The myth of the Putin Party

The Putin Party myth
In recent weeks, the two most influential men on the American right have come under close scrutiny for their views on Russian president Vladimir Putin and his increasingly indiscriminate attack on Ukraine.

The first is Donald Trump, whose repeated insistence of Vladimir Putin’s “genius” and “savvy” have earned him unflattering headlines. The former president certainly seems to have an unhealthy fascination with, and, on a certain level, admiration for, strongmen, authoritarians and dictators. Out of office, he is reportedly pen pals with Kim Jong-un, for instance.

However, it’s not just a stretch but a…

The Putin Party myth

In recent weeks, the two most influential men on the American right have come under close scrutiny for their views on Russian president Vladimir Putin and his increasingly indiscriminate attack on Ukraine.

The first is Donald Trump, whose repeated insistence of Vladimir Putin’s “genius” and “savvy” have earned him unflattering headlines. The former president certainly seems to have an unhealthy fascination with, and, on a certain level, admiration for, strongmen, authoritarians and dictators. Out of office, he is reportedly pen pals with Kim Jong-un, for instance.

However, it’s not just a stretch but a straightforward misrepresentation to describe Trump as pro-Putin. His widely discussed comments on Putin’s smarts were made as part of a critique of Biden’s weakness on Russia and alongside a claim that such an invasion would never have happened on his watch.

That’s not to say Trump’s claim is correct. (And in light of the Russian invasion, his “perfect” phone call to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky only looks more disgraceful.) But the basic fact is that Trump’s weird Putin flattery disguises a reasonably orthodox view on the current crisis. Indeed, other presidents go in for a far more restrained version of the same thing. Just last summer, Biden called the Russian president a “worthy adversary.”

Tucker Carlson, the second most influential right-winger in America, has also faced criticism for his comments on Russia and Ukraine. A highlight reel of the Fox News host’s comments on Putin is an embarrassing compendium of apologia for a tyrant.

Yet there are a few things to note. First, Carlson’s back-pedal: “Russia has obviously earned our contempt,” he said on his primetime show last night, whereas a few years ago he said he was rooting for Russia.

Second, for all that Trump and Carlson are said to be evidence of a pro-Russia drift in the Republican Party, they actually take opposite views on the current conflict. The comments for which Carlson have earned opprobrium — “Why do I care what is going on in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia?” — represent a harsh brand of isolationism. Acerbic, even trollish in tone, and a distinct and substantive critique (not one I agree with) of an overcommitted US foreign policy in Europe. Trump’s view is almost the polar opposite: Biden isn’t overreacting; he’s being too weak, according to the former president.

On the right’s outer fringes, things get a lot dumber very quickly. White nationalist nut Nick Fuentes led his acolytes in applause for the Russian president at a conference in Orlando this weekend. Steve Bannon and guests on his show want you to know that at least in Russia they know which bathroom to use (whatever that has to do with war in Ukraine).

Others are hopelessly muddled. Candace Owens can’t decide if the West provoked Putin into invading Ukraine or if wokeness means we look too weak in the eyes of the Russian president.

Meanwhile in Congress, the Republican lawmakers who generally indulge some of the more bombastic and outlandish views on how the world works are positively dull when it comes to Vladimir Putin. Lauren Boebert, for example, is “praying for Ukraine,” a country with a “great president who said clearly, ‘live free or die.’”

To a certain kind of Russiagate-addled MSNBC viewer, this conflict is made all the more terrifying by the fact that one of America’s major parties has taken Putin’s side. (It’ll be interesting to see if Biden goes there in his State of the Union speech tonight.) But it’s just a myth.

In fact, the polling shows that Republican voters want to take a tougher approach on Russia than Democrats. According to a new Quinnipiac poll, 80 percent of Republican voters, compared to 44 percent of Democrats, think the Biden administration has not been tough enough on Putin. How many take the opposite view and think Biden has been too tough (an approximation of Carlson’s position)? Just 2 percent. The average conservative takes one look at the weird ways in which the culture wars have boxed some on the right into weird Putin apologia and runs a mile.

If the right’s response to war has failed to live up to the fever dreams of liberals convinced that the GOP is run by Putin’s useful idiots, it has also disappointed paleoconservatives sure that the Trump presidency meant their more restrained foreign policy views were in ascendency. There is a noisy crowd of Trumpist national conservatives making versions of this case in Washington, but out there in the country, normie anti-Russia hawkery is alive and well. The party’s rank and file doesn’t want to cozy up to Russians; they want give Ukrainians the weapons they need to kill them.

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A defeat for disinfo

The limits of pro-Kremlin sentiment in the West — and the Russian government’s epic failure in the propaganda war over the conflict in Ukraine — expose another myth that we have been told about contemporary politics. For years, we were warned about complicated online campaigns, sophisticated attacks on reality and the disorienting power of Putin’s operatives and useful idiots. And what have they achieved? A few kooks drooling over the Russian president and the rest of the United States in full-bore freedom-fried mode, boycotting vodka and demanding that every famous Russian they can think of speaks out against Putin. Remember that next time you are warned about the sinister power of disinformation.

Can Reynolds meet the moment?

The text of Biden’s State of the Union speech has reportedly undergone heavy revisions in recent days, as an address that the president had planned to use to reset his domestic political agenda will have to acknowledge and respond to a world changed by Putin’s invasion. No surprises there (though it will be interesting to see what substance Biden lays out on foreign policy beyond a denunciation of Russia’s invasion). As Hugh Hewitt points out, one move overtaken by events in Europe is the GOP’s choice of speaker for their rebuttal. Prior to the attack on Ukraine, Iowa’s Kim Reynolds was a good choice: a rising star and a red-state governor who could draw a sharp contrast between the two parties on Covid, schools and the economy. Now that foreign policy has taken center stage, she is a more awkward fit.