In 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that liberalism, the dominant Western ideology for eight decades, was dead, as people turned against uncontrolled migration, multiculturalism and wokeness.
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“The liberal idea has become obsolete. It has come into conflict with the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population,” he told the Financial Times, taking a swipe at Germany’s decision to take in a million Syrian migrants, while praising President Donald Trump’s efforts in his first term to build a wall at the U.S. southern border. He also criticized liberal governments’ embrace of “excessive” sexual and gender diversity.
The Russian leader’s bold declarations were perceived at the time as fringe, regressive remarks from an authoritarian leader mired in Soviet nostalgia who was seeking to subvert the pillars of American society.
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Western politicians such as Donald Tusk of Poland, then head of the European Council, dismissed the comments, arguing that “authoritarianism and personality cults” are the ideologies of the past.
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Then six years later, at last week’s Munich Security Conference, Europe’s elites listened in shock as America’s second-ranking leader, Vice President JD Vance, made many of the same points — a sign of how Putin’s views and the “anti-woke agenda” he champions have gone mainstream in conservative parts of the U.S. establishment.
Since embracing this agenda, Putin has attempted to reset the post-Cold War order by tapping into the West’s societal divisions and driving a wedge in the transatlantic alliance.
He has promoted Russia as a role model for other countries, portraying it as a unique civilization based on traditional values that appeals to socially conservative leaders already wary of Western liberalism.
It was on the same stage where Vance chided European leaders this year for fearing populist forces that Putin in 2007 laid out his vision of a “multipolar” world where global power would be determined by spheres of influence rather than a liberal world order led by Washington.
Vance’s “speech was probably even more shocking for the Europeans than Putin’s in 2007,” said Vladimir Pastukhov, a Russian political scientist and researcher at University College London.
Vance ticked many of the boxes in the overlapping agendas of Moscow power elites and right-leaning movements in Europe: anti-migrant rhetoric, curbs on abortion, the equation of “cancel culture” with infringement of free speech, and an embrace of Christian values.
The shared disdain of globalism and European leaders was cheered in Moscow. Konstantin Malofeev, a conservative tycoon with Kremlin ties, said it marked “the beginning of the end for the globalists in Davos and the Eurocrats in Brussels.”
Get concise answers to your questions. Try Ask The Post AI.“The liberal idea has become obsolete. It has come into conflict with the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population,” he told the Financial Times, taking a swipe at Germany’s decision to take in a million Syrian migrants, while praising President Donald Trump’s efforts in his first term to build a wall at the U.S. southern border. He also criticized liberal governments’ embrace of “excessive” sexual and gender diversity.
The Russian leader’s bold declarations were perceived at the time as fringe, regressive remarks from an authoritarian leader mired in Soviet nostalgia who was seeking to subvert the pillars of American society.
ADVERTISING
Western politicians such as Donald Tusk of Poland, then head of the European Council, dismissed the comments, arguing that “authoritarianism and personality cults” are the ideologies of the past.
🌎
Follow World news
Then six years later, at last week’s Munich Security Conference, Europe’s elites listened in shock as America’s second-ranking leader, Vice President JD Vance, made many of the same points — a sign of how Putin’s views and the “anti-woke agenda” he champions have gone mainstream in conservative parts of the U.S. establishment.
Since embracing this agenda, Putin has attempted to reset the post-Cold War order by tapping into the West’s societal divisions and driving a wedge in the transatlantic alliance.
He has promoted Russia as a role model for other countries, portraying it as a unique civilization based on traditional values that appeals to socially conservative leaders already wary of Western liberalism.
It was on the same stage where Vance chided European leaders this year for fearing populist forces that Putin in 2007 laid out his vision of a “multipolar” world where global power would be determined by spheres of influence rather than a liberal world order led by Washington.
Vance’s “speech was probably even more shocking for the Europeans than Putin’s in 2007,” said Vladimir Pastukhov, a Russian political scientist and researcher at University College London.
Vance ticked many of the boxes in the overlapping agendas of Moscow power elites and right-leaning movements in Europe: anti-migrant rhetoric, curbs on abortion, the equation of “cancel culture” with infringement of free speech, and an embrace of Christian values.
The shared disdain of globalism and European leaders was cheered in Moscow. Konstantin Malofeev, a conservative tycoon with Kremlin ties, said it marked “the beginning of the end for the globalists in Davos and the Eurocrats in Brussels.”
