The Right ‘Loves Putin’ And Other Lies The Media Tell About Trump And RussiaThat right-wingers are cozying up to Putin is a myth generated by a news media that seemingly can’t do anything regarding Russia but lie.
By Eddie Scarry
February 28, 2022
What is it about Russia and Vladimir Putin that forces the American national media to lie, make things up, and blurt out statements that have no basis in reality? The latest fiction is that Republicans and conservatives have a newfound affinity for Putin.
If you only watched MSNBC or read The New York Times, you’d be forgiven for holding the impression that all of Fox News and the Republican party have draped themselves in Russian flags and set up GoFundMes for the invasion of Ukraine.
The Times on Sunday ran the headline, “How the American Right Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Russia,” by Emily Tamkin. According to the piece, the “American political right” has in recent years “shifted toward fawning praise for autocrats” and now views authoritarian regimes like Russia’s as “symbols of U.S. conservatism — a mirror for the right-wing worldview.”
That sounds awful! Tamkin’s examples of this “fawning praise for autocrats” include Tucker Carlson telling his audience to ask, “Why do I hate Putin so much?”; former President Trump referring to Putin as “smart” and “savvy”; and GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate J.D. Vance remarking in a recent podcast interview that “We did not serve in the Marine Corps to go and fight Vladimir Putin because he didn’t believe in transgender rights.”
I guess others can decide whether any of this constitutes “fawning praise,” but Tamkin nonetheless called the comments “yet another way in which the political right is weaponizing culture wars to further divide Americans.”
Her argument might have been a little stronger if she included more searing examples of praise for Putin, like the time Trump called him a “master tactician.” Wait, sorry. That was actually how The New York Times itself described the Russian president in mid-February. And also in October 2020.
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Source:
https://thefederalist.com/2022/02/28/the-right-loves-putin-and-other-lies-the-media-tell-about-trump-and-russia/
