The irresponsibility of playing Russian roulette with the head of conservatism

It is not clear what is the origin of this macabre game known as "Russian roulette" and which can have deadly effects.

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It is believed that this game originated in Russia in the first half of the 20th century, perhaps during the Tsarist era. Hence the name by which it is known today. The game consists of two or more people placing a revolver loaded with a bullet to their temple and pulling the trigger, taking turns. The last one standing takes the money from the others.

Seeing what is happening in recent years, I think that Russian roulette is a good simile to explain what a part of the right is doing in several Western countries, a trend that is becoming terribly accentuated with Donald Trump's alignment with the Kremlin's slogans, reaching something as irrational and petty as blaming Ukraine for the Russian invasion and calling Zelensky a "dictator" but not Putin. All this would be a good argument for telling jokes if it weren't for the fact that many Trump supporters have started repeating the Kremlin's dirtiest slogans on social media, in a disgusting attempt to pressure the Ukrainian people to surrender to the invaders.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone. On this blog I have been denouncing for years the pro-Russian drift of a part of the right. Until now, this part was mainly made up of elements of what we could call the classic extreme right. Trump has managed to get many conservatives to assume Putin's theses, in a more or less accentuated way, doing a great favor to the infamous propaganda apparatus of the Russian dictatorship.

What we are seeing now is a huge Russian roulette: one that involves associating conservatism with a criminal regime that has invaded a neighbouring country for purely expansionist reasons, committing all kinds of atrocities and threatening other European countries with similar actions. It is as if many have suddenly forgotten what happened in the 20th century in Europe, ignoring the clear similarities between Putin's actions and those that led to the outbreak of the Second World War. Everyone, except for a handful of fanatics, was clear that this war was provoked by the Nazis, but now some - with Trump at the head - are blaming the Russian aggression on those attacked, in a manipulation that is not only an insult to reason, but also to ethics and Christian morality.

Blessing that in the name of conservatism is something that offends many of us who consider ourselves conservatives (in my case, a liberal-conservative), in the same way that as a Christian I am outraged that there are people presenting Putin as a great defender of Christianity, when in reality he is a mass criminal.

With that alignment, what many Trump supporters are doing is giving a huge breath of fresh air not only to Putin, but also to socialism, presenting conservatism in a way that coincides with the crudest caricatures of the left. They are betting everything on a strategy that seeks the success of a criminal, believing that if they win they will take a great victory that would compensate the enormous risk of blowing conservatism's head off, a possibility that some do not seem to worry too much.

As far as I'm concerned, I have not dedicated 20 years of this blog to defending conservative theses so that some people can trample on them like this, using them as a mere disguise to approve something as unacceptable and anti-Christian as making it profitable for Putin to invade another country, raze it to the ground and kill multitudes of civilians.

In the last century, many conservatives made the huge mistake of looking favourably on the rise of fascism and national socialism. The courage of conservatives like Winston Churchill and many Polish patriots, who were the first to fight against this criminal madness that destroyed half of Europe, managed to prevent conservatism from being plunged into disgrace.

Perhaps saying these things will make me lose audiences and followers. I don't care. I know that the hardest thing is to contradict your people when they are making a mistake (because regardless of the margin of doubt that we all have when formulating our approaches, assuming the infamous theses of a dictator like Putin is always a mistake), but I prefer to remain alone than to remain silent.