He’s simply a wartime leader. I think he likes freedom just fine, but in wartime it’s always curtailed, especially when the enemy is found within.
Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, Nixon, Bush and Obama all did things similar to Putin.
The Russians are clearly under attack from the globalists.
The Globalists have attacked their banking, their economy, their allies abroad, and attempted to launch a color revolution. They try to push homosexuality and perversion on them. They celebrate and enrich Russian oligarchs who will play ball with the international bankers. It’s always something.
So, as a president facing an existential threat, he tightens the screws. That’s about it.
Aaaah...no!
Not just "no", "h*ll no!"
Putin is first and foremost a KGB thug, and if you forget that for a second, it's to your mortal danger.
Putin is second of all, one of if not the richest man in Russia, so Putin is an olagarch!
Third, Putin is a Russian expansionist/imperialist, who wishes most to restore the old Soviet Empire.
So the only real wars Putin is fighting are the ones he started.
Fourth, Putin is a dictator which means he has nothing in common with traditional American conservatism.
Your claim above that "Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, Nixon, Bush and Obama all did things similar to Putin" is absurd by any objective measure.
Certainly, Putin is not Stalin, but he is a dictator from a mold vastly different than any US president, wartime or not.
Does that mean the US cannot get along with Putin?
No, of course not -- in 1941 when faced with a common enemy more deadly than any today, the US & Brits teamed up successfully with Stalin, a dictator more brutal than any today.
And that, I believe, is all President Trump is talking about when he says, "wouldn't it be nice?".
But teaming-up is one thing, general political admiration for dictators is something only the Left does, never American conservatives.