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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   26370 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023

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Why did support for Ukraine split along the left/right the way it did

I am not someone who likes excessive racialisation of politics, but I think some on the left may be correct in speculating that Russia being a conservative, white Christian country has a lot to do with it. Ukraine is very similar, but there is simply more respect to Russia since it resembles the USA in many ways (frontier culture, etc).

I also think a lot of right-wingers have this obsession against China for the same reason. It's an alien race, on top of actually being a real threat in a way that Russia is not. And to counter China, it'd be remarkably foolish if you were to push Russia and China together instead (which is what the US has done). I think Beinart wrote about these dynamics well a few weeks ago.

Ukraine is much more conservative and whiter than Russia. It’s being demographically replaced by conservative native Christian minorities and is, y’know, actually entirely in Europe. The difference is entirely about Russia being a major geopolitical adversary and republicans generally wanting to dial back on the empire.

The Ukranian people were, their government is doing everything it can to signal fealty to globohomo.

Also they may at least partially blame Russia for Trump getting elected which was of course a national nightmare for them.

So taking Russia down a peg could be seen in their mind as removing an actual threat to their power domestically.

At any rate, everyone loves having a boogeyman to fight, and having one that you don't actually have to risk your own life to fight is a nice bonus.

This sounds like overthinking it. Progressives are the establishment now, so anyone opposed to them will gain some automatic sympathy from the domestic opposition. It's like when lefties low-key cheered for Ahmadinejad.

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