The Romance of Strongman Rule: Why American Conservatives are Falling for Putin

“I walked around the center of Moscow for one hour and I said, wow, I don’t see any gays and liberals on the streets. I see men and women couples. I don’t see transvestites, I don’t see homeless people. This place is heaven on Earth! I’m moving here forever.”

In a video published by Russian Code in 2023, American expat ‘Teddy Boy Greg’ describes his love for his new home in Moscow. He gives this interview from his newly opened barbershop, which he has adorned with a life-size cutout of Robert E. Lee and antique confederate flags. On his jacket he sports a patch that reads “14/23”–a numeric symbol associated with the Southern Brotherhood, a white supremacist prison gang. “14” stands for the 14-word slogan: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for our white children.”

Since President Ronald Reagan’s anti-communist fight in the Cold War, Republicans have been at the forefront of the ideological drive against the former Soviet Union. But today, many conservatives instead view American society with cynicism, and have turned towards Russia as an escape from a society that they see as morally bankrupt. They romanticize Putin’s strongman rule and ascribe the order in Russian society to his adherence to traditional, Christian values, while regarding liberal political agendas of a destructive “counterculture” as a “wokeness” epidemic. Ultimately, the conservative love of Russia comes from a deep sense of cynicism directed towards progressive politics in America today. Through a nostalgic portrayal of a society that harkens back to a time of “simplicity” when "wokeness" did not exist, Russia is becoming an increasingly attractive sanctuary in the eyes of hardcore American conservatives.

The term 'woke,' originally rooted in Black activism, now serves as a catch-all for progressive ideas that conservatives oppose. Book titles like Death of the West by Patrick Buchanan and Adios, America: The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole by Ann Coulter have flown off the shelves, criticizing the moral deterioration of the U.S. due to a purported liberal “adversary culture” that promotes increased immigration and political correctness.The conservative conception of derogatory “wokeness” has become so central to the current Republican platform that it has been used in legislative proposals. For example, in 2022, Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) pushed the “Stop WOKE Act,” a statewide bill that restricted discussions of race and hoped to quell “woke indoctrination” inspired by Critical Race Theory. In September 2024, the country saw a similar national bill, the “End Woke Higher Education Act,” that would “bar accrediting organizations from required colleges and universities to adopt diversity, equity, and inclusion policies as a condition of accreditation” pass in the House. The battle against wokeness has been taken up abroad, with Vladimir Putin criticizing the U.S. by comparing the wokeness epidemic to the Bolshevik Revolution. This has created an additional avenue of affinity towards Russia for U.S. conservatives. 

Republicans’ view of Vladimir Putin’s leadership particularly peaked in 2016 after the election of Donald Trump. In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea, a formerly Ukrainian territory, the first step of what would become a decade-long Russian offensive. At his 2016 rallies, Trump called Putin a “strong leader” that made swift decisions for his country. When Putin launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the former president praised Putin as “savvy” and said if he were elected, he would let Russia “do whatever the hell they want.” Since the attack, at least one million casualties have occurred. There seems to be no relaxing of Putin’s imperialist vision, with the war continuing to escalate..

As Russia ships in troops from North Korea to aid the war on the ground, Ukraine’s mechanisms of defense lie mostly in the continued financial support of the U.S. This support hangs in the balance in the wake of the 2024 U.S. presidential elections, in which Donald Trump emerged victorious earlier this month. President-elect Trump has said that fellow NATO members in Europe have failed to meet the 2% GDP spending goal on defense for too long and has repeatedly promised to pull out of the 75-year-old alliance as soon as he steps into office. 

American politics plays such a large role in the success of Putin’s war that he has invested in swaying the American electorate towards the right through online misinformation. In September, the DOJ indicted two Russian state media employees on charges that they paid a Tennessee company to produce pro-Russian content that would be distributed through popular right-wing influencers. These videos support a halt in funding towards Ukraine, take a pro-Trump position, and paint Russia as a conservative safe haven that preserves traditional values. Putin has presented Russia as a new home for anyone globally among the “woke mob” a decree in August that would allow foreign citizens to apply for temporary residency if they share “traditional Russian spiritual and moral values” and oppose the destructive “neoliberal ideological agenda.” In this document, he listed thirty high-risk countries, including the U.S. 

Conservative influencers are a good indicator of  their party's extreme positions, and they often sway parts of the electorate towards certain positions. One highly influential pundit who has independently reported on this conflict is former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson, who amassed an average of 3 million viewers on Tucker Carlson Tonight when it aired. Carlson has been known to promote conspiracy theories and misinformation and has described Zelenskyy as a dictator. In February, Carlson was the first Western journalist to safely interview Putin in Moscow about the state of the Russo-Ukrainian war. In this interview, Putin described a historical connection between Ukraine and Russia, justifying the attack as a reclamation and liberation of true Russians. Putin also claimed that Russia attempted to join NATO under the Clinton administration, but was denied, creating feelings of military insecurity within the nation. Critics have called this interview a platforming of pro-Russian propaganda, as Putin made several fictional claims that Carlson failed to challenge. Carlson uncritically called Putin’s position during the interview sincere, despite many historians refuting the victimizing narrative that the Russian president has pushed as his justification for the attack. In a later video posted on Carlson’s Youtube channel, he contrasts the cleanliness and orderliness of a Moscow train station with American ones, which he describes as filthy and filled with “bums, drug addicts, and rapists.” These are all symptoms of a decline of morality in the U.S. that Carlson has attributed to an influx of immigrants and declining adherence to gender roles, a common narrative in conservatives' diagnosis of “wokeness”. The American declinist rhetoric that Carlson employs in this video is almost exactly what ‘Teddy Boy Greg’ describes in his decision to move to Russia. 

The American conservative romanticization of Russia is rooted in a longstanding desire for order and traditional values that began long before Vladimir Putin emerged as a leader. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia’s pivot to capitalism was accompanied by a re-establishment of its national values, which resonated with conservatives disillusioned by what they perceive as the moral and cultural decline driven by “wokeness.” Putin’s unwavering authoritarian rule and rejection of progressive ideologies present a projection of strength and stability that these conservatives find appealing. This admiration intensified as conservatives increasingly supported Donald Trump, who was perceived as less committed to aiding Ukraine, thereby aligning with Putin’s interests. The 2024 U.S. election highlighted this shift, as a new majority of conservative voters embraced populist strongman rhetoric, reflecting their approval of Putin’s approach amidst the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian conflict. This alignment underscores a pivotal realignment in American politics, where the endorsement of authoritarian models like Putin’s signifies a broader rejection of progressive values and an embrace of a political ideology that mirrors Russia’s emphasis on tradition and stability.