"I find the virtual hostility to Zelenskyy incredibly disturbing. It is most pronounced among what we might refer to as the post-Covid right"

Pic by Getty

"Then there’s the other side in the memeification of Zelenskyy. His haters. And man, do they hate him. I find the virtual hostility to Zelenskyy incredibly disturbing. It is most pronounced among what we might refer to as the post-Covid right – that corner of the world wide web where the understandable agitation with lockdown has morphed over time into anti-vax conspiracism, an unhealthy obsession with the World Economic Forum, a distrust of everything and everyone, and a cast-iron conviction that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a puppet of the globalist elites determined to drag us all into World War 3.
    "It’s like a mirror image of the liberal-elite fawning: where that lot dreams Zelenskyy will help to bring about the ‘rebirth of the liberal world order’, the Ukraine cynics think he is the liberal world order. The new world order. A mouthpiece of globalism. Zelensky is ‘working with globalists against the interests of his own people’, says Candace Owens. He’s a ‘globalist puppet for Soros and the Clintons’, said Arizona State senator Wendy Rogers. Apparently he’s aligned with those ‘global bankers’ who are ‘shoving godlessness and degeneracy in our face.’ Donald Trump Jnr reckons he’s an ‘international welfare queen’. You don’t have to be a fan of the West’s sending of ever-more weaponry to Ukraine to recognise how infantile it is to describe an invaded nation’s plea for arms as welfare queenery. Talk about globalising the culture war....
    "There’s a very important debate to be had about Russia, Ukraine, the West and war in the modern era. But what we’ve mostly had over the past year is the cheap exploitation of a serious global conflict to score points in petty wars at home. Chaise-longue Churchills on one side, armchair Chamberlains on the other. And they’re all really talking about themselves, not Ukraine. Let’s change the record. Maybe Zelenskyy is neither saint nor sinner. Neither the world’s saviour nor its destroyer. Maybe he’s just a man doing what he thinks is best in the most horrifying and existential of circumstances. Call me a brainless dupe of Davos propaganda, but that’s what I’m going with."

~ Brendan O'Neill, from his op-ed 'The Two Zelenskyys'