"The anti-anti-Putin Left are most usefully described as 'campists,' whose geopolitical philosophy is summed up by the phrase 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend.' America is the font of all evil, therefore its opponents must have something going for them.
"The British-Syrian writer Leila Al-Shami calls this 'the anti-imperialism of idiots': 'This pro-fascist Left seems blind to any form of imperialism that is non-western in origin. It combines identity politics with egoism. Everything that happens is viewed through the prism of what it means for westerners....' Russia’s unprovoked war of imperialist aggression is as inconvenient to campists as China’s oppression of the Uyghurs. Either they must find a way to blame America after all or they must downplay the issue. Left-wing support for corrupt authoritarians such as Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega is disappointing enough, but sympathy with Vladimir Putin, Bashir al-Assad and Xi Jinping is symptomatic of a morally broken worldview."~ Dorian Lynskey, from his column 'Why the Left is split over Ukraine.' Hat tip Perry de Havilland, who observes sagely that a similar criticism also applies to certain libertarians/conservatives in the grip of the Americocentric delusion...
Tuesday, 26 April 2022
The "anti-imperialism of idiots" + "the Americocentric delusion" = Putin?!
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And of course this where we see the socialist left and the nationalist right increasingly coming together, with positions on Russian aggression that are almost indistinguishable. The nationalist right too see the enemy of their enemy as their friend. The fact that Biden and other centrists in the West are supporting Ukraine is reason enough for them to support someone worse in Putin. Same mentality as their opposition to masks.
Zactly.
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