While most Americans pull for Ukraine and its resistance to Russia’s invasion, Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., recently called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “thug” and labeled his government “incredibly evil.” It’s part of a broader phenomenon among hard-right politicians who have found a soft spot for Russia and its monstrous leader. It’s time to ask some hard questions about the American right’s fetishization of Vladimir Putin’s violent autocracy.
Historically, hawkish conservatives were the toughest talkers regarding America’s chief global adversary. Even after the fall of Soviet communism, U.S. politicians understood (until recently) that a non-communist Russia didn’t necessarily mean a non-threatening Russia. Russia’s post-communist government has never fully embraced democracy and lost ground on that front under Putin. Russia’s nuclear arsenal remains an existential threat to humanity.
Yet there’s Tucker Carlson on Fox News, blithely declaring that America has no legitimate interest in opposing Russia’s unprovoked invasion of a nascent democracy. As Mother Jones reported Sunday, a Kremlin propaganda office has distributed a memo telling state-controlled media to “use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson.”
