The American Conservatives were wrong to concede Justin Trudeau while giving Vladimir Putin a free ticket

If you want to understand someone’s values ​​or worldview, see who (and what) provokes outrage? and who (and what) evokes empathy?. The cognitive dissonance inherent in most American rights could make such an examination difficult.

That’s because some of the highlights Right voices today see Vladimir Putin as a misunderstood victim. Meanwhile, they choose the Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau is a dictator strong man.

Consider the message of the right-wing commentator Candace Owens, who recently tweeted: “STOP talking about Russia. Send US troops to Canada to deal with the dictatorial reign of Justin Trudeau Castro. He has essentially declared himself a dictator and is at war with innocent Canadian protesters and those who have supported them financially.” Dictatorial? (Hard.) Innocent protesters? (This only makes sense if you also believe the January 6 rioters were harmless tourists.)

Or consider Fox News host Tucker Carlson, my friend (although we disagreed deeply politically) and former boss. Carlson not offended about what is happening with Ukraine, but found the time last week to bash “strong man” Trudeau like “The dictator of Canada,” while saying that “Canada has abolished democracy…”

There is also Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who said Trudeau is gone.”full dictator. And J.D. Vance (popular author and Republican candidate for the US Senate in Ohio), who recently announced that he “don’t really care what happens to Ukraine. ”

If Marty McFly’s 1985 version were moved to 2022, it would be impossible to explain to him why so many conservative Republicans are willing to look the other way toward Russia invading a sovereign nation, while they exploded simultaneously Canada for causing consequences to protesters who were blocking traffic. Heck, you probably won’t even need to go back as far as 1985. What about 2005?

To be clear, Putin is a former KGB agent and a really dictatorial. He literally killing and jail its critics. Russian citizens perhaps can’t get rid of him if they want. But they don’t want to, because their world knowledge is made available to them through Russian media propaganda.

And let’s not forget the little problem that his 100,000 troops were massed on the Ukrainian border.

Meanwhile, Justin Trudeau is the elected leader of a free nation. He took action to restore law and order after three weeks of being blocked by truckers and generally disrupting the peace.

“We cannot and will not allow illegal and dangerous activities to continue,” Trudeau said in a speech, citing “serious challenges to law enforcement’s ability to effectively enforce law.” In another world, this would be called “leadership,” and Trudeau would be praised by conservatives for showing “toughness” and not letting lawlessness prevail. At least, that would be the case if the protesters were hippies or Black Lives Matter protesters.

Now, as a conservative, I’ve never been a big fan of Trudeau, and his critics have a point about what he’s done that I find convincing. Equal New York Times write, Trudeau “An emergency measure has been introduced allowing police to seize protesters’ vehicles and allow banks to freeze their accounts.” Freeze the bank accounts of people and doxing sponsors (which are made through a leaknot by the government) raises legitimate concerns about foreclosure and the practice of a “social credit system, ” Accordingly, unpopular political opinions will be suppressed. “What the Canadian government is doing is previewing what the future US government will be [do to] dissidents,” Conservative writer Rod Dreher writes.

This argument is clearly a slippery prediction, but those interested in defending freedom must be cautious in calling for efforts to limit free speech and stifle diverse political views. — of course, this is very different from punishing lawless acts like closing traffic. .

Despite that, on the list of civil liberties violations, Trudeau is a pawn when compared to Putin. My friend Jeff Mayhugh sums it up perfectly: “In Canada, Trudeau is exercising the rule of law and if his people don’t like the rule of law, they can legally organize and remove him from power. In Russia, Putin is violating the rule of law and the people have no way to stop his actions.”

I remember about “blame America first“The phenomenon that was once characteristic of the “useful fools” and the “fraudsters” of the left — but has become democratized, so to speak. To be sure, Canada isn’t America, but they’re pretty close. The penchant for defeating the West, while allowing legitimate dictators to pass, is problematic and futile. On the other hand, I understand why Americans might be more worried about authoritarian tendencies spreading locally at home than ones emerging abroad. This concern makes sense, and not just for those who love the “American First” worldview, with all of that.

However, we are still comparing apples to oranges. Two news stories dominate right now (Russia threatens Ukraine and Canadian truck drivers protest) gives us a unique opportunity to compare and contrast everyone’s comments. If you see someone willing to defend Vladimir Putin for threatening to invade and kill his neighbors, and call Justin Trudeau a “dictator” for shutting down a lawless protest after three weeksyou have found someone who is intellectually dishonest or has a false sense of reality.

If you think that gas light will end up with Trump, you are wrong. The American right is in the habit of calling evil good and good evil. It’s a really misleading and misleading perception of a dangerous world, and the scary thing is, it’s just getting started.