On Putin – The Right Needs To Check Itself

On Putin – The Right Needs To Check Itself

On Putin – The Right Needs To Check Itself

With all the polls projecting that the Republicans will win big in November, some of us have been waiting for the Right to bollocks up the situation. Vladimir Putin, with his unprovoked attack on and invasion of Ukraine, has given the clueless Right the opportunity to go for broke on the bollocksing. I wish those on the Right would remember an old but useful phrase:

Check thyself before thee wrecks thyself, you idiot.”

I love my brothers and sisters on the Right, but Holy Secretariat, they can screw up a one horse race. I will give you three prime examples:

1. President George H.W. Bush, in 1988, pledged “Read my lips, no new taxes”, that line was written by Peggy Noonan. Shortly thereafter, the Democrats goaded Bush 41 into raising taxes and he lost to Bill Clinton.

2. President Clinton got caught with his hand in the humidor. He was playing reindeer games with intern Monica Lewinsky. Republicans could not claim the moral high ground. Speaker Newt Gingrich was having an affair with a House staffer who would become his third wife Calista Bisek (now Gingrich).

3. Donald Trump was duly elected President and many, many Republicans behaved as though he was a “smelly Walmart shopper”. Afraid they wouldn’t be invited to the elite parties in D.C., the Republicans didn’t push Trump’s agenda and lost the House in 2018.

I could name a dozen more examples, but those three will do. Check any search engine and you will find all of them you wish.

Then came Putin and Ukraine. And, up speaks Senator Lindsey Graham. Remember that Graham is not only a Senator, but is also an Air Force Lawyer. Graham is advocating on television for an insider to take Putin out:

Putin needs to get gone, but I don’t think we need a sitting U.S. Senator calling it out. Don’t forget that Graham also called for the January 6 protesters to be shot in the Capitol. Double check yourself, Graham.

Douglas Murray, the British political commentator, is a favorite of mine. He wrote the books “The Madness of Crowds” and “The Strange Death of Europe” reviewed by Victory Girls’ Darleen. You can read her review here. Murray wrote a column for The Spectator on the apparently Putin loving Right, “What the right gets wrong about Putin”. He lists examples of egregiously stupid comments and behavior by our brothers and sisters:

While the West has deranged itself with assaults on its own history, on biology and much more, an assortment of conservatives have come to see Putin as some kind of counterweight. A bulwark – even an admirable corrective – to the madness of our own societies.

As a guest on Steve Bannon’s talk show recently said: ‘The Russian people still know which bathroom to use.’ Of course knowing which bathroom to use isn’t everything. Certainly it is no basis for a foreign policy. But such shorthand has become commonplace.

There are those, for instance, who admire Putin for his embrace of the Orthodox Church. Why do our own political leaders not stand up for the Christian faith in such a sincere and totally uncynical way, they wonder.

Putin is not a counterbalance to anything. He is a deranged psychopath. It has long been rumored that he had apartment buildings in Moscow blown up in 1999 to blame upon Chechens. He doesn’t think twice about having dissidents poisoned. There is no benefit to anyone on any side in supporting Putin.

Speaking of supporting Putin, Murray writes:

At the furthest extreme is America’s tiny white nationalist fringe, such as those at the America First Political Action Conference at which Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene spoke at the end of last month. That conference was made up of wannabe fascists who follow an especially repugnant little anti-Semite called Nick Fuentes. The crowd actually chanted ‘Putin, Putin, Putin’ before the ignoramus congresswoman took to the stage. She pretends to have heard none of this.

Marjorie, check yourself. If you didn’t hear the crowd chanting for Putin, double check yourself.

Those on the Right denigrating our military also need to double check themselves:

This too has become a theme on part of the American and European right. We are weak, Putin is strong. We are dumb, he is smart. We obsess over stupid minutiae, Putin gets the big picture. As Arizona state senator Wendy Rogers said very recently: ‘Putin’s military gets Ukraine. Our military gets trannies and face masks.’ Of course we shall see if Putin gets Ukraine, let alone holds it. And we are already seeing how much genius there is in his unprovoked invasion. My suspicion is that most people will slink away from this position. But it is one they never had to assume in the first place.

Say whatever you want about those at the Pentagon and some Commanding Generals, like Chris Donahue of the 82nd Airborne Division, but do NOT ever denigrate the Joes. The average member of our military knows his/her stuff. DO NOT.

Yes, our elites are cray-cray in a big way. The military and the average American still knows the score. Finally, from Murray:

Perhaps it was inevitable that the right would get fed up with this. What was not inevitable was the conclusion that a portion of them decided to adopt.

Perhaps they will recognise their error now, and accept that it is possible to admit your own society has gone a bit crazy but that the man in the Kremlin has gone crazier still. Conservatives used to pride themselves on being able to do two things at once. So it is now. We should be able to walk and chew Putin at the same time.

In other words, Check thyself before thee wrecks thyself, you idiot.” Your country needs you.

Featured Image: DonkeyHotey/Flickr.com/cropped/Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Written by

10 Comments
  • Hate_me says:

    “[D]o NOT ever denigrate the Joes. The average member of our military knows his/her stuff.”

    Gonna have to disagree with that.

    I say this as a serving soldier with almost a quarter-century tenure (two more weeks); we are not, as far as individual warfighters go, the same military we were a few decades ago. Our greatest have only gotten better, but our average has plummeted.

    That’s not to say we can’t get back to where we should be (AirLand Battle and possibly the greatest army we ever had were built as a corrective action against the lackluster service post-Vietnam, but today’s standards and culture are a joke compared to the 90s. There are many reasons for that – from as simple as misguided congressional sticking points (Ms. Gillibrand, kindly piss off) to as nuanced as removing such minor exercises in discipline as daily polishing one’s boots.

