The Eternal Victims of Political Elites

Roger Berkowitz
What is behind the pro-Putin sentiment on both the far right and the far left? If you get past your revulsion at those who seemingly embrace Putinism for cynical and self-interested reasons, the support for Putin has as real source in the rampant distrust and disdain for political and cultural elites. Ian Buruma explains. 

Carlson and his hero Trump hate U.S. President Joe Biden so much that they will defend his greatest enemy. In this, they resemble the America Firsters in the 1930s, who saw Franklin D. Roosevelt as a more dangerous enemy than Adolf Hitler. Those isolationists, too, felt the U.S. was being dragged into a foreign war — in their view, by liberals and Jews. The latter, in the words of Charles Lindbergh, posed a particular danger because of “their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.”
Today, too, much pro-Putin rhetoric reflects loathing of what is seen as the grip of the “liberal elites” on media, finance and foreign affairs. In Europe, these elites are associated with the European Union bureaucracy, generous immigration policies and a tolerance of Islam. In the U.S., the main bugbears are the United Nations, anti-racist activists, immigrants and liberals who believe that the U.S. has a duty to fight for global freedom and democracy. In developing countries such as India, Putin backers resent being lectured by Western powers about human rights.
Even noxious ideas sometimes contain a kernel of truth. America’s catastrophic wars in the Middle East, touted by Republicans as well as hawkish Democrats as great battles for democracy, were dreadful mistakes. Poor Americans rightly resented the politicians who sent them to fight abroad. That helps explain why NATO, which once had bipartisan support, is now viewed on the Trumpist right with almost as much hostility as it is on the anti-imperialist left.
Yet the most important thing extremists on either side of the political spectrum have in common is a sense of deep self-pity. In their minds, they are always being “marginalized,” or dominated or threatened by a 
seemingly omnipotent establishment. In the U.S., inevitably, race plays a large role in such feelings, though for opposite reasons on the left and right. Left-wing activists are obsessed, not entirely without cause, with “white supremacy.” On the right, Carlson asks with a straight face: “Is [Putin] teaching my children to embrace racial discrimination?”