"Unprovoked Is a Damn Lie"

Some thoughts on V. Putin's American pep squad

No comment necessary…

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Poor, put-upon V. Putin! He never wanted to invade Ukraine. He never wanted his armed forces to commit countless war crimes in the course of the invasion! But he just couldn’t help it! That focus of evil in the modern world, the United States of America, left him no choice! America and its NATO flunkies simply refused to accept the undeniable fact that Russia is entitled to oversee Ukrainian politics and foreign policy—because, you know, Ukraine is a fake country that shouldn’t even exist. So what else could he do? The threat posed to Russia was…it was…well, it was existential. If Tucker Carlson says so, then it must be true.

Every time I write something about the Russo-Ukrainian War, the feedback from the national conservative fever swamp follows that script. For instance, this landed in the comments section of my latest article on the subject:

after more than three years, his Zelinsky’s crap army hasn’t managed to knock out the Russian army and has done nothing but lose ground. And If Putin doesn’t get the deal he wants, he probably will go win Kyiv and the whole of Ukraine. And if NATO don’t like it, they can WWIII over there for all Trump cares. That will make America the Hegemony in the world again.

To which I responded:

Your analysis has everything going for it, except a sense of reality. If V. Putin could march into Kyiv any time he wants, why hasn’t he done so? Why hasn’t he presented the Russian people with that great victory? The reason is that his armed forces can’t deliver it—not even with the help of North Korean mercenaries.

Which drew this retort:

because he won’t and doesn’t need to present himself as the bad guy here. It is the Allies/America that is the evil here. They interfered with Ukraine politics CAUSING Putin to invade in the first place. Unprovoked is a damn lie. He doesn’t need to stoop to their low level and ruin his reputation with his allies like China.

So Putin could win the war any time he likes—but declines to do so because it might make him look bad. It might even hurt his image in the eyes of allies like China! And if he does try to win the war and NATO opposes him, the Russian despot will just go ahead and start World War III.

The logic of my interlocutor’s argument can hardly be called impeccable. He skates past the fact that Russia and Putin already look bad—have looked bad for many years now. And the idea that China would react with horror to a Russian victory in Ukraine is, in a word, ludicrous. On the contrary, the Chinese commie oligarchy would regard the successful completion of a war of aggression with envy and approval. Taiwan, you know. As for World War III, Putin knows that would be the end of him and his country.

It’s fairly obvious that my natcon critic strung this argument together without taking a moment of his time to think things through. All he has in his head is a jumble of disconnected talking points that come tumbling out in no particular order when someone has a critical word to say about his heroes, V. Putin and D. Trump. And the experience I’ve acquired in the course of my Substack commentary on the war has convinced me that there are many more like him. Indeed, the natcon narrative on Ukraine is distinguished by its ignorance, mendacity, incoherence, and general bad faith.

The question remains whether these people really believe what they say. Now, my general policy is to take people at their word. If, for example, you’re a pro-Palestinian activist who wears Hamas colors and indulges in genocidal rhetoric, why should I look for reasons indicating that you don’t really mean it? I take you at your word. But as the above example indicates, the natcon position on Ukraine is not only wrong and dishonest, but positively lunatic in its reversal of reality. That’s what these people believe?

Of course, there are historical precedents. Neville Chamberlain and many others seem really to have convinced themselves that in 1938 Czechoslovakia, not Germany, threatened the peace of Europe. The British prime minister declared, and doubtless believed, that Hitler was a man of his word, a statesman, amenable to reason. Today, there’s an echo of his attitude in Donald Trump’s assessment of Putin. In both cases, that assessment was contradicted by a good deal of evidence, which took plenty of magical thinking to suppress.

Still, there’s something especially lowbrow and oafish about national conservatism, not just on Ukraine but in its general approach to politics. It embodies, for example, a viperous strain of anti-Americanism—hardly distinguishable from that of the radical Left—which is passed off as opposition to “elitism.” Indeed, I myself have been accused of being an elitist, despite a patent lack of credentials. Given recent history, there are certainly grounds for skepticism regarding the individuals and institutions so designated, with their bogus dedication to “the Science” and their insufferable hypocrisy. But the natcon attitude seems to reject the proposition that facts as such matter. If they emanate from quarters designated as “elite,” even the most obvious facts are rejected tout court. In their place are substituted fairy tales of the kind that we get concerning Ukraine.

Well, if you’re committed to the defense of guys like V. Putin and Donald Trump, perhaps you have to be prepared to reject inconvenient facts. I’m not suggesting here that they’re equivalent persons. Putin is a true monster of evil; Trump’s just a man of many flaws. I happen to believe that the President is dead wrong on Ukraine—but on other issues, such as border security, he’s dead right. As best I can, I call balls and strikes on Trump. I support him when I believe that he merits support, but I’m not delirious of joining a cult.

Among Trump’s bequests to posterity will be the debris left by his wrecking ball approach to American foreign policy. Throwing Ukraine under the bus, sucking up to V. Putin and the Iranian ayatollahs, undermining our alliances around the world—Donald Trump is “making America great again” by rendering it less powerful, less respected, less feared, and more isolated. There are plenty of other people in America, Right and Left, who define greatness in just that way.