THE ECONOMIST
Article is behind a paywall. Fortunately the FB site : “Boycott Russia Today” has published it:
Mar 21. 2022
The Economist
Almost every Western country has groups like the FvD: nationalist-populist outfits that oppose immigration, Islam, multiculturalism, the EU and UN, gay or transgender rights and liberalism in general, and that warn of an elite globalist conspiracy. In America they are often known as the alt-right, in Europe as the identitarian right. Many have cultivated Vladimir Putin, seeing him as a Christian conservative or at least a fellow opponent of globalism. (In mid-February Mr Baudet called Mr Putin “a terrific guy who was so right about NATO aggression, the war-hungry EU, the World Economic Forum and so on”.) They often have ties to Russian-sponsored think-tanks and get help from Russian state-backed media and internet trolls.
In 2016, the year of the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump, history seemed to be going their way. But their fortunes since have been mixed, and the invasion of Ukraine looks like a turning-point. Outrage against Russian aggression puts those who have defended Mr Putin on the back foot. The war has energised the centrist parties with which they compete, and revived enthusiasm for liberal internationalism and the EU. Russian subsidies for think-tanks are drying up. Russian propaganda outlets such as RT and Sputnik have been expelled from some countries and kicked off platforms like YouTube. And nationalist-populist politicians have been forced to choose: find some way to excuse Mr Putin’s invasion, or condemn it and admit that they were wrong about him.
In Europe the dilemma has been most embarrassing for France’s Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour, and for Italy’s Matteo Salvini.
Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) party faces an even thornier problem. Its base is in the former East Germany, where voters are more sympathetic to Russia than in the country’s west.
For Mr Putin’s right-wing friends in western Europe the war is mainly a political problem. For those in central and eastern Europe it is often a practical one: Russia does economic favours for them. Viktor Orban, Hungary’s president, is a nationalist-populist who, like Mr Putin, claims to defend Christian Europe against a global liberal conspiracy. His takeover of Hungary’s courts and media is sometimes described as a soft version of Putinism, and he tried to restrain EU sanctions after Russia invaded Crimea in 2014.
In the Balkans, too, Russia’s ties are deep. Serbia has received Russian backing since the Kosovo war of 1999. It has a hard-right populist government that resembles Mr Putin’s and signed a deal last year for cheap Russian gas. It has refused to implement sanctions, and its state media repeat baseless Russian propaganda accusing Ukraine of genocide against Russian-speakers.
As for Mr Putin’s apologists across the ocean, the war in Ukraine has been a political mess.
For others the war is far afield. Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s populist president, has not suffered much from the odd decision to make his first-ever visit to Moscow in mid-February. He now wants to use sanctions on Russia as an excuse to relax rules on mining. Populists who were adamantly anti-Russian from the start, such as Poland’s governing Law and Justice party, have done fine, too. Indeed, they may benefit from wartime solidarity: the EU is expected to relax its punishment of Poland over the government’s attempt to take over the courts.
But Mr Putin’s invasion has probably put an end to the vision of a global alt-right, with himself among its leaders. Half a decade ago, Americans were worrying that the online propaganda that won Mr Trump the election had been hatched in troll factories in St Petersburg. Western conservative Christians were staging conferences with groups from the state-backed Russian Orthodox Church to fume against “gender ideology”. The idea of a unified nationalist-populist movement against Western liberalism, stretching from Moscow via Budapest to Washington, seemed worryingly plausible.
Now it looks fanciful and out-of date.
Poland’s PiS party remains the sole populist right party in Europe that is opposed to putler. All the rest still support the genocidal fascist dictator.
Serbia “has refused to implement sanctions, and its state media repeat baseless Russian propaganda accusing Ukraine of genocide against Russian-speakers.”
This itself is a terrible war crime. Serbia must be sanctioned to shit.
This war will cause scores of rightist supporters to flee right-wing parties. It’s becoming a fad to hate Russia and the Russians.
On a side note, a guy I know in Germany told me yesterday that he met a group of friends in a nightclub. They greeted each other with “slava Ukraini!”
Yeah, we’re waiting for the German politicians to catch up with their people and actually try to represent them. Same here in the US. Probably more than 80% want to help Ukraine close the skies but our pansy president still wants Putin to win. Biden is obviously not running in 2024 or his mind is gone.
I’ve always been certain that putin’s garbage of a government was and is, a hard-left system.
Left-wing vs Right-wing dates back to the time of the French Revolution, when after the people removed their king, they met in a courthouse. The side that favored government held weakly by an elected, though limited, official or perhaps another king who listened to ideals of free speech within French traditions, that side gathered on the right of the courthouse. These favored the independent ownership of property and individual rights.
The side that favored government wielding strong law, wanting new ideas, and to vigorously enforce this with military support, that side gathered on the left of the courthouse. These favored collectivism, property being owned by government, and rejecting individual rights.
Now putin’s been getting nostalgic for the communist “ideals,” and has lately started applying some more of those in order to hold his power over the Russian economy. That’s basically hard-left. Even though the leftists say they want it all in the “name of the people,” they still inevitably need a central leader to control their group, and apply the power.
The American Revolution’s leaders focused their efforts on creating a system to listen to the public, to limit their own personal power within government, and to apply law by the results of the votes. That’s what I understand as hard-right.
In either, whoever gets the power also get the temptation to abuse power, but the abuse is less likely to happen when directed by a vote, “the tyranny of the majority,” in a hard-right example, to which self-imposed limits of government restrict this.
Damn it. The spam filter again. I’d left a carefully thought out explanation and comparison of the origins of “right/left-wing.”
I’d also explained why I’m certain that putin’s following a left-wing example.
Putin is a leftist. He was a voluntary communist, in his own words, and thinks the death of the soviet union is variously illegal, and/or a geopolitical disaster. He wants to reassemble the Soviet Union with himself as General Secretary. Putin never gave up communism. He adopted communist symbols in many cases, like the return of the Red Star to the Army, as well as making plans to take Ukraine and Moldova back under Moscow’s thumb.
Putin is now typical of the sort of “leadership” Russia will see going forward. Only the people in the intel apparatus understand what is going on, and that has long been the case. In the future, products of the intel apparatus is all you will see in charge until Russia undergoes its final breakup.
Putin while speaking sympathetically about Hillary said his politics is similar to hers and her Party. Imagine that.