Take note: Reactionaries and far-right movements across the “West” are siding with Putin. They see him as an ally in the struggle to uphold white Christian patriarchal rule – the kind of authoritarian strongman that can turn the tide against the forces of “woke” pluralism.
None of these rightwingers who are currently professing their sympathy for Putin know much about Russia or care about the specific causes and dynamics of what is going on in Ukraine. What matters to them is an imagined Russia: a stronghold of white patriarchal Christianity.
Putin understands that this is his appeal to Western reactionaries. Democracy is a real threat to him and his regime – not NATO, not Western military might. It is useful to him to be able to present himself as an ally in the fight against “wokeism” and for “traditional values.”
We’ve seen an even more pronounced version of this dynamic play out with the ongoing love affair between Western – and especially: American – conservatives and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, who loves to present himself as the alternative to EU-style multiracial pluralism.
(Note that Orbán is siding clearly with NATO and the EU against Putin on Ukraine: Russian imperialism is a threat to the region, and Orbán’s anti-”wokeism” won’t blind him to that. Western reactionaries won’t care – for them it’s all about democracy vs authoritarianism.)
Once again, America’s most important pro-Orbán cheerleaders like Tucker Carlson and Rod Dreher know and care very little about the actual situation in Hungary: They imagine a nation of and for white Christians, where men get to be real men. That’s enough.
They also love how Putin and Orbán both celebrate their nations’ (totally not invented!) past, and throw out those globalists (no dog whistle whatsoever!). To Western reactionaries, the imagined versions of “Russia” and “Hungary” have become models of how to organize society.
While the rightwing obsession with Putin and Orbán is utterly bizarre, it is a crucial reminder that the struggle over democracy and multiracial pluralism is indeed playing out not just in the U.S., and that the reactionary counter-mobilization is a transnational phenomenon.
It’s also why reactionary and far-right movements across the world have been obsessed with Trump. They rejoiced in 2016, because they saw his election as proof that multiracial, pluralistic democracy would never work, that the forces of reaction would ultimately prevail.
Trump, in this interpretation, was seen as evidence that any attempt to install multiracial pluralistic democracy would spark a backlash strong enough to defeat the nefarious forces of “woke” liberalism - Trump was supposed to stem the tide.
In a way, the escalating obsession with Orbán and Putin might be seen as a reaction to Trump’s failure to make good on that promise (at least initially – the Trumpists obviously have not been defeated!). If not Trump (for now), then who? Let’s look elsewhere.
Rightwingers understand clearly that the United States is an acute test case for whether or not a stable multiracial, pluralistic democracy is possible. It’s a question of world-historic significance: Such a political, social, and cultural order has never been achieved, anywhere.
There have been several stable, fairly liberal democracies – but either they have been culturally and ethnically homogeneous to begin with; or there has always been a pretty clearly defined ruling group: a white man’s democracy, a racial caste democracy, a “herrenvolk” democracy.
A truly multiracial, pluralistic democracy in which an individual’s status was not significantly determined by race, gender, or religion? That’s never been achieved anywhere. It’s a vision that reactionaries abhor – to them, it would be the end of “Western civilization.”
The Right has made its choice: If democracy threatens white Christian patriarchal rule, then democracy has got to go. More and more conservatives are ready to openly embrace authoritarianism – whatever works in the “noble” fight against multiracial pluralism.
The key question: How far into the mainstream will this ideology advance, how much of the Center will fall for this logic of anti-“wokeism” as the overriding concern of our era? How many “moderates” will ally with the Right because they see “the Left” as the more urgent threat?
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