Why Fox Not-News, and the Rest of the Far Right, Loves Putin and Not America

So Putin chose war this week. The invasion of Ukraine is underway and bloody already.

(Also, did they send troops to CHERNOBYL?!?! Where one bad artillery exchange could CRACK OPEN THE GODDAMNED RADIOACTIVE TOMB TO REACTOR NUMBER FOUR?!?!?! Do you want mutant radioactive bears, Putin? BECAUSE THIS IS HOW YOU GET MUTANT RADIOACTIVE BEARS.)

In the past couple of days, the Western leaders making up NATO - formed in opposition to a belligerent Soviet Union and stayed in alliance to keep the peace across Europe when the USSR fell - have done what they can in the early stages: Sanctions issued, diplomatic representatives recalled, public outrage, and promises of future action if Russia doesn't stop the invasion and walk their troops back. It's a delicate matter: blindly rushing in with NATO troops or issuing our own No-Fly Zone over Kyiv to stop Russian air bombings would clearly escalate to a broader war.

This is a serious moment for the United States. Much like previous situations where our foreign policy compels our nation to act in defense of our allies and interests overseas, you would think this is a moment similar to previous struggles like the Berlin Airlift, the Cuban Missile Crisis, or our nation's reactions to 9/11.

A moment for national unity regarding a grave and potentially tragic matter - straight-up war in Europe! - that almost assures American troops going into harm's way to end the conflict on our best possible terms.

Except you wouldn't know that if you tuned into Fox Not-News for all your Putin-loving, pro-Russia propaganda. Everyone on the Far Right - from the usual suspect donald "Putin's BFF" trump to Tucker Carlson - is taking Putin's side instead of President Biden's (via Meryl Cornfield at Washington Post (paywalled)):

As the United States seeks to rally its allies and impose tough penalties for Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine, a vocal group of Republicans and right-leaning commentators is expressing praise and admiration for the president’s strength and shrewdness. President Vladimir Putin, that is.

While most congressional Republicans back Biden’s tough line against Moscow — or argue it should be even tougher — a faction made up of conservative Republicans, supporters of former president Donald Trump and conservative media figures says Putin should be left alone, or even congratulated, by Americans.

Trump complimented Putin on Tuesday, saying it was a “smart move” by the Russian president to send “the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen” to the Ukraine border.

“This is genius,” Trump said in a conservative talk radio interview at his Mar-a-Lago resort, echoing his past praise of the Russian president. “Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful. He used the word ‘independent’ and ‘we’re going to go out and we’re going to go in and we’re going to help keep peace.’ You’ve got to say that’s pretty savvy...”

Of course trump is parroting Putin's lie about "peacekeepers" going into Ukraine. This is the same idiot who as President Loser of the Popular Vote (Twice) essentially did everything he could to give Putin more global prestige and even met with him in a meeting so private not even our own Intelligence agencies know what was shared.

In the meantime with the likes of Carlson:

Fox News host Tucker Carlson, like many others on the right, minimized Russia’s move to invade and overpower a neighboring country as a “border conflict” that should not concern Americans.

“It may be worth asking yourself, since it is getting pretty serious: ‘What is this really about? Why do I hate Putin so much?’” Carlson said Tuesday. “‘Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him?’”

In Carlson's view, the Far Left critics and progressives here in the United States are more his enemy than Putin is. So to him, Democrats are Evil and Russian autocratic kleptomaniacs are Good. All because Carlson and those autocrats are on the same wavelength.

There are several vulgar ironies at play.

Back when our nation faced a foreign policy crisis of this magnitude, it was 9/11. Middle Eastern terrorists had directly attacked our major cities and caused the deaths of thousands. War against those terrorists - primarily hiding in Afghanistan - required our nation to mobilize for war.

Fox News was one of the greatest voices screaming for war. And not just in Afghanistan: Fox punditry and other Far Right commentators pushed for an invasion and occupation of Iraq from 2002 into 2003, based on flimsy evidence and long-standing rage towards Saddam Hussein. President George W. Bush (The Lesser) pushed for that invasion, and anyone protesting against that - protesting against Dubya - felt the full wrath of Fox News' outrage.

Now here we are 20 years later, and with the United States edging to a war-time footing these same pundits - who proudly waved the Stars and Stripes screaming "USA! USA!" and demanded the rest of us obey their bloodlust - are now pushing for division and criticism of the current President and rooting for the other side... partly because this current President is a Democrat (boo hiss).

The horrifying thing is that the major reason why Fox Not-News and the rest of the Far Right Noise Machine is supporting Putin is because they share the same belief: This nationalist, Christian White Power identity common between Russians and racist extremists across Europe and the U.S.

Here's an NBC News report by Matt Bradley from 2017:

Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia is working to empower Europe’s far-right and Eurosceptic parties with offers of cooperation, loans, political cover and propaganda. Such love has not gone unrequited: European populists are answering back with fulsome praise for Russia, its foreign policy and its strongman leader...

