A few thoughts — exploratory — on the Trump danger.

Trump isn’t a systematic thinker, but he is, as he demonstrated once again at a mass rally last night in Tampa, a dangerous and clever demagogue. He is less a conservative president than a right wing autocratic strongman, disposed to reckless actions and aligned with similar political types on a global level. Putin being one. Of course, among them, he considers himself to be the first among equals.

While there is little doubt that Trump advances capitalist interests in many ways, he also operates autonomously and frequently from them — not to mention his closest advisors — on matters of great consequence. To squeeze him into a rigid Marxist jacket, as some do, in which he faithfully carries out the marching orders of one or another section of big capital is more likely to confuse than clarify the Trump danger.

Not just today, not just yesterday, not just this past week, but since he announced his candidacy for president, Donald Trump has been the biggest threat to our democracy, progressive traditions and practices, and national security.

Putin, his new partner on the world stage, isn’t a choir boy for sure. He is, in fact, an autocratic ruler, not an aspiring one like Trump. As Russia’s president, he has few restraints on his power.

But Putin isn’t anywhere near the threat to the country or the world that Trump is. He is clever, for sure, and is anything but a paper tiger. But make no mistake about it, he is the junior partner in this bromance. And that is so, even if the Russian autocrat has “something” on Trump.

In short, the main danger to the future — ours and the world’s — is Trump.

And that danger only grows with each passing day. Trump, after all, has no attachment to democratic rule and governance. Indeed, since becoming president, he has done nothing but assail our democratic traditions, practices, and institutions. Racism, nativism, misogyny, bullying, indecency, cruelty, incompetence, hyper nationalism, and authoritarianism have been the book and bookends of his presidency.

On a global level he has attacked the liberal order and capitalist democracies that took shape in the wake of WW II. This order obviously begs for democratic restructuring and reform, but to believe that Trump will be an agent of that restructuring, or a nuclear free world for that matter, is the worst kind of self delusion.

What heightens this danger is that Trump has at his command the most powerful repressive apparatus and war machine ever assembled, a supine Republican Party, a majority on the Supreme Court that is favorably disposed to his policies and authoritarian disposition, and, not least, a mass constituency that is becoming a cult.

What he doesn’t have is the majority of people on his side. And his performance yesterday and last week, notwithstanding his lame effort to clean it up today, will only solidify that majority.

While interference by the Russian government in our domestic politics should be aggressively addressed, it shouldn’t become the reason to turn Russia into an implacable foe. We did that in the last half of the 20th century and both countries (and other countries as well) spent large amounts of treasure and blood to no good effect.

Nor should Putin become a distraction from the main strongman who sits in the White House or his Republican enablers in Congress, either now, or this fall when tens of millions cast their votes.

Steven Cohen, who has had a distinguished career as a scholar of the former Soviet Union and Russia, is on FOX shilling for Trump. His considerable analytical skills aren’t evident.

Putin may have something very sketchy on Trump that gives him leverage over Trump. But there is more to this relationship than meets the eye. One thing — and there is more — is that both are right wing authoritarian rulers who consider liberal-democratic capitalist democracies and the post world war II economic-social order obstacles to their ambitions.

My guess is that Trump, by his actions and words this week in Europe, and especially today In Helsinki, has put the Republican Party candidates in a difficult position as they turn their attention to the fall campaign. On the one hand, it will likely solidify an electoral majority against Trump and the GOP candidates. On the other hand, his mind boggling performance today as well as last week could cause fissures within Trump’s political coalition, which up to now has been remarkably stable, even in the face of actions by Trump that many of us thought would surely shake loose some of his Republican support.