In Russia, there are still a lot of people who enjoy watching the White House, engrossed in internal conflicts and failing one after another, such as the inability to push through health care reform, and the swift appointment and dismissal of the foul-mouthed communications director Anthony Scaramucci. The sensations of the Kremlin are familiar to the Republicans. Those who have been watching Trump, who holds presidential office for six months, experience a mixed feeling of frustration and a bad premonition.

President Vladimir Putin seems to be very annoyed. Now he realized that, having put on Trump, he made a mistake that he had done before with regard to the Western leaders. And his decision to send several hundred diplomats and other employees of the US diplomatic mission in Russia shows that he intends to reduce his losses.

Putin had to understand this before. His closest alliances with the West were waiting for the same fate. Jacques Chirac in France, Silvio Berlusconi in Italy or Gerhard Schroeder in Germany - all these unions were built on personal contacts with the incoming head of state. Every time it was a new person and, as a rule, also a boastful chatterbox. Each of these unions was destroyed when the leader encountered the limitations existing in a democratic society: terms of office, free press, independence of the legislature, dissatisfaction of the electorate or any other "obstacle" in the form of checks and balances embedded in the constitutions of these countries. But with each new attempt to make friends with the West, Putin seemed to have hoped that his colleagues could overcome these obstacles that limit their power - just as he himself did in Russia.

They always disappointed him, did not live up to expectations, although everything was not as dramatic as in the case of President Trump. Less than a month has passed since the first meeting of the two presidents in Germany during the G20 summit in Hamburg, as on July 27 the US Congress sent Trump a bill on new sanctions against Russia for her alleged interference in the presidential elections held in the US last year. For many in Moscow, this bill was proof that Trump is a weak leader, unable to fulfill his determined promises to "establish relations" with Russia. "Trump, inferior to his own legislators, is perceived in Russia as a weak politician," wrote Russian political analyst Alexei Makarkin, analyzing the US draft law on sanctions.

But Makarkin missed one point - Putin seems not to be able to understand that members of the US Congress, including Republicans, are not Trump's "own legislators". They represent an equal branch of power - similar to the judicial power, which repeatedly blocked immigration initiatives of Trump.

This misinterpretation of the boundaries of the executive branch has existed since the first years of Putin's presidency, when he established control over the Russian media and thought that his Western colleagues could do the same in their countries. In 2005, during the summit with President George W. Bush, Putin refused to believe that the US supreme commander does not have the authority to silence American journalists. As Bush remembers, Putin then said: "Do not tell me about the free press. Not after you fired this reporter. ".

Bush immediately understood what Putin means. "Vladimir, are you talking about Dan Razzer? ", He asked. A few months earlier, experienced journalist Razer was forced to apologize and resign from the post of evening news anchor on CBS, but not on the orders of the White House, but because of an incorrect report on Bush's service in the National Guard. According to Putin, this incident showed that the US statement on freedom of the press is a complete farce. Bush tried to convince him. He recalls that he said then to the Russian president: "I strongly recommend that you do not talk about it publicly. Americans may think that you do not understand the essence of our system ".

But it is in this - he does not understand. For several years as a journalist in Moscow, I lost count of officials trying to explain to me that there is no such thing as an independent journalist. And one official even started our interview, saying that all American journalists are undercover secret agents. Taking me in his office in 2013, Pavel Astakhov, then the Commissioner for Children's Rights, greeted me with a cheerful exclamation: "And here's the CIA! Let him in! "He was not kidding at all.. In the Russian environment, officials (and society in general) believe that the West is in many respects similar to Russia, with the same tamed judicial system, such obsequious media and the same ruling clique that pulls at all the strings. This picture of the world makes it much easier to dismiss criticism from abroad - if everyone is corrupt, then no one has the right to judge. But it turns out that many high-ranking officials in Moscow also think so.

They, for example, believed that Trump could act contrary to the opinion of representatives of other branches of state power and implement his agenda, especially in matters relating to the easing of sanctions against Russia. In their heart of hearts, they are sure that the power in the US, like in Russia, is concentrated in the hands of the leader, and everything else is just a democratic screen.

And it is unlikely that this belief will change against the background of the last lesson on the basics of American civil law. On Russian state-run television channels, Trump's inability to get the media silent and drag his agenda through Congress and the courts is presented as just another proof that the United States is ruled by an almighty gang of conspirators - only this time it took up arms against the US president himself.

This is a new turn in the old and well-known history, which means that the Kremlin still cherishes the hope that Trump will take the American system under control and direct it towards concluding an alliance with Moscow. "We waited for quite some time that maybe something will change for the better, nourished such a hope that the situation will somehow change," Putin lamented on Sunday. "But, apparently, if it changes, it will not be soon".

Source: HB.