- Joined
- Jun 18, 2018
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- 64,751
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"...The far right is all in on Putin – Steve Bannon, for instance, declared his support because “Putin ain’t woke, he is anti-woke.” On the Christian nationalist wing of the Republican party, Lauren Witzke, the Delaware Republican party’s candidate for Senate in 2020, proudly declared that she supported Putin because he protects “our Christian values. I identify more with Russian, with Putin’s Christian values than I do with Joe Biden.” Not to be outdone, the Arizona state senator Wendy Rogers emphasized that “I stand with Christians worldwide and not the global bankers who are shoving godlessness and degeneracy in our face”; in case it wasn’t entirely clear whose side she was on, she added that Ukrainian president Zelenskiy, who is Jewish, was “a globalist puppet for Soros and the Clintons”. Tucker Carlson, finally, representative of a whole phalanx of rightwing media activists, boldly declared in the days before the invasion why his problem was not with Russia...
Vladimir Putin understands his appeal to western reactionaries precisely. He likes to present himself as an ally in the fight against “wokeism”. In a much-publicized speech in October 2021, for instance, he attacked “cancel culture” and the west’s supposed obsession with trans rights, called the teaching of gender fluidity “on the verge of a crime against humanity”, railed against “reverse discrimination against the majority in the interests of minorities”, and emphasized his love for traditional “family values”.
This speech, in particular, got Putin glowing reviews from conservative commentators and intellectuals. A telling example is Rod Dreher, senior editor at the American Conservative. Dreher is a leading figure on the religious right; certainly not moderate, but in good standing – and friends – with conservatives like Ross Douthat and David French who are widely respected and admired by liberals. ...“Putin, Orban, and all the illiberal leaders that our baizuocracy loves to hate are all completely clear and completely correct on the society-destroying nature of wokeness and post-liberal leftism,” Dreher mused a few months ago. And he has not been shy about his disdain for the west’s support for Ukraine: “I adamantly oppose risking the lives of boys from Louisiana and Alabama to make the Donbas safe for gender queers and migrants.” In other words, it’s not that Dreher wants to see Putin win, necessarily – he just shares his contempt for America’s “woke” culture. This critique has basically become dogma on the right: a radically “un-American” woke left is out to destroy the country – and has already succeeded in undermining the nation considerably, especially its “woke, emasculated military”, as Texas senator Ted Cruz put it; a weak west foolishly “focused on expanding its national debt and exploding the gender binary”, according to rightwing activist Ben Shapiro."
Link
You can see Putin the criminalizing of teaching diverse voices in the classrooms, attacks on school libraries, anti-trans bills, anti-abortion bills, and voter suppression bills that Republucan legislatures are passing across the country. And you can see him in Washington, by the willingness of so many national Republican leaders being willing to throw out tens of millions of legal ballots in the service of one corrupt demagogue. In short, Putin thrives throughout the Republican Party.
Vladimir Putin understands his appeal to western reactionaries precisely. He likes to present himself as an ally in the fight against “wokeism”. In a much-publicized speech in October 2021, for instance, he attacked “cancel culture” and the west’s supposed obsession with trans rights, called the teaching of gender fluidity “on the verge of a crime against humanity”, railed against “reverse discrimination against the majority in the interests of minorities”, and emphasized his love for traditional “family values”.
This speech, in particular, got Putin glowing reviews from conservative commentators and intellectuals. A telling example is Rod Dreher, senior editor at the American Conservative. Dreher is a leading figure on the religious right; certainly not moderate, but in good standing – and friends – with conservatives like Ross Douthat and David French who are widely respected and admired by liberals. ...“Putin, Orban, and all the illiberal leaders that our baizuocracy loves to hate are all completely clear and completely correct on the society-destroying nature of wokeness and post-liberal leftism,” Dreher mused a few months ago. And he has not been shy about his disdain for the west’s support for Ukraine: “I adamantly oppose risking the lives of boys from Louisiana and Alabama to make the Donbas safe for gender queers and migrants.” In other words, it’s not that Dreher wants to see Putin win, necessarily – he just shares his contempt for America’s “woke” culture. This critique has basically become dogma on the right: a radically “un-American” woke left is out to destroy the country – and has already succeeded in undermining the nation considerably, especially its “woke, emasculated military”, as Texas senator Ted Cruz put it; a weak west foolishly “focused on expanding its national debt and exploding the gender binary”, according to rightwing activist Ben Shapiro."
Link
You can see Putin the criminalizing of teaching diverse voices in the classrooms, attacks on school libraries, anti-trans bills, anti-abortion bills, and voter suppression bills that Republucan legislatures are passing across the country. And you can see him in Washington, by the willingness of so many national Republican leaders being willing to throw out tens of millions of legal ballots in the service of one corrupt demagogue. In short, Putin thrives throughout the Republican Party.
