Pamela Cooper-White: Why some Christian nationalists have loved Vladimir Putin – Chicago Tribune
March 25, 2022
"As President Vladimir Putin intensifies his assault on Ukraine — killing hundreds of innocent civilians and forcing more than 3 million refugees to abandon their homes — leading members of the Democratic and Republican parties in the U.S. are lining up to condemn the Russian strongman and demand hard-hitting sanctions.
But as Putin grows more and more isolated on the world stage, he’s retaining one surprising base of support: far-right American Christians.
As Delaware Republican Lauren Witzke, a U.S. Senate candidate, recently
said at the Conservative Political Action Conference: “Russia is a Christian nationalist nation. … I identify more with Russians,’ with Putin’s Christian values than I do with Joe Biden’s.” Days later at the America First Political Action Conference, white nationalist
Nick Fuentes called for a round of applause for Putin — and got one.
These extreme views don’t exist in a vacuum. They are indicative of the swath of Americans who identify as Christian nationalists — many of whom
have quietly held their pro-Putin views for decades. They admire Putin because they see him as promoting their own conservative views on cultural issues, like attacking LGBTQ+ rights. More insidiously, they also admire Putin because they see him as a macho white Christian man who is willing to use deadly force against his enemies — something, alarmingly, that they’d like to see in the United States as well."