Putin sows confusion with wordplay on liberalism

Putin’s comments before the G20 display the ideological self-confidence of today’s dictators.

Vladimir Putin’s comments on liberalism displayed a ‘shrewd ability to play on much of the Western media like Liberace on a grand piano’. Picture: AP

So Vladimir Putin has told us ­liberalism is dead!

In a press interview just before the G20 summit in Osaka, the Russian President declared that liberalism had outlived its purpose. He went on: “(Liberals) cannot simply dictate to anyone just like they have been attempting to do over the recent decades.”

He then picked a bone with Western liberals over immigration policy, especially by praising Donal­d Trump for attempting to control the US’s borders. Putin also denied the well-established Russian attempts to interfere in Western politics and blamed the US entirely for the state of Washington-Beijing tensions.

Putin’s primary aim, apart ­perhaps from having fun, was to sow confusion in the West and he was spectacularly successful. Nowhere­ in the West is more confused­ right now than Europe, where your correspondent is sojourning­ these several months, and that confusion was given full play in the ­response to Putin.

In fairness, the Russian dictator was not the only one causing confusion­ at the G20. US President Donald Trump would surely expect to earn some plaudits for his decision to forgo escalation in the trade dispute with Beijing. But as well as suspending his previous decision to implement further tariffs­ on Chinese imports into the US, Trump lifted the ban on US companies selling their products to Chinese telco giant Huawei.

Not going ahead with the extra tariffs is something Scott Morrison urged on Trump and the world generally will be happy. The de-­escalation with Huawei may be good policy too. But the world was gearing up for the apparent US decisio­n to decouple the US from the Chinese hi-tech supply chain, to make sure there were Western alternatives to the giant Chinese telecommunications companies.

Fundamental forces were lining up behind Trump’s apparent determination to go down that historic­ road. But if really it was all just a feint, a temporary negotiating tactic to get the Chinese to buy some more US exports, then Trump will leave the profoundly important security problems unfixed. Any US leader will have a big credibility problem if they try to ­initiate such actions again. But it’s too early to judge all that yet.

Back to Putin. His comments do display the ideological self-­confidence of today’s dictators. But more than that, they demonstrate the shrewd ability to play on much of the Western media like Liberace on a grand piano. It’s not exactly classic, but it sure carries a melody. Really, you have to think there is a special in-service training module for dictators on how to stir up Western reactions that work in their favour.

For example, the predominant British reaction, especially on the BBC, was to denounce Trump. That’s right — Putin says ­something offensive, so the reaction is to sneer and spit at Trump.

Putin intended this of course. This is partly because of the marvellous­ way the word liberalism has several clear and different meanings. Liberalism if it means democracy, the rule of law and human rights, applies to most democratic politicians in most democratic countries. The Liberal Party — that’s right, the party that is liberal — just won re-election in Australia. The long-term governing party in Japan is the Liberal Democratic Party.

A great mentor of mine in polit­ical thought was legendary ­Sydney University philosophy professor David Armstrong, who died a few years ago. He was a leading figure in the development of Quadrant magazine and always described himself, precisely, as a liberal conservative, a label I would aspire to emulate.

But liberalism, especially in America, has another meaning. And that is the political program of the left wing of the Democratic Party. As I argued in my book, God is Good for You, contemporary liberalism of this kind is going completely mad. Having once been dedicated to the honourable ideal of erasing race from civic status, it has reversed course and now elevates characteristics such as race and gender to the universal determinants of all politics and culture.

What Putin does is intentionally assist the Western left into conflating liberalism meaning democracy, rule of law and human rights with the other thing called liberalism, which is affirmative actio­n gone wild, identity politics on steroids, a culture of ever-escal­ating grievance and a savage effort to limit free speech, not to mention general hostility to all the achievements of Western history.

Putin is actually the Western left liberals’ best friend, and they are his best friends. Naturally the BBC lampooned Trump, because he is an enemy of American liberalism. Therefore, though he is a democratically elected and law-abiding president, who is very vulgar­ but many of whose policies have been effective, the BBC commentators instead presented him as a foe of liberalism, like Putin.

Similarly, Putin was shrewd to dabble in the treacherous Western politics of immigration. By notionally supporting Trump, Putin knew he would further undermine the legitimate desire of democratic nations to control their borders.

Remember, when John Howard took control of Australia’s ­borders he increased legal immig­ration and was wholly successful in the process. But Putin is an enemy of the West and plays with great shrewdness on the pathologies of our public culture.