The Far Right Is Now Anti-anti-Putin

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/wait-what/62323220199fdd002140baa5/gop-tucker-carlson-putin-propaganda/

There was a brief moment, when Russia first launched its invasion of Ukraine, that the GOP wasn’t shopping Kremlin talking points. A few weeks ago at CPAC, the right was divided over how to message Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The right has been full of Vladimir Putin fanboys going back to the Trump administration, but here was their favorite authoritarian just cruising into Ukraine bombing hospitals and killing children. It was hard to imagine how the far right could twist itself into a pro-Putin stance when what Putin was doing was completely indefensible by any human. What I failed to imagine was the anti–anti-Putin movement.

A person does not need to be pro-Putin to be anti–anti-Putin. Pro-Putinism is, after all, completely untenable. Instead, one merely asks questions about anti-Putinism. Or if you’re Tucker Carlson, you deliver a bizarre monologue attacking those who oppose Putin, as he did in late February: “Democrats in Washington have told you you have a patriotic duty to hate Vladimir Putin. … Anything less than hatred of Putin is treason … hating Putin has become the central purpose of America’s foreign policy.” Tucker can defend himself by saying he’s not for anything. He’s just asking questions about why the rest of the world recoils at hospital bombings.

On Monday, two of Fox News’s own were killed in Ukraine: cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra Kuvshynova, who was working with Fox reporters. On Tuesday, Carlson did devote a segment to Zakrzewski and Kuvshynova. And yet he also pressed on with his usual routine, saying:

“Masks were a training exercise. Mandatory masking was a shock collar designed to teach Americans unquestioning obedience and, of course, it worked because shock collars do work. In a single day last month we watched, for example, our entire professional class dutifully changed their Twitter avatars from mask up to the now mandatory Ukrainian flag. There was no debate about doing this, no reflection. There was not even a real conversation. They just did it. Millions of people simply assumed reflexively a partisan position in a highly complicated foreign crisis, the next crisis, and as they did it, they moved in perfect lockstep.”

*snip*

[live love laugh]

1. RW pretzel 🥨 logic never makes sense.

[Caliman73]

8. It isn't meant to make sense.

There is no logic. Right Wing ideology is not predicated on logic. It is emotional. It is predicated on certain traditional structures which are accepted because they are accepted. That is the depth of the ideology.

Putin is good because he is against progressive ideas. That is it. They try to dress it up but that is the core.

It isn't meant to make sense it is meant to make followers out of angry young White men.

[live love laugh]

10. Good clarification -- no logic at all.

I do, however, like the term pretzel logic as it is a license-plate sized response to their endless hypocrisy.

[peppertree]

2. The old 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'

Never a good argument - least of all if this 'friend' is a paranoid psychopath.

[John1956PA]

3. Yesterday, I heard a repub businessman conveying that far-right line.

The propaganda these far-right adherents are listening to is a persistent danger to democracy.

[Evolve Dammit]

13. no doubt about it. They want to burn it down. Zero idea after that except go back to 1800's?

[sanatanadharma]

4. The new 'antidisestablishmentarians'

The new antidisestablishmentarianism denies being pro-Putin while putting out propaganda against (anti) the current dissing of Putin's establishment.

The immoral among USa resent the ethical 'virtue signaling' of those who have virtue.
"I'm not pro-Satan, I'm just antithetic to your dissing the Devil."

:confusion:

[Johnny2X2X]

5. My hope is that this Russian invasion wakes some people up

The Republicans through their lot in with Putin and Russia because of Trump. Try as they might, they cannot distance themselves from 5 years of Russia loving. They cannot distance themselves from their party head, Trump, taking Putin's side over US military intelligence publicly over and over. They cannot hide from the fact that the only thing Trump changed in their party's platform in 2016 for the RNC was the stance on Ukraine. They cannot hide from the fact that Trump's campaign manager was Putin's envoy in Ukraine and helped install a pro Russian despot there. They cannot hide from their desire to remove sanctions on Russia over and over.

It's obvious that Trump had a deal with Putin to give Ukraine to them. He spent 4 years trying to do so, he was even impeached for withholding military aid that Ukraine needed to defend themselves from Russia.

Watching FOX News still parroting Putin's talking points. Watching Republican politicians trashing Zelensky and Ukraine's democracy. Watching all Republicans squirm because they know people will not forget how they chose Russia over their own country over and over again. All of this makes me hopeful that voters will "wake up", Russia took over one of the major political parties i the United States, they own the GOP, some people are seeing that now for the first time. At least that's what I hope.

[Caliman73]

9. It isn't just Trump...

The GOP represents the far right in this country. The far right in Russia (including Putin) across Europe, and in the US have more in common with each other than they do with left leaning people in their own countries.

The GOP, because it has not represented the needs of the average person since maybe the Civil War, has lost people. What they have left is assorted groups on the far right spectrum. They have to pander to those people to form enough of a coalition so they can cheat their way into or to retain power.

[Mr.Bill]

6. I will never forgive or forget the ones

who went pro-Putin just to be anti-Biden. The can wear that one for the rest of their lives. Treasonous bastards, every one of them.

[certainot]

7. putin was using rw radio and limbaugh far back as at least 2008 but even before that putin

and russia were sold as shining egs of the deregulation ayn radian wet dream and always anti-Democratic.

from using limbaugh to withhold support from mccain until he chose palin, to using a russian hack and limbaugh to create 'climategate', to feeding limbaugh a blueprint for blaming the 'liberal deep state' for the russian/mueller 'hoax', the limbaugh talk radio republicans love that macho putin bullshit.

[Evolve Dammit]

14. well said.

[iemanja]

11. euphemism

It's pro-Putin, pro-invasion. Full stop.

[czarjak]

12. Lock-Stepper said "lockstep"?