Trump and Putin Spiral into Dangerous Fantasy

Donald Trump has spent decades admiring the kind of strongman image Vladimir Putin built for himself in Russia. But now, critics say, the two men are starting to resemble each other in a much darker way: not as symbols of power, but as leaders trapped inside their own illusions.

The 80-year-old American president’s primetime address Thursday night stunned many viewers with what opponents called a brazen attempt to revive long-debunked election conspiracies. But for Russians, the spectacle may have looked hauntingly familiar. For years, Vladimir Putin has used national broadcasts to sell falsehoods, justify crackdowns, and prepare the public for his next power move.

Now, as both leaders face mounting chaos at home and abroad, their critics argue they are becoming more desperate, more isolated, and more dangerous.

Putin is doubling down on his brutal war in Ukraine despite growing economic strain and public frustration inside Russia. Trump, meanwhile, is pushing deeper into election-fraud claims and targeting the voting system ahead of the midterms, even as many Americans remain anxious about the economy and wary of more political instability.

According to Russian economist Konstantin Sonin, a professor at the University of Chicago who once helped prepare analytical reports for Russia’s Center for Strategic Research and met with Putin on economic reforms, both leaders are now surrounded by people who tell them what they want to hear.

“No matter how much Trump’s and Putin’s public support fades away, they will continue to live in their bubbles, fed lies by their closest circles,” Sonin told The Daily Beast.

Sonin said the dynamic around Trump in Washington reminds him of the insulated political bubble that grew around Putin in Moscow.

“We have seen Putin rule Russia out of a bubble since the early 2000s and surprisingly, they are creating the same bubble for Trump in Washington,” he said. “Both Putin and Trump don’t care about their cracking facades, ratings—they won’t pay attention until their public support collapses to 5 percent.”

That comparison is especially alarming to Russians who watched their own country slide into authoritarian rule one step at a time.

In Russia, Putin’s inner circle has reportedly discussed delaying parliamentary elections scheduled for September. In the United States, Trump’s White House is working to restrict mail-in voting ahead of November’s midterms. To critics, the parallel is hard to ignore: two leaders facing political trouble, both reaching for changes that could help preserve their grip on power.

The timing could hardly be more dramatic.

Putin is dealing with humiliation on the battlefield and inside Russia itself. Ukrainian drone strikes have hit Russian oil facilities and logistics centers, including sites close to Moscow. On Saturday, smoke rose from a Wildberries logistics complex in Elektrostal outside the capital after a reported Ukrainian drone attack. Officials said the strikes killed and injured multiple people.

At the same time, Russia has been grappling with gasoline shortages tied to the war, even as Putin continues to talk about seizing more Ukrainian land.

Trump, too, has brushed aside warnings from critics who say he should focus on domestic problems. Instead, he has pressed ahead with a war against Iran that many Americans did not support from the beginning, while also elevating conspiracy theories about elections and casting doubt on the democratic process.

Both men, their critics say, appear obsessed with legacy. Both insist they are winning. And both seem increasingly unwilling to hear otherwise.

Russian historian Andrey Zubov told The Daily Beast that Putin’s position in Ukraine is already doomed.

“The war is lost, that’s clear; when he leaves Ukraine, his regime will fall,” Zubov said.

But Putin has continued to project confidence, even as Ukrainian drones have struck deeper into Russian territory. Last month, while he praised Russia’s supposed economic strength at a summit in Kazan, Ukrainian attacks rained down on Moscow in one of the largest strikes on the capital since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.

Online, Russians responded with dark humor. One meme showed Putin’s famously long meeting table flying over a burning oil refinery.

Trump and Putin have also leaned heavily into the same kind of tough-guy theater.

Putin has long staged photo ops around martial artists, soldiers, and younger male athletes to maintain his macho image. In recent weeks, he met with judo champions and Russian boxing star Murat Gassiev, even joking and laughing about champagne.

Trump’s version came with spectacle of its own. At his White House birthday celebration last month, a UFC event on the South Lawn was praised by Russian state-controlled media as “the most spectacular show in the history of the White House.”

Among the fighters present was Justin Gaethje, who is well known in Moscow. Eight months after Putin launched his war in Ukraine, Gaethje visited Chechnya, where he shot guns and spent time with Chechen leaders accused by Western governments and human rights groups of serious abuses.

Marat Gelman, a former Putin adviser and image-maker who later joined Russia’s anti-war opposition in exile, told The Daily Beast that Trump and Putin share a hunger for dominance.

“Putin turned into a Russian Tsar during his third presidential term that started in 2012—that’s Trump’s dream, the changed constitution, the day he can reign in America, the way Putin does in Russia,” Gelman said.

Gelman, a member of the Russian Anti-War Committee, recently presented artwork by Russian political prisoners at a conference in Strasbourg. In March, Russia’s Supreme Court designated the committee a “terrorist organization.”

He warned that both leaders are trying to reshape government around power, wealth, and loyalty.

“Both Trump and Putin are building a new world, where the state and oligarchy are grown together and rule, eliminating the role of the middle class—America is going that way, that’s dangerous,” Gelman said.

Their thin skin may be another shared trait.

Trump has repeatedly lashed out at late-night hosts and comedians who mock him. Last year, Jimmy Kimmel Live! was suspended for several days after pressure from conservatives and Trump’s administration.

Putin has shown a similar intolerance for ridicule. Early in his presidency, he banned the political satire show Puppets in 2002. Last month, Poland arrested a suspect in the murder of an exiled Russian satirist who had mocked Putin, while investigators examined whether Moscow may have ordered the killing.

Svetlana Gannushkina, a prominent Moscow-based human rights activist, was branded a “foreign agent” after joking about Putin’s mental health. She said she sees a chilling resemblance between the Russian leader and Trump.

“They are both sick with megalomania and a mission of making their countries great,” she said, “while citizens’ suffering deepens.”

For years, Trump has appeared fascinated by Putin’s aura of control. But now, critics argue, the resemblance is less flattering than he may have imagined.

Two aging leaders. Two shrinking circles. Two governments increasingly driven by grievance, paranoia, and spectacle.

And as pressure builds around both men, the question is no longer whether Trump has matched Putin’s strongman image.

It is whether both leaders are now spiraling into the same dangerous fantasy.