Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, there were about two decades during which the world was filled with hope for the spread of liberal democracy – free elections, respect for human rights, the rule of law. Democratic inclusion, it was widely believed, would be increasingly adopted in place of authoritarian rule and bigoted repression.
Then came the 2008 global financial crisis. The irresponsible financial elite who caused it were bailed out by taxpayers, while ordinary people suffered. The poor were mired in austerity. As discontent intensified, macho xenophobic culture warriors came forward to launch a sustained attack on the ethos of democracy and cooperation. Racism barely disguised as ‘White’ nationalism; misogyny cloaked as ‘traditional family values’; prejudice and intolerance hidden behind invocations of ‘Christian’ faith – all coming together as a political platform for those who despise diversity, equality, and inclusiveness.
Vladimir Putin has played a key role in promoting this political platform and developing mutually supportive relations with culture warriors across Europe and the US who seek to use the same platform to attack liberal democracy in their own country.
For Putin, Russia should strive to be a powerful, autocratic country, and as the ideology of communism failed to provide a foundation for sustaining that, an alternative is needed. He found it in the old mix of chauvinistic ‘holier-than-thou’ supremacism. It was not only handy in presenting him as a quasi-messianic figure who leads his people – in a strict top-down hierarchy where a few can amass vast wealth while others have little – in condemning foreigners and social ‘deviants’, it enabled him to build alliances with people in the West who were prepared to undermine their own liberal democratic regimes in order to gain political power.
In lambasting the ‘Satanic West’ – for its liberal tolerance, its acceptance of immigrants, and its rejection of firm leadership – he contrasts ‘his’ god-fearing rule of Russia with the democratic-minded figures in the US and Europe who are critical of his autocratic stance, and hamper his expansionist ambitions. This signals to illiberal politicians in the West that they would have a powerful supporter in Putin should they seek to win power by launching culture wars to attack immigrants, modernity, and every kind of support for diversity, equality, or inclusiveness.
From 2010s on, many instigators of culture wars started to gain wider political support – Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Viktor Orbán, Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini, and leaders of anti-immigration parties in Austria, Germany, Slovakia, etc. Along with their xenophobic rhetoric and antipathy towards liberal tolerance, they have a distinct relationship with Putin’s politics. They praise Putin, even if they qualify their admiration with reservations about some of the things he has done. They officially object to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but are ever ready to blame Ukraine and the West for provoking Russia in the first place – and they are not keen to back any action to halt Russia’s attacks. Questionable financial support from Russian sources has been found or the subject of investigation in relation to people close to them politically. Systematic social media support for their electoral and referendum campaigns has come from Russia. Ideologically, their views on non-Whites, women, LGBTs, refugees, political accountability, and religious freedom (for their version of ‘Christianity’ but not anyone else), are far closer to Putin’s than they are to their rivals for public office back home.
It might seem incongruous at first glance that so many ‘my country first’ xenophobes would cultivate a positive relationship with Putin who does not hesitate to put Russia first – even when it is at the expense of the lives of people in other countries such as Georgia and Ukraine. But on closer inspection we will see that the fomenting of a global culture war to get rid of liberal democratic governments can help previously fringe groups secure political dominance. If a price has to be paid in showing deference to Russia, they are happy to pay it.
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For more on Putin’s links with right-wing culture warriors in the West, see:
‘The pro-Putin far right is on the march across Europe – and it could spell tragedy for Ukraine’, by Armida van Rij, The Guardian, 11 April 2024: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/11/putin-far-right-europe-ukraine-eu-slovakia-russian
‘Conservatism by decree: Putin as a figurehead for the global far-right’, by Ksenia Luchenko, European Council on Foreign Relations, 1 March 2024: https://ecfr.eu/article/conservatism-by-decree-putin-as-a-figurehead-for-the-global-far-right/
‘Putin’s far-right allies in Europe are fake patriots who, just like Kremlin’s fake news, threaten our democracies’, S&D, 6 April, 2022: https://www.socialistsanddemocrats.eu/newsroom/putins-far-right-allies-europe-are-fake-patriots-who-just-kremlins-fake-news-threaten-our
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