╌>

Why Are So Many Conservatives Defending Vladimir Putin ?

  

Category:  Op/Ed

By:  john-russell  •  2 years ago  •  6 comments

Why Are So Many Conservatives Defending Vladimir Putin ?


Why Are So Many Conservatives Defending Vladimir Putin ? 

There is an answer to this question. I think it has to do with conservative opposition to the western European democracies, opposition to globalism, and objections to multiculturalism and diversity.  

I found this article on the far right website Imprimis , which is a place where conservative "thinkers" go to explain their beliefs. Salon has a current article about the rise of Hillsdale college as a force for the far right efforts to re-establish traditional morality and the founding fathers as the be all end all of national life. 

The article mentions Imprimis and it piqued my curiosity a little , so I went to see.  A click or two later I came across this article from March of 2017. 

How to Think About Vladimir Putin - Imprimis (hillsdale.edu)

Here is a pertinent excerpt.


Vladimir Putin is a powerful ideological symbol and a highly effective ideological litmus test. He is a hero to populist conservatives around the world and anathema to progressives. I don’t want to compare him to our own president, but if you know enough about what a given American thinks of Putin, you can probably tell what he thinks of Donald Trump.

Let me stress at the outset that this is not going to be a talk about what to think about Putin, which is something you are all capable of making up your minds on, but rather how to think about him. And on this, there is one basic truth to remember, although it is often forgotten. Our globalist leaders may have deprecated sovereignty since the end of the Cold War, but that does not mean it has ceased for an instant to be the primary subject of politics.

Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin) is not the president of a feminist NGO. He is not a transgender-rights activist. He is not an ombudsman appointed by the United Nations to make and deliver slide shows about green energy. He is the elected leader of Russia—a rugged, relatively poor, militarily powerful country that in recent years has been frequently humiliated, robbed, and misled. His job has been to protect his country’s prerogatives and its sovereignty in an international system that seeks to erode sovereignty in general and views Russia’s sovereignty in particular as a threat.

I dont know about you, but I found those paragraphs fascinating. 

This was 5 years ago. The article also justifies Russia taking over Crimea as a way to fight off NATO ambitions. 

The article talks about national sovereignty, which I take to be a criticism of international co-operation. 

The bottom line that I see - the far right admires Putin and has for some time. 


Tags

jrDiscussion - desc
[]
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
1  author  JohnRussell    2 years ago

Between the Claremont Institute and Hillsdale College, this is the tip of the spear of far right "intellectualism". Their best and brightest. People need to learn about these groups and create an opposition to them. 

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
2  author  JohnRussell    2 years ago
In 2009 Hillsdale  hired  right-wing activist Ginni Thomas, the wife of Justice Thomas, to help the college launch a Washington campus on Capitol Hill, across the street from the Heritage Foundation (where Arnn is a board member). From that facility, which inspired a 2018 Politico feature entitled " The College that Wants to Take Over Washington, " Hillsdale initially  ran  a joint fellowship program for senior congressional staff with Heritage and the Federalist Society.

Ben Domenech, founder of right-wing publication The Federalist, has used a studio at Hillsdale's Washington campus to record his podcast, and Federalist editor in chief Mollie Hemingway teaches journalism there. Michael Anton, a former Trump White House adviser and author of the notorious essay, " The Flight 93 Election ," which made an apocalyptic case for the necessity of electing Trump, has joined Hillsdale's Washington staff to lecture on politics. The school's cheerleaders have included many of the biggest names in right-wing media, including the late Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin and Hugh Hewitt, who for years has run a weekly  interview series  with Arnn and other Hillsdale faculty members that now includes hundreds of episodes.

How this tiny Christian college is driving the right’s nationwide war against public schools | Salon.com
 
 
 
bbl-1
Professor Quiet
3  bbl-1    2 years ago

Conservatives defending Putin?  Not really, they are defending themselves.  They want what Putin has.  Unfortunately, Putin may very well lose all of that, forcing the American conservatives to pick a new 'hero' such as Xi or even Kim Jung Un.  The right wing is bottomless. 

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
4  author  JohnRussell    2 years ago

I guess the conservatives have no answer. 

The conservative writer of the Imprimis article I excerpted from says that what people think of Putin they will think of Trump. As if this were a good thing. 

Right wing intellectuals approve of Vladimir Putin. The rank and file dumbass MAGA cult member doesnt know why they are supposed to like Putin, and cant explain it the way the brain trust can, but they tend to follow their leaders. 

 
 
 
cjcold
Professor Quiet
4.1  cjcold  replied to  JohnRussell @4    2 years ago
Right wing intellectuals

No such animal exists.

 
 
 
Gsquared
Professor Principal
5  Gsquared    2 years ago
Why Are So Many Conservatives Defending Vladimir Putin?

Because he is their ideological soul mate.

 
 

Who is online







426 visitors