All Authoritarians Sound Alike, They Share the Same Language
From Putin’s Tsarist Imperialism to DeSantis’ Ur-fascism*
By Alejandro Armengol (Cubaencuentro)
HAVANA TIMES – In his state-of-the-nation report a few days ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the Federal Assembly, that is, both houses of the country’s parliament, and repeated a series of lies about the war in Ukraine. This week marking the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of that country.
In addition to the distortion of facts and attacks on the West, to which he dedicated a little over half an hour at the beginning of his speech, Putin made a series of statements that are similar to what the extreme right repeats in the United States.
The Russian president said in his live-streamed speech: “They (Western elites) also can’t help but recognize that it is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield, so they are carrying out increasingly aggressive informational attacks against us.”
He then added: “Of course, it is young people, the younger generations, who are primarily chosen as targets. And here too they lie constantly, distort historical facts, and do not stop attacking our culture, the Russian Orthodox Church, and other traditional religious organizations of our country,” he continued.
“Look at what they are doing to their own people: the destruction of the family, and cultural and national identity. Perversions and abuse of minors, including pedophilia are now the norm, the norm of their lives. And the clergy, the priests, are forced to bless same-sex marriages,” Putin noted, adding that “the Anglican Church, for example, is considering the idea of a gender-neutral god.”
Above all, this last paragraph, and fragments of the previous ones, are similar to statements made by the of the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, and appear in the conspiracy theories that abound on the internet.
Chosen affinities or authoritarian similarities?