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How are Putin and Xi not conservatives and patriots? Putin goes on and on about traditional, religious family life. He outlaws gay propaganda and sends the degen nudist partygoers off to prison.
Xi wants the youth to be manly, vigorous nationalists. He shut down the Beijing LGBT centre.
Trump is the least conservative of all of them! I don't recall Putin waving a rainbow flag spontaneously at a rally.
Seriously, it's not hard to explain why US conservatives are moving towards Russia and China. They see their 'conservative' leaders function as doormats for the progressive left - tax cuts are not sufficient weapons for a culture war. They want to see their views aggressively advanced like how progressives do. They want their enemies at home crushed. They see people who know how to crush - Orban, Putin and Xi as a model for how to really get things done.
Strategically of course, Russia and China are US rivals. Russia plays up its cultural conservatism to appeal to the US right, they want to sow division in their primary adversary. Why wouldn't they want to throw a wrench in the gears of the State department/deep state machine? But for many Americans, the strategic threat is quite distant. I reckon many American conservatives see Taiwan as yet another progressive-occupied country (like Ukraine) whose semiconductor exports are most important for Big Tech polycule enjoyers who are busy erasing white men from history and funding progressive causes with their gigabucks. It makes little sense to hand Tiktok's market share from the distant enemy to the near enemy - Big Tech will quickly take over Tiktok if it's taken from Chinese control.
Why would they want to get vaporized by missiles so some soy-sipping effeminate male can preserve his lavish lifestyle as a Vice Assistant Product Manager? Why would they think that the wars they're expected to fight are for their values when the military and state department goes out of its way to cater to progressivism - DEI, LGBT, walk a mile in her shoes... They spent many years reflexively supporting expensive, useless neocon wars in the Middle East, they're now very suspicious of foreign engagements. This is partially behind the recruiting crisis, some conservatives have started attacking the US military in rhetoric. They don't want to tag along with deep state foreign policy goals anymore.
I'm not saying that what they think is the whole story. Losing Taiwan will put a dent in the lifestyles of all Americans, not just big tech.
Ukraine is not progressive nor progressive occupied. Regardless of US involvement in the coup, it simply isn’t- it’s a dirt poor ex-Soviet mafia state where actual literal Nazis are an important political faction.
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You can be completely annihilated as a principled conservative patriot in a conflict against another principled conservative patriot. Many leaders in Israel and Hamas are principled conservative patriots for their respective nations. Many, perhaps even most major wars in history have been fought between principled, conservative patriots.
And Xi’s occasional gestures to the Chinese equivalent of the online right are as halfhearted and largely ineffective as they seem - just like his policy on birthrates. Putin, meanwhile, single-handedly destroyed the Russian dissident right and even assassinated several of its key figures as Dase documented, so again this is hard to describe as a great victory for reaction.
you think Random meant that they were reactionary conservatives instead of only conservatives?
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I think it's probably more that slotting your favored presidential candidate in alongside a pair of dictators is a weird look, especially when you're also calling your opponents of being hysterical for accusing you of backing a wannabe dictator.
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