Well, to be fair, not a commie. Rather, he’s a tool of an emerging new ideology that has already taken control of the governments of multiple nations but that has yet to acquire a name or be recognized as such. “Putinism” is probably the best name, but maybe “Pseudodemocracy” or “Shamocracy” would be the closest if you don’t want to personalize it.
It’s authoritarianism supported by kleptocratic regime vassals veiled and legitimated by the offices, forms and civic rituals of a subverted ex-democracy. State-controlled media masquerading as independent news channels, hyper nationalistic and xenophobic, utterly lawless, intensely but discreetly violent–discreet in the sense that the regime portrays acts of political violence by state actors as random crimes by street criminals or unsavory elements the victim was associating with. And, underlying it all, an ongoing experiment in determining the minimum amount of freedom necessary to maintain popular support if media is state controlled.
It’s taken full control of Russia, most of Russia’s former USSR client states and is increasingly taking hold of Hungary, Turkey and the Philippines. You can clearly see the far right parties of several European democracies–Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Greece, more and more aligning themselves with it, particularly in the countries where Putin is supporting them.
And now it’s taken control of one of the United States’ two major political parties and still we won’t recognize it for what it is and who’s seeking to spread it by direct aid and encouragement.