The narrative I typically hear through the media is the sort of simplistic answer that is normally given by a talking head explaining why people vote for Trump, “Oh, they’re racist”, sure it is an answer but it is the sort of answer one would give if one didn’t want to look any further than and wanted a simplistic answer to why a voters vote a certain way akin to the explanation being “they’re a bad person”. Personally, it fascinates me finding out the motivations behind why someone makes a decision – what their thought process is to explain why they hold such a world view.
There is the lines thrown around that the Republican Party is the part of Putin, party of Moscow etc. but hearing this I thought to myself that there has to be something more to do this than just an admiration of strong men in charge of a country – is there a policy difference but the media is more concerned with simplistic representation that actually doing a deep dive into what I believe their position is and why they believe that is a better path for US and Western security.
The first faction within the Republican Party are those who wish to separate Russia from China because they see China has the greater ‘threat’ in much the same way of Nixon opening up China to the world ended up driving a wedge between China and Russia, their aim being to drive China and Russia further apart than what occurred in the Sino-Soviet split. What this faction of the Republican Party believe is that China is a greater threat to the US and the West primarily due to the productive capacity that China has along with the gap that has closed between China and the West when it comes to current technological developments for example Quantum computing and next generation artificial intelligence.
The second faction in the Republican Party are those who see the culture war as the primary motivator for their involvement in politics – the belief that the sort of policy they wish to pursue can not be achieved unless their is a cultural change. This is very much inline with the idea of Andrew Breitbart which goes: “politics is downstream from culture”, if you want to change the politics you need to change the culture. For some they view Putin as a symbol of traditional values – not that Putin necessarily believes it but rather it is the myth of the nation that used in much the same way that neoconservatives used ideas of democracy, freedom, family, traditional marriage in their pursuit of power.
The reason why Nixon was able to accomplish what he did was because the capitalist class and politicians who align their politics with the interests of the capitalist class because it benefited both politicians and their bakers along with those who saw strategic benefit of driving a wedge between the USSR and China. In the case of the capitalist class, it allowed them access to a cheap labour force to maximise profits but are the capitalist class willing to stand behind the Russian position? what do they gain out of it? it’s the reason why there is unity between the capitalist class that support Republican and Democrats regarding the current position towards Russia.
One thing to keep in mind that on the ‘Russia supporting’ side, let us not assume that those who wish for a change in relations doing so for benevolent reasons – Russia is hugely rich in natural resources and many see it as an opportunity to curtail China’s dominance when it comes production by cutting China off from raw materials. One thing to keep in mind is that those who may take such position may hide it behind the whole culture war ‘Putin represents traditional values’ but in reality they don’t care one way or another when it comes to the culture war – the only war they’re waging is the war on the working class.
There is a large portion of the Republican base that are reactionary in nature who are lining up with Putin because they view him as a leader of ‘traditional values’ as a reaction to modernity and post modernity. This reactionary can take two manifestations, the first being very much a ‘shallow end of the pool’ where people are attracted because of the aesthetics of traditionalism but little to no understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of such a world view – they see the world changing and they don’t like it, they don’t feel as though they belong and they want things to go back to ‘the way they used to be’. When I mean by going back to ‘the way things used to be’ I am not referring to the restoration of Jim Crow laws but rather the rose tinted view of the past that they remember as a child aka a view of the past in no way representative of reality.
The second manifestation is one that is more troubling which is the white nationalist underpinnings that we’ve seen since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the links that have been built between white national organisations in the United States and Russia. The most prominent was a white national leader during the 1990s who visited Russia to build white nationalist links with white nationalists in Russia – giving Russians the ‘stamp of approval’ that they’re certified white people and they are brothers with the same philosophical outlook.
Let us assume that you’re able to win the argument that China is the greater threat than Russia, that the capitalist class see China as giving them short term profits but long term it’ll come back to bite them in the backside. The question one then asks is how you deal with Putin, how do you bring him over to your side? do they realise that the Russian system of government is more than just Putin, that if Putin disappeared off the radar do they really believe there isn’t someone else who can step up to take on the role of president that would continue business as usual? there is a reason why it is it called the Putin regime – there is a whole apparatus setup around him, their own capitalist class that have benefited from the regime that you also need to convince that it is in their interests to ‘switch sides’. I’m skeptical that it’ll happen given that Europe had tried for years to bring Russia closer to the European Union but Russia steadfastly refused to move closer, clean up their legal system, deal with their minefield of regulations, deal with corruption etc.
I haven’t covered everything but these were some thoughts running around in my head so I thought it would be best to get them down on my blog.
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