Dreher is an interesting bellwether for the reactionary intellectual sphere: he is begrudgingly pro-Trump, because he is enthusiastically anti-liberal. 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. A telling example is Rod Dreher, senior editor at the American Conservative. This speech, in particular, got Putin glowing reviews from conservative commentators and intellectuals. 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”. He likes to present himself as an ally in the fight against “wokeism”. Vladimir Putin understands his appeal to western reactionaries precisely. 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: “Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him?” The message was clear: the real threat was the “woke” cancel mob at home, not the staunch defender of Christian values abroad. 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”. 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. Such authoritarian, white Christian nationalist, anti-“left” leanings are now informing the right’s reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As recently as January 2022, Putin had a significantly higher approval rating among Republicans than Joe Biden. Among voters in general, support for Donald Trump correlates strongly with a favorable opinion of Putin, and Americans who define the US as a “Christian nation” have a much more favorable view of Putin’s Russia. This rapprochement shaped the right well beyond conservative elites. Similarly, in 2014, the famous evangelist Franklin Graham lauded Putin for having “taken a stand to protect his nation’s children from the damaging effects of any gay and lesbian agenda” – an agenda Barack Obama was supposedly pursuing in the US.Īfter the 2016 election, the simmering admiration for Putin morphed into GOP orthodoxy, with Donald Trump himself leading the Republican party’s pro-Russia turn. In 2013, for instance, Pat Buchanan, a leading voice on the “paleoconservative” traditionalist right, described Putin as “one of us,” an ally in what he saw as the defining struggle of our era, “with conservatives and traditionalists in every country arrayed against the militant secularism of a multicultural and transnational elite”. There is an influential tradition on the right of idolizing Putin as a defender of white Christian values against the onslaught of secular, “leftist” liberalism. It may feel shocking, but it shouldn’t be surprising that many Republican leaders and conservative elites think the American president is a more dangerous enemy than the Russian autocrat. Trump and Carlson are not fringe voices, and they aren’t outliers either: a last week’s CPAC, conservative speakers focused their ire on Joe Biden’s supposed weakness as the real cause for Putin’s aggression and they left no doubt who they considered the biggest threat – the “enemy within”, as Senator Rick Scott put it, the “militant left – wing in our country”. Tucker Carlson is one of the premier rightwing culture warriors in the country. Donald Trump is the political leader of the Republican party and probably its next presidential candidate.
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