Americans don’t have to worry<br />and wake up in the morning fearful of a group that’s murderous and horrific like ISIS." In dismissing the threat from Russia, Mr. Trump and many conservatives now, ironically, echo Mr. Obama, who in 2012 brushed off the warnings of Mitt Romney, his Republican opponent, that Russia was the United States’ "No.
