Conservatives of America: Putin Is Not Your Ally

OPINION — American conservatives be advised: Vladimir Putin does not share your values and is not your friend. You may be tempted to regard the Russian President as a kindred spirit because of the “law and order” and “traditional values” image he projects, but don’t be fooled. The core tenet of his brand of conservatism is government dominion over society via an autocratic executive. In short, tyranny. While tyranny may indeed be a traditional conservative value in Russia, it’s not ours. 

Putin’s conservatism echoes Tsarist Russia’s battle to preserve absolutism against a rising tide of constitutional limitations on monarchies. American conservatism, shaped by our formative struggle for liberty and independence, is based on the inverse proposition–our founders’ vision of protecting citizens against tyrants, be they monarchs or dictators. Our conservatism favors limiting government power by dividing its authorities, enshrining the rights of individuals in a constitution presided over by an independent judiciary, and ensuring popular accountability via regular, competitive elections.

Putinism could not be more different. Free speech absolutists should observe the fate of those who publicly criticize Putin in Russia, be they politicians, journalists, or ordinary citizens. The anti-corruption activist Aleksey Navalny, opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya – they  and many others who openly opposed Putin paid for it with their lives, and countless others have paid with their freedom and livelihoods. Observe also that two of the three TV channels in Russia with national reach are state-owned, while the third is owned by a state-owned energy company. Do you think they are free to criticize the government, especially Putin? They are not.

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Proponents of small government should note that over 44 percent of Russia’s workforce is employed by the state or state-owned enterprises. Contrast this to the 14 percent of the US workforce employed by federal, state, and local governments combined. Supporters of the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment should know that Russia’s federal restrictions on private gun ownership are tougher than California’s, the most restrictive in the United States. Legal requirements include such things as a psychological exam and a five-year waiting period for anything other than shotguns. Think private ownership of military-grade firearms is permitted in a police state? Think again.

As to Putin’s claim to be a Christian champion in an increasingly secular world, read the fine print. While Putin uses Orthodox Christianity to fill the ideological void left by the collapse of communism, he continues the Soviet-era practice of keeping the church subservient to state interests. We know from the files of a KGB archivist who defected to the West in the 1990s that the current Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, was a 

KGB agent with the code name “Mikhailov.” He likely remains a formal Russian intelligence asset today. Note also that in Putin’s Russia, evangelical Christianity is tightly restricted under the “Yarovaya Laws” passed in 2016 as part of an “anti-terrorism” package. In Russia, evangelicals and their missionary work are seen as a subversive and distinctly “American” phenomenon, i.e., not to be trusted.

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Finally, there is the post-World War II American conservative value of opposing tyranny abroad. With Ronald Reagan’s portrait now prominently displayed in the Oval Office, it’s worth remembering these words from his D-Day commemoration speech in 1984: “Isolationism was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with expansionist intentions.” Putin, who presides over a police state that aims to subjugate its neighbors, would obviously disagree.

Putin actively courts American conservatives, arguing that our values are like his. They are not. It is merely a tactical maneuver designed to rejuvenate US conservatives’ pre-World War II isolationist sentiment. American isolationism now would serve Putin’s purposes by giving him a freer hand to impose his will on a divided Europe and support authoritarian-trending regimes there that increasingly resemble what he in truth believes to be the rightful model for the relationship between peoples and their rulers: Tyranny.

This is not to say the U.S. should not engage with Russia, but we should do so as Ronald Reagan did with the USSR, with toughness, from a position of strength, and without sacrificing our fundamental principles. Think Reagan in Reykjavik, not FDR at Yalta. American conservatives take heed: Vladimir Putin has nothing but contempt for our conception of liberty and “don’t tread on me” approach to government. In Putin’s world, the government treads heavily and cruelly. He’s not one of us; he’s the opposite of us. To borrow a phrase from the great conservative Margaret Thatcher, now is not the time to go wobbly on Russia.

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