politics

"USA provoked Russia into invading Ukraine" is not a communist talking point. It's just a straight up fact. And it's a fact that the American mainstream thought denies. Some interest groups will use this fact to delegitimise the current ruling party which is what is happening here. In the end, funding the war ended up pretty badly for the US with Europe somehow ending up worse off than Russia and the Global South rejecting the American line of sanctioning Russia. Republicans who want to win the next election are going to use facts as a cudgel when it is convdnient for them.

Libs support ukkkraine. Conservatives love owning libs, so they stumble into a correct idea.

American fascists believe that the US should team up with Russia (which, for all its faults, is still a Christian and “anti-woke” nation) to take down China. American liberals believe that the USA is powerful enough to take on the entire world at the same time. Both are utterly deluded and are basically like the Eye of Sauron just after the ring has fallen into Mount Doom—looking around frantically, lashing out at everything. (Sorry for the Harry Potter-esque reference.)

Communists are against all imperialist wars. Fascists are only against the war in Ukraine—they’re completely in agreement with liberals when it comes to genociding Palestine. This is why, on the surface, communists and fascists coincidentally agree on Russia/Ukraine. Communists believe that Russia deserves critical support for fighting imperialism, even if it is far from a flawless country.

Conservatives: (incoherent false consciousness attempts to critique the contradictions of class society by talking about "globalism" or Soros or whatever)

Marxists: (less incoherent because they have Leninist critiques of finance imperialism which drives such actions such as CIA coups in east Europe to overthrow states)

As much as the “realist” faction (Mearscheimer, for example) sounded like the more rational ones, ultimately they’re wrong in their calculations.

Post-2009 global financial crisis saw Europe‘s rapid industrial recovery through bridging its economic ties with Russia/China to get away from the American sphere of influence, just as the US capital was hit hard by the financial crisis.

In other words, post-2009 America has been so thoroughly de-industrialized and its financial base weakened that it does not have the ability to take on China without taking out Europe first. If Europe throws its weight behind China during an ongoing US-China conflict, it very well could tilt the balance of power towards China, which is bad for America.

The war in Ukraine is America’s war against Europe, its imperialist rival. It really has less to do with Ukraine/Russia than Nord Stream and the expanding economic ties between Europe and Eurasia. The neocons, unfortunately, made the correct move: America’s only chance to take on China is to devour the European capital first.

There are several reasons that left and right opinion meet on this issue in particular:

• Right wing pundits see social conservatism (anti-LGBT etc.) in post-USSR Russia and see kindred spirits

• A specific faction of neocons in the administration and war machine see China as far more of a threat than Russia, and want peace or even an alliance with Russia to target China and break up the nascent Eurasian bloc - this includes rabid defense ghouls like John Bolton and cold-blooded analysts like (rest in piss) Henry Kissenger

• Pro-America realists who see that the US Empire is obviously taking a severe beating over this - and while the heartland can stay afloat by cannibalizing its European allies, the whole situation is badly weakening the NATO bloc as a whole - such as John Mearsheimer

• Pure and simple contrarianism: the Democrats support Ukraine, so the Republicans must oppose it

Inside the Empire there are always plenty of people who are evil, but do actually understand how the world works. When the stars align, they can make perfectly cogent, accurate arguments in favor of the same things we want, but as soon as the subject changes they switch straight back to lies, disinformation and controlled "misunderstanding".

liberals of all stripes (conservative or otherwise) do not really hold steadfast lines on these topics; their opinions shift with the breeze. So right now conservatives have a position which aligns with communists but as soon as it is convenient or materially beneficial to switch to the pro-ukraine side they will. As others have stated there are a few ideological things going on for supporting russia at least, but I really think that the calculus comes down to cynical political convenience.

Because right wingers have very few actual principles, which means they're free to pick up, parade around, and discard almost any talking point at any time. They don't care about the truth of anything they say, only it's effectiveness, so of course they would steal an effective critique from the left (again) to own the libs with, because libs have no answer to it and they themselves don't have to grapple with any of it's implications.

Of course, we want an end to the Ukranian war because it was a fascist imperial venture from the word go, while the right largely wants an end to the Ukranian war because they can't stand to be fighting against their fellow whites when Big Bad China is right there.

Reactionary ideologies exist as a sorta defence mechanism against the overthrow of the dominant ideology (you can see this in monarchist ideologies during the rise of capitalism and again in fascist reaction to prevailing communist/anarchist currents).

These ideologies reinforce the system by preying on the people discontented with the current status quo to prevent them radicalising into a revolutionary ideology.

Consequently, the extremes of reaction take the aesthetics of common critiques in capitalism and direct them into a target that the capitalist class would be willing to sacrifice if it meant the system keeps chugging along. Y'know, when Ferdinand Kronawetter said: "antisemitism is the socialism of fools", that sorta thing.