    It used to be standard that every single combat arms soldier knew how to load and fill and operate a radio, now it seems like the average joe needs a specialist to do that task for him.

    The average member of our military is certainly capable of knowing his/her stuff and performing his/her job… but I reserve every single right to say when he/she doesn’t or isn’t.

    • Toni Williams says:

      Hate – You may denigrate all you wish. I may not. Congratulations on your DD214

      Toni

      • Hate_me says:

        Thank you, madam.

        However, a big part of my service is defending your right to denigrate, as well.

        Hopefully, my 214 is another decade+ away.

        • Toni Williams says:

          I misunderstood. Your quarter century is two weeks away. Congratulations on serving so long.

          TW

      • GWB says:

        Evidently you don’t/can’t see the problems that he and I have seen with our own eyes (mine going back as far as 1985). Trust me when I say they are there.

  • Russ Lucas says:

    History will show that the collapse of the USSR was one huge step toward world peace and NATO’s and EU’s aggressive expansion into territories previously part of the USSR led to the invasion of Ukraine. Putin’s reaction to Biden’s refusing to say Ukraine would not become part of NATO was the same a JFK’s reaction to USSR’s plans to put missiles in Cuba – a threat that had to be met head-on. I find it very strange that Biden’s CIA Director warned that the threat of expanding NATO into Ukraine would lead to war in 1995 and yet he hasn’t had the honor to resign.

    • GWB says:

      one huge step toward world peace
      Another one affected by the progressivism. There will never be “world peace” – except the peace of the grave. It violates the law of human nature and that violation is one of the biggest errors progressivism commits. Yes, destroying the Soviet Union pulled us back from a global confrontation for a while, but it wasn’t bringing global peace.

      I will agree that a lot of foreign policy stupidity went into making things as bad as they are.

  • David says:

    All of my life until the collapse of the USSR, the Ukraine was part of the USSR. And when NATO started talking of putting nuclear weapons in the Ukraine – the equivalent of 1962 all over again with the USSR trying to put nuclear weapons in Cuba, that was the breaking point. If we get involved in this, then we haven’t learned a thing. NATO trying to expand membership since the breakup of the USSR? But none of the members would even commit 2% of their budget to defense? And now the US has to deal with the mess? Eff them. And eff the UN to boot.

    The Biden and Clinton crime families can fix the mess they created without real Americans involvement. And the left wing wonders why freedom convoys exist? Clueless f****

  • GWB says:

    Putin needs to get gone, but I don’t think we need a sitting U.S. Senator calling it out.
    Sorry, but why not? Is that like a mean tweet?

    Of course knowing which bathroom to use isn’t everything.
    But it certainly is a huge part of everything. If you are spending time decrying your opponents in the argument over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, then you certainly aren’t “keeping the main thing the main thing.” (Since we’re tossing about aphorisms.)

    Certainly it is no basis for a foreign policy.
    Actually… it is. See, when weird fads were sweeping not just nations but most especially the king’s palace, you knew you could probably attack without too much to fear. The biggest part of a foreign policy is not being cuckoo, just keeping it rational. Instead, we’re worrying about stuff that shouldn’t be on the radar of people nominally “in charge”.

    There are those, for instance, who admire Putin for his embrace of the Orthodox Church. Why do our own political leaders not stand up for the Christian faith in such a sincere and totally uncynical way, they wonder.
    Why is that an invalid question?
    It sure sounds to me like Douglas Murray is a progressive, wholly observant of the sorts of Foggy Bottom nonsense that has gone on since pre-WW1, believing that somehow foreign policy is all just a scientific game of sociology on a grander scale. This is exactly the sort of thing that I talk about when I say progressivism has corrupted even so-called “conservatives”.

    ‘Putin’s military gets Ukraine. Our military gets trannies and face masks.’
    So, first, the guy has no clue about how rhetoric works. Because that’s what we call “rhetoric”. The comparison is the point. “Look, bad guy gets how this works, and you want me to play by some stupid rules about pronouns?!” And this guy works as a pundit for a living?
    Also, he then doesn’t actually (in the quoted material) refute the comparison, except to say “Putin might not actually get Ukraine.” Wow, strong argument that.

    The average member of our military knows his/her stuff.
    The average is sliding down, Toni. The military can only draw from our society at large. And, if we stop having combat to send our boys into for any length of time, that slide will increase. (It’s not inevitable. But it will take work to change society to arrest it.)

    The military and the average American still knows the score.
    You just keep hoping for those votes in 2024. But they aren’t coming unless you acknowledge that the average American is now much closer to a buffoon, led by the progressive media, and believing it because they’ve been marinated in progressivism, and then you actually start working to change that.

    the man in the Kremlin has gone crazier still
    Yes. And I can do two things at once – both hold Putin in contempt and compare our leadership unfavorably to him.

    This might have been worthwhile if there had been a little more acknowledgement that the people making the comparisons might have some facts on their side. Those comparisons aren’t pro-Putin. Neither is wishing we had someone who could ride around on a horse instead of wearing a too-small helmet and mom jeans on a cruiser bicycle leading our nation. Or worse, someone who doesn’t even know he’s President part of the day and walks away from softball questions because it’s pudding time. Sorry if I wish for a bit more Alpha in my President.

  • Taylor says:

    Never underestimate the Republican Party’s ability to screw up an opportunity. Usually it starts with awful candidates such as Christine O’Donnell and Sharron Angle (remember those two winners?).

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe
Become a Victory Girl!

Are you interested in writing for Victory Girls? If you’d like to blog about politics and current events from a conservative POV, send us a writing sample here.
Ava Gardner
gisonboat
rovin_readhead