Thread by @Noahpinion

It's good to see lots of leftists backpedaling their embrace of Russia's victim narrative and condemning Putin's move in Donbas.

Apparently they were betting that the Russian buildup was all for show and no invasion would happen.

As long as it was all just posturing and show, they thought they could use it to score points against liberals by exploiting Last War Brain and claiming that U.S. anger over the buildup was somehow similar to the Iraq War.

noahpinion.substack.com/p/last-war-bra…

Obviously tankies will keep pushing the Kremlin line, but mainstream leftists will distance themselves from that line. Expect to see tankies shift to attacking mainstream leftists, as they attacked Bernie for criticizing Russia the other day.

What will be interesting to see is whether rightists -- Tucker, J.D. Vance, Hawley, etc. -- will continue to carry water for Russian aggression and push the Kremlin line, or whether they were also betting on Putin pulling back.

Remember, rightists act as apologists for Russian aggression not just because they want to dunk on liberals who stand up to Russia, but because A) rightists secretly do believe Russia helped Trump win in 2016, and B) rightists see Russia as a defender of their values.

But if rightists persist in pushing Kremlin narratives when Russian tanks are actually rolling through Ukraine, it will piss off Independents and the Reaganite conservatives who still comprise about half the GOP.

Thus it could ultimately weaken the Trumpist/rightist faction.

In any case, hopefully this episode will remind Americans of all political stripes of an important truth: Not everything that happens in the world is part of American domestic political psychodrama. Sometimes other countries actually do things that are not about us.

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