Konstantin Kisin coined a phrase I never thought I would hear: “Woke Right.”
“Woke” and “Right-wing” are terms that never struck me as belonging together, and I have to say that after listening to and reading Kisin’s analysis, that judgment stands.
With that said, the phenomenon of which he speaks is real. There is a hardening of opinions on the Right and a growing tendency to view political issues from a “whose side are you on?” perspective rather than an “Is this the right thing to do?” perspective.
Kisin’s analysis starts with the Tucker Carlson trip to Russia, which, as you know, caused quite a stir. People on the Left and the Never Trumpers attacked him for interviewing Putin–an absurd criticism, as any good journalist would have jumped at the chance–and people like me criticized him for the pro-Russia propaganda videos he released after his interview.
Now I have no problem with a Westerner pointing to things any person or place gets right–there are lots of things out there that work better elsewhere and we should take note and steal any good ideas shamelessly–but Tucker’s propaganda videos were deeply deceptive because he left out vital context that completely changes the meaning.
That gorgeous subway? Stalin built it with slave labor. Those low food prices–they are only low in hard currency–average Russians spend about 1/2 their monthly budgets on food.
Anybody with dollars can live like a king in Russia. So what? Average Russians don’t get paid in dollars.
Tucker Carlson & the Woke Right
“Far from being the first of his kind, Tucker is, in fact, one more name to add to the long list of Westerners who have been seduced by the allure of an alternative to the failures and decadence of their own societies.”https://t.co/X8xH2cKV3k
— Konstantin Kisin (@KonstantinKisin) February 18, 2024
Judging Russia based on central Moscow and the Kremlin is similar to being pleasantly surprised by life in Pyongyang. See, North Korea isn’t so bad!
Don’t be an idiot.
Kisin sees in Carlson a very smart man with very big blind spots, which seems about right. I think Tucker can be great–a real breath of fresh air in a media environment filled with musty, stale, even rotting ideas. But WTF, Tucker? Russia is great?
Russia is the Fredo Corleone of Europe. Desperately wanting to be seen as better, smarter, more accomplished, and more respected than it deserves. It is a backwater, and hates that everybody knows it.
Tucker and what Kisin calls the “woke Right” are attracted to Russia because, well, Putin is often right in his criticisms of the West. Degenerates run our countries, we often don’t live up to our values, and the liberal internationalists are taking us down the wrong path. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?
Yeah, well, no. At least unless your bigger enemy is an existential threat, like Hitler; in most cases, the enemy of your enemy could still be your enemy. In 1991, when the US took on Iraq, we didn’t suddenly cozy up to Iran. Iran was Iraq’s enemy too, but it was still a vile theocracy bent on terrorizing free people.
While the Woke Left hates America and the West because it sees them as the root of all evil, the Woke Right has built up powerful resentments of its own.
Where the Woke Left has systemic racism, the Woke Right has globalism and the WEF, a shadowy global elite conspiring to deprive us of our rights, civil liberties and bodily autonomy.
Stagnating wages, uncontrolled and increasingly illegal mass immigration, the housing crisis, the deliberate stoking of racial tensions, blatant anti-white, anti-male, anti-family rhetoric, the promotion of trans ideology and a whole host of other issues have turned many people from sceptics into cynics.
These frustrations, many of which are legitimate, are further exacerbated by the biggest problem of all: despite being shared by a majority of the population, attempts to address them via the democratic process appear increasingly futile.
The UK elected a “conservative” government in 2010 and voted for Brexit in 2016 in order to deal with many of these issues. The result was years of political gridlock, followed by all of these problems getting worse, not better.
In the US, the 2016 election of Donald Trump was another desperate move to deal with these concerns. “We don’t care about his obnoxious tweets,” his voters cried. “We need someone with the balls to put an end to politics as usual, stem the flow of illegal crossings at the border and halt the cultural rot eating away at America’s soul”.
But instead of waking from their stupor, America’s media and political elites did everything in their power to stop Trump from delivering on the promises he had made to his voters. They lied about him endlessly. They thwarted him at every turn. In the end, they impeached him and are now prosecuting him. And, to add insult to injury, they replaced him with a man who struggles to get through a press conference. Leaving many on the Right with the obvious question: if we can’t vote our way out of this nightmare, what good is democracy?
If democracy means decriminalising crime, rampant homelessness, weakness abroad and chaos at home, isn’t it time to look at the alternatives? The Right’s fascination with Vladimir Putin and Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele is not accidental.
Unlike Kisin, I view Bukele as vastly different than Putin. El Salvador is a much better place today than before he took power, and in the crime-ridden streets of El Salvador, any talk of civil liberties was a joke until order was restored.
But you get the idea. If you focus exclusively on the failings of your own society and compare them 1 to 1 with others, you might miss the big picture. Sure, Russia isn’t filled with transgender assholes screaming “It’s MA’AM!,” but that is a rather narrow basis on which to judge a society.
Kisin’s analysis is not a slap against conservatives’ critique of the West–he shares that critique, and believes that the diagnosis of the problems is largely correct. It is what he spends almost all his time talking about, and he is in the same fight for the soul of our civilization as Tucker and what he calls the “woke Right.”
His critique of his allies is this: saving the West can’t mean sacrificing what makes it great.
Kisin emigrated from the old Soviet Union in order to enjoy the freedoms of the West. Yes, those freedoms are under attack from within, and we might fight back.
But don’t burn down the village to save it.