Is Trump a tankie?

[Some of My Best Friends Are Gay]

Now we're seeing this with his pro-Juche sympathies.

Trump just likes authoritarian dictators, of any ideology.

He sees them and wishes he could be like them.

[ProudModerate2]

No, he's just a moron.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The thing is Trump is very impressed by spectacle - military parades, generals with loads of medals, elaborate choreographed routines by thousands of people, megastructures built very quickly, strongmen - all of which are in ample supply in dictatorial regimes, especially of the People's Republic variety.

It's very revealing that he finds a lot more visceral thrill from the French presidency or British monarchy than, say, the German chancellorship.

[Indy Texas]

Now we're seeing this with his pro-Juche sympathies.

The 2020 presidential debate where Trump and Sanders argue about anti-Revisionism and if Kim Il-sung was a true Marxist-Leninist is going to be magnificent.

[AtorBoltox]

He has admiration for the practices and trappings of authoritarian regimes, no matter what ideology

[Big Abraham]

This is the most BRTD post ever.

[SWE]

We all know that Jeb is the real tankie.

J- just
E- execute
B- bourgeois

[Wazza [INACTIVE]]

Trump is a Radical Orthodox Jacksonian Jucheist Nazbol.

[Stranger in a strange land]

In all seriousness, I've often thought that Trump is a closet Tankie:

1) Admiration of Russia, Putin, and the Soviet Union
2) The attempted rapprochement with North Korea, despite escalating hostility against Iran, whose nuclear program is both less advanced and less of a threat to the U.S.
3) Justifying the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan (which was a classic OG Tankie issue)
4) Saying that a U.S. Special Forces solider killed on a mission in Niger "knew what he signed up for" (classic ANSWER/Marxist-Leninist Rhetoric circa 2004-2008)
5) Mistrust for the CIA/FBI/State Department

EDIT: in addition, he has also:

6) Praised the Chinese Leadership's response to the Tiananmen Square Protests
7) Had kind words for Saddam Hussein & Bashar Assad

[Person Man]

Jacksonian Jucheism? That sounds like the next thing that will get the Republicans back to power in 2028, 2032, or 2036 (Ill be 51 then ...not). But seriously. It was "neoconservatism" or "compassionate conservatism" that got them back into power in 2000 and kept them in power in 2004 and the "alt-right" or "populism" that got them back into power in 2016. The other guys are a lot more boring. It was always about being a "new kind of Democrat" that got Democrats back into power in 1976, 1992, and 2008.