From the Russian side, empowering anti-European Union populists has the obvious benefit of helping erode the strength of European institutions that Moscow has long considered enemies.

For Europe’s extreme right, the benefits of embracing Putin are more abstract and ideological, said Markus Wagner, a political science professor at the University of Vienna. They see Putin as the kind of patriotic hero who prizes national traditions and realpolitik over the internationalism and openness that have long characterized Western liberalism...

Here's a report by Michael Edison Hayden from the Southern Poverty Law Center about one such link to an extremist White Supremacist group:

Hatewatch found an email address ending with a Russian domain name referenced across the source code of a network of three extreme, far-right websites that operate primarily in the U.S. Those three websites share the same Google Analytics account, one that was first used by a notorious pro-Kremlin propagandist named Charles Bausman.

All three websites feature bylines used by members of The Right Stuff, a white nationalist organization that helped plan and promote the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. The Right Stuff is also the same white nationalist organization for which U.S. State Department Official Matthew Q. Gebert covertly recruited members, as Hatewatch first reported in 2019. At least two of the websites have published inflammatory, racist rhetoric in response to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that have erupted across the U.S. in recent months. Members of The Right Stuff have also defended eruptions of far-right violence in response to civil unrest this year...

Bausman has a long history of promoting Russian President Vladimir Putin to an English-speaking audience and communicated with a pro-Putin oligarch about money around the time Russia Insider first launched.

In 2015, the website The Interpreter published emails showing Bausman asked for money from pro-Kremlin Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev through his associate, Alexey Komov. The U.S. Department of Treasury sanctioned Malofeev in December 2014 “because he is responsible for or complicit in, or has engaged in, actions or polices that threaten the peace, security, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine and has materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of [pro-Kremlin separatist activity].”

Natalia Antonova, a journalist and Russia expert who lived in Moscow for seven years, overlapping the time when Bausman launched his website, told Hatewatch the timing of Russia Insider’s creation is significant, because it launched when Putin needed positive press in the U.S., due to backlash over Russia’s conflict with Ukraine.

“Russia Insider is founded in 2014, which is the same year that Russia attacks Ukraine. And Konstantin Malofeev is fingered as a financial link between so-called rebels in Ukraine and Moscow,” Antonova explained. “Russia was feeling embattled [by the Western press] because most people were not big fans of what Russia was doing to Ukraine. Then, here comes [Russia Insider] where if your takes are too extreme for [Kremlin controlled] Russia Today, that’s where you can get them published...”

This has been happening for a long time, almost a decade, and Putin's been cultivating these relationship with American hate groups to achieve his own agenda against Ukraine.

And the Far Right - the hate-driven, the money-driven - enjoy this cultivation because it gives them both money and power. Remember Russia's involvement with the National Rifle Association? The NRA got suckered into a money laundering scandal, all because they saw the money and they saw the chance to spread their hateful rhetoric with the aid of a foreign dictator they admired.

What's involved here is Christian Nationalism, an underlying ideology for a lot of the White Supremacist militias running around rioting in our streets and nation's Capitol. It's an ideology that abhors a diverse and open culture, and therefore rails against democracy, civil rights, women's choice, and everything else under the sun. It's an ideology reflected in Russia through Putin's alliance with a Russian Orthodox church that promotes the same anti-gay, anti-woman, racist trash you hear from Far Right Republicans every day (especially now in Texas and Florida, God help us).

The (mostly) White Evangelical crowd that makes up the Far Right voting base, and the Fox Not-News audience, worships the likes of Putin - and trump, who poses as a similar autocratic leader - because Putin offers them a chance to remake their own nation in their own Christianist image. In spite of the reality that Putin's (and trump's) actions and statements are so clearly in opposition to Jesus' teachings.

The hypocrisy of such adoration from the Far Right is lost on them. Their greed and their ideology blinds them to the reality that the United States - a nation formed, if flawed, on basic democratic norms and human rights - has to stand against the likes of Putin, who openly mocks everything we've built from 1776 to 1865 to 1945 to 1965 to 1991 to now.

Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon and the rest of the Far Right media are convinced they are backing the right side, even when it's in full opposition to their own nation's security and interests.

Goddamn them.

Part of me wants Biden to ask Congress to declare a state of war existing between the United States and Russia, not so that we are prepared to defend our NATO allies when (not if) Putin escalates the violence in Eastern Europe, but because that declaration would trigger certain laws that would make it harder for the goddamn wingnuts to openly praise Putin and even cut into all the business dealing they've got with Russia.

We're at war against all the spiritual wickedness - violence, corruption, deceit - that Putin represents, thou hypocrites. There's two sides: America's, or the bloody kleptocratic dictator Putin.

You're choosing poorly, Fox Not-News, you're all one step removed from outright treason against the United States. Keep it up, and you'll deserve to pay for your folly.