The American political right’s complicated internal debate over Russia and Vladimir Putin is coming to a head.
Even as congressional Republicans this week were threatening to cut off Ukraine aid once and for all, former president Donald Trump floated the idea that he would encourage Putin to attack NATO countries that didn’t pay enough; Tucker Carlson set about what was effectively a pro-Russian propaganda tour in which he downplayed Putin’s killing of political opponents; and then top Putin opposition leader Alexei Navalny was reported dead in prison.
The confluence of events has suddenly led to some stark comments from the more anti-Putin wing of the Republican Party, which set about deriding any Putin apologists and Russian propagandists in their midst.
Not when the chief apologist is Trump they don’t.
I read this as: “Some Republicans haven’t yet been paid off, are now bitter and sounding off about it.”
So they are turning on Trump right… right?
No they are not. They are essentially all Putin employees at this point
It’s so transparent.
Putin gets Tucker to come over, platforms himself to the idiots in the US, they go around on news interviews saying how he’s not so bad, Putin has Navalny killed n an obvious way, cognitive dissonance ensues, Republicans become further entrenched rather than admit they are beholden to a dictator and his boss, Putin.
It’s like a mob boss putting a cigarette out in a bought cop’s beer he gave him then insisting he finish it. A little reminder of who is in charge.
There is still some contestation within the Republicans - unfortunately not as strong in the House as in the Senate. Some strong words feature in the article:
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) called Carlson Russia’s “useful idiot.” After Navalny’s death, he added: “History will not be kind to those in America who make apologies for Putin and praise Russian autocracy. Nor will history be kind to America’s leaders who stay silent because they fear backlash from online pundits.”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) urged fellow Republican and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to “spend less time pushing Russian propaganda.”
A top political aide to Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) promoted Young’s denunciation of Navalny’s death by saying, “My U.S. Senator is not a venal Putin apologist, but I’m less sure about yours.”
Presidential candidate Nikki Haley said Navalny was killed by the “same Putin who Donald Trump praises and defends.” Haley soon noted that, while Trump weighed in repeatedly on NATO this week and posted dozens of times on Truth Social on Friday, he hasn’t yet mentioned Navalny . Former Trump vice president Mike Pence posted, more generally, “There is no room in the Republican Party for apologists for Putin.
This won’t influence my opinion of Republicans at all. They’ve gone way past the point where I will ever even consider forgiving them for all the treasonous bullshit they’ve foisted on us.
And the fascist bullshit they’re actively planning (see Project 2025).
Idk, I could muster some forgiveness if it meant they flipped into irrelevance.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The confluence of events has suddenly led to some stark comments from the more anti-Putin wing of the Republican Party, which set about deriding any Putin apologists and Russian propagandists in their midst.
In addition to Carlson’s comments about Putin’s killing opponents, former congressman Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) and conservative influencers quickly likened Navalny’s death to Trump’s criminal charges.
But a significant and influential segment of the party has demonstrated a tendency toward a brand of moral relativism and even authoritarianism that creates an opening for giving Putin a pass.
A number I keep coming back to: Shortly after it was revealed in late 2016 that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump, an Economist/YouGov poll showed a sharp increase in favorable GOP views of Putin.
Influential voices on the right have spent years creating a permission structure for shrugging at things like Navalny’s death (see: Jamal Khashoggi).
Republican Russia hawks have increasingly lost the will to fight those battles, as their response to Trump’s NATO comments demonstrated just a few short days ago.
The original article contains 735 words, the summary contains 175 words. Saved 76%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Tell me who won the cold war without telling me who won the cold war.
I’m sure they’ll come around.