politics

different people can come to the same conclusions for different reasons.

• reactionaries sometimes come to the conclusion that capitalism is bad. Not because of bourgeoisie vs. proletariat or theft of surplus value, but because it's "destroying the family" or "turning everyone woke" or it's "run by the jews" or it's "bringing too many immigrants to my country"
• communists come to the conclusion that capitalism is bad because it oppresses the proletariat and is closely linked with imperialism and colonialism, and various oppressions and phobias against vulnerable and marginalized groups.
• same conclusion, different reasons behind it.

different people can also come to different conclusions for the same reasons.

• pacifists come to the conclusion that it is wrong to use violence because they are against oppression.
• communists come to the conclusion that it is correct to use violence because they are against oppression.
• different conclusions, same reasons behind it.

so looking at Ukraine. You often see conservative foreign policy realists like John Mearsheimer for example, calling out America's role in this conflict. Why does he disagree with it? Is it because he's against American imperialism in Eastern Europe? No. Is it because he's against NATO? No. Is it because he wants Russia to win? No. He loves American imperialism. He's in favor of NATO. He wants America to win. He views America's role in Ukraine as a strategic failure. The empire overextending itself and accelerating its own decline by biting off more than it can chew. His critique is entirely strategic. He thinks America has strategically failed to do imperialism competently. He wants the imperialism to be more competent. Compare that with a Communist critique which is against NATO expansion, which recognizes the NED's role in funding right wing extremism in Ukraine for decades, which understands that the Neo-Nazi Banderites used Euromaidan as a Trojan horse to coup the Yanukovich government, which understands that America is trying to balkanize and isolate countries that have a history of socialism, even if that history is long over.

Some people childishly see Communists and Conservatives coming to similar conclusions, but for different reasons, and moving from opposite directions. They are unable to do vector calculus on our political positions. All they see is two people occupying the same point on the graph. They don't see what direction they're moving towards, where they came from, or any other nuance, and they conclude "these people are allied with each other because they agree on this one thing."

Because both the left and right are not entirely invested in the American imperialist global project, so they don't make up their own bubble reality to exist inside. Both the left and the right are outside the bubble and can see reality, while the imperialist center lives in delusion, their eyes shrouded by dollar signs.

Sometimes its the funny outcome of seeing groups use rhetorical arguments as cover for what they really believe.

So a right wing isolationist and an anti-imperialist antifascist can both state "hey, maybe the war in Ukraine is a bad thing". But the reasons behind the statement will be wildly different.

Being able to mask an ideology behind rhetoric also allows a group to gain support or legitimacy from other groups that would otherwise be critical or hostile. Right wingers love to make rhetorical arguments based around "we must protect the children". This sentiment is pretty simple and not controversial in any way. So people who can't/don't/won't look too deep into what the right wingers are actually going to do to "protect the children" will wind up doing the work of defending their project from the people who are aware of the true goals of the right wing project.

Its one of those things that requires the extreme use of "consider the source" when trying to understand why similar arguments/rhetoric can be seen deployed by groups with wildly different ideological worldviews.

Liberals are happy with the status quo. The right says the status quo needs to change. We say it needs to change. So there is some similarity.

Also large institutions put small bits of class consciousness into right wing talking points to make sure liberals oppose it. Just to muddy the waters a little.

I assume by "right wing" you are actually trying to mean Republicans and their followers. But both Democrats and Republicans are right-wing. Republicans oppose Democrats' wars, sometimes only rhetorically while they materially support them as soon as they get down off the podium, and sometimes (somewhat) materially because they, themselves, would rather be fighting different wars at the moment or making other (e.g. domestic) changes that require them to get the upper hand in the moment in their petty bickering with their donkey-branded co-fascists.

In politically opposing a war for any reasons, you are going to search for arguments that help convince large numbers of people to agree with you and back your political moves. The truth lends powerful such arguments. So Republicans wind up using (some) truth in their arguments against the war that has been the Democrats' baby for the last 15 or so years. Biden was fighting this war back when he was vice president, and Obama let him and Hillary and the other neocons he put in the State Department pretty much have it, while he got off on personally overseeing drone murders in Syria and other places. It's part of a larger NATO expansion and "new" (same as the old) Cold War that both Democrats and Republicans have been waging since the 1980s. But this facet of it has become the Democrats' baby. So (some) Republicans oppose it. Often rhetorically, but some—and growing now, as it's losing its new-car smell—oppose it more materially because they'd rather be focusing on China.

Leftists, on the other hand, oppose this war because being anti-war is necessary and inherent to leftism. So we're going to use some of the same fact-based arguments that people who oppose it for other reasons also use. NATO provoked this war. It orchestrated a coup in Ukraine, and it backed Ukraine's fascist government as it went about the goal of committing genocide against people in Donbass and eastern Ukraine in general (and Jews, and Roma, etc.). And it gleefully threw weapons and Ukrainian lives and Europe's heating and much of Europe's economy into the grinder in an effort to "bleed Russia". There's not really any disputing that if you simply look at the history, and don't delude yourself about imperialism or how things extended back a long way past February 2022. If Republicans touch on some of that, just know that they're not doing it for the right reasons, and they'll gladly twist it into nationalism, antisemitism, anti-Slav bigotry, etc. in a heartbeat. Don't be fooled. Aspects of the truth can be used as propaganda too (at its heart, propaganda isn't just a synonym for "lies", but manipulation based on emotion and other social influence rather than real argument). But because it's not grounded in consistent philosophy or principle, it's only a fleeting affair and will resist attempts to tie it into a broader analysis that would be consistent with the momentary, opportunistic stance. Do Republicans oppose imperialism? Of course not. Do they oppose war? Of course not. Do they oppose genocide? Of course not. Do they want working-class people to have a say in how we wield arms? Of course not.

It helps if you look at it from the angle of democracy vs authority, rather than left vs right. Both communists and fascists lean heavily into authoritarianism, making them quite similar in many regards.