More on Pootie Poot

As you may recall, Pootie Poot was George Bush II's nickname for the Russian dictator. Bush famously said that he had looked into Putin's eyes and "seen his soul," meaning that Pootie Poot could be trusted. Bush saw a whole lot of other things that weren't there.

But he wasn't the first, or last conservative politician to admire Pootie, or in the case of TFG, be his poodle. They admire autocrats, what they perceive as Strong Men rulers, which of course accounts for the current adoration of Victor Orban as well. The basic idea of conservatism is that society is best when it has a strong hierarchical order, a small and powerful ruling class, and a single powerful leader. Democracy, axiomatically, must be associated with weakness, disorder and inefficiency. There is also an ideal of masculinity wrapped inside this, and usually a sort of mystical ethno-nationalism.

If you stop to think about it, the invasion of Ukraine in the first place lacks any evident point. Who is made better off by Russia increasing the territory it controls? It makes the Russian leader more great and powerful, but it doesn't apparently make the lot of the Russian people any better. It's an essentially nonsensical idea to begin with.

That it was also strategically and tactically delusional gives the lie to any argument about the value of autocracy. The Russian army was completely hollowed out by corruption and cronyism, and its soldiers had no motivation for the battle. Now it is coming apart like wet tissue paper, but the political system has no means for changing leadership or changing its course. Putin has always been told only what he wanted to hear, the price of dissent is falling from a 20th story window, and the nation is marching mindlessly to its doom. So no, we need no more of Strong Men.