One of the strangest aspects of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has been the support given to it, or at least the excuses made for it, by elements of the Western Right wing.

This has been claimed as merely another example of the “Alt-Right” or “Far-Right” in action, although the former slur seems to have died away in the last couple of years, apparently having failed to have much impact, probably because it was never well-defined in the first place.

In an example of the classic donut representation of ideologies the Far Right appears to have matched up with the Far Left, at least on this issue, although the same observations have been made of the recent anti-mandate protests in Wellington. I’ve always thought the elements of the donut that would do so would be the various brands of Anarchism, with only a hair’s breadth difference between the Anarcho-Communists and Anarcho-Capitalists – a wide, deep canyon in other words.

But perhaps this meshing is based on a faith in a vast, centralised state? After all, Lefties like Chris Trotter have quite happily identified themselves as “tankies”, – a term of abuse apparently used within the Left, of which I was unaware until he used it a few weeks ago:

“Tankie” is a pejorative label for communists, particularly Stalinists, who support the authoritarian tendencies of Marxism–Leninism…Specifically it was used to distinguish party members who spoke out defending Soviet use of tanks to crush the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and later the 1968 Prague Spring uprising, or more broadly, those who adhered to pro-Soviet positions in general.

As such Chris has often defended Putin’s Russia using all the now-standard arguments: the threat of NATO, the West in general and especially the USA, the corruption of Russia by capitalism, etc, etc, plus the massive propaganda war against Russia. He and others have also pointed out the hypocrisies and double standards involved when looking at events like the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the attack on Libya in 2011.

To be fair Chris has nevertheless condemned the latest Russian invasion as a crime.

But what of the Western Right who are defending Putin’s actions? A rather dejected sounding classical liberal from Britain, Daniel Hannan, someone whose arguments I’ve very much admired over the years, posed that question in The Examiner: How can any American patriot support Putin?

How can people who call themselves nationalists be so blasé about the asphyxiation of a nation whose sole offense has been to assert its independence?
…
But what is it that Trump and his followers see in Putin in the first place? This is where I start to worry. For a Reagan conservative, Putin’s flaws are obvious. He does not respect elections. He believes he can make up the rules as he goes along. He defines some of his people as “traitors” and encourages others to go after them. The sole principle of his foreign policy is Machtpolitik — let the stronger take from the weaker. He has replaced multiparty pluralism with a cult of personality. He can’t tolerate criticism.

Are Trumpsters as repelled by these things as Reaganites? Considering that list in an American context, I wonder. Things have changed since the Gipper’s time. In a polarized age, people are readier to overlook the shortcomings of politicians who specialize in “owning” the other side. Instead of wanting to limit the state as a general principle, modern conservatives are happy to make use of it when it suits their ends. And whereas they used to support candidates who shared their principles, they now tend to shift their principles whenever their champion does.

Unlike Hannan I’m well aware of plenty of Trump supporters who are very much against Putin’s invasion and wish to see him fail, including especially seeing the back of him as the leader of Russia. I did laugh at his take on Leftist support for Putin:

There is nothing surprising about dissent on the Left, chunks of which will align with any cause, however vile, provided it is sufficiently anti-American. If H.G. Wells’s novel came true tomorrow and Martian invaders launched their spaceships at Earth, there would be a New York Times op-ed arguing that the invasion was an understandable response to former President George W. Bush’s foreign policy.

But I don’t think it’s as simple as Hannan’s claim that it’s just siding with those who “own” their personal opposition, and a better answer may be found in this analysis of the apologetics for Putin, one that’s more subtle, and more disturbing:

“Both the liberal center-Left and the conservative center-Right are basically committed to upholding the global liberal order. Putin, by invading and attempting to conquer a sovereign state, challenges that order. If Putin succeeds, even modestly, it represents a failure for the U.S. establishment figures who tried to stop him. And establishment failures equal insurgent opportunities. Both the rightists and the leftists here are fighting against the Fukuyaman end-of-history idea that gives their own movements little space to move up.”

I think that’s it, but he’s also clinging to a very slim reed in thinking that these groups are frightened by the idea that the Fukuyamian world of the 1990’s is going to return, especially when he pinpoints its failures himself:

… the rightists and leftists must now see their shared nightmare unfolding before them — a great muddling-through, a slow revivification of the institutions that failed in Iraq and the Great Recession and the Trump Era. 

Ummm… No! The failures of the institutions that created the disasters of Iraq and the GFC, and before them the 9/11 attacks, are what led to the Trump era, and the continued public failure of them during Trump’s presidency – most vividly on show now with the slow revelation of coverups by none other than the CIA and FBI themselves, plus their handmaidens in Big Tech and the MSM in things like the Russia Collusion nonsense and Hunter Biden’s laptop of corruption, all working to bring Trump down – have only reduced public confidence in them further, worsened the situation and pulled us further away from that fabulous 90’s world that the author pines for.

He also doesn’t even mention the catastrophic Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan and the authoritarian over-reaction to the Chinese Lung Rot pandemic in almost all Western nations which saw our Public Health institutions and a good chunk of the public gleefully turning themselves into modern-day Stasi agents.

The End of History is dead and something new will take its place.