In a 2017 speech at Hillsdale College, the Claremont Institute’s Christopher Caldwell declared that if “we have been to make use of conventional measures for understanding leaders, which contain the protection of borders and nationwide flourishing, Putin would depend because the pre-eminent statesman of our time.” In Caldwell’s phrases, Putin “isn’t the president of a feminist NGO. He’s not a transgender-rights activist. He’s not an ombudsman appointed by the United Nations to make and ship slide reveals about inexperienced power.”
In 2021, The American Conservative’s Rod Dreher praised a Putin speech condemning the West and mentioned that Putin and Hungary’s Viktor Orban have been “completely clear and completely correct on the society-destroying nature of wokeness and postliberal leftism.” (It ought to be famous that Dreher has nonetheless unequivocally condemned Putin’s invasion.) A 2022 trade between Steve Bannon and Erik Prince, the founder of personal army contractor Blackwater, was much more illustrative. Bannon hosted Prince on his podcast shortly after Putin’s invasion and proclaimed Putin “anti-woke.” Prince replied supportively that the individuals of Russia “nonetheless know which lavatory to make use of.” And Bannon saved the thought alive, asking, “What number of genders are there in Russia?”
Jordan Peterson, in the meantime, went so far as to imply that Russia’s aggressive assault could have been merely self-defense towards the specter of Western cultural decadence. The tradition struggle, he mused, could also be “severe sufficient to extend the likelihood that Russia, say, will probably be motivated to invade and doubtlessly incapacitate Ukraine merely to maintain the pathological West out of that nation, which is a key a part of the traditionally Russian sphere of affect.”
There may be an previous saying: The enemy of my enemy is my buddy. Ideally, the phrase signifies that Individuals put aside their home variations to deal with overseas threats to the nation. However on this hyper-polarized period, the far proper will get this equation exactly backward. They’re aiding Vladimir Putin as a result of they see him, too, versus their home enemies.
Earlier than the struggle, MAGA’s mixture of hostility towards Ukraine and admiration of Putin created a really explicit narrative: Rugged, manly, conventional Russia was bodily and spiritually stronger than the liberalizing West, and it might roll over Ukraine with solely token resistance. Certainly, earlier than the struggle, Ted Cruz shared a tweet through which he contrasted Russian and American army advertisements. The U.S. advert, he claimed, confirmed our army to be “woke” and “emasculated.” However the Russian advert reeked of masculine aggression. How may the West — not to mention tiny Ukraine — stand towards such manly males?
