The Oddly Intense Anger Against Zelensky, Explained

Domestic animosity drives right-wing rage

“I just want to punch him.” That’s what Candace Owens told her 3.3 million Twitter followers in response to a video of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanking Americans for their support in his nation’s existential struggle against Russian aggression. It’s an absurd, juvenile statement, but it was also par for the course on the new American right.

Zelensky’s visit to the United States triggered an astonishing outpouring of raw vitriol from some of the most prominent right-wing voices in the land. Donald Trump Jr. called Zelensky an “international welfare queen.” In a furious monologue on Tucker Carlson Tonight, Carlson said that Zelensky—who wore fatigues similar to the ones he’s worn since the conflict started—“dressed like the manager of a strip club.” The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh told his 1.2 million Twitter followers that Zelensky was a “grifting leech.”

The list goes on. Turning Point USA’s Benny Johnson called Zelensky an “ungrateful piece of sh*t.” His boss, Turning Point USA President Charlie Kirk, said Zelensky is “the perfect person for DC. Barely can speak English, an actor, and totally corrupt.”

And if you think that’s the entirety of right-wing hatred against Zelensky, you’re sadly mistaken. I simply highlighted a few of the people with huge platforms on the right. If you want an even more complete roundup, I’d suggest reading Cathy Young’s outstanding report over at The Bulwark.

In fact, Cathy and I are doing much the same thing. We’re trying to highlight and explain the incredible outpouring of right-wing anger against the president of a country that’s defending itself against an unprovoked, brutal invasion by one of our nation’s chief geopolitical foes. Here’s Cathy’s smart take:

Partly, it’s simply partisanship: If the libs are for it, we’re against it, and the more offensively the better. (And if the pre-Trump Republican establishment is also for it, then we’re even more against it.) Partly, it’s the belief that Ukrainian democracy is a Biden/Obama/Hillary Clinton/”Deep State” project, all the more suspect because it’s related to Trump’s first impeachment. Partly, it’s the “national conservative” distaste for liberalism—not only in its American progressive iteration, but in the more fundamental sense that includes conservatives like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher: the outlook based on individual freedom and personal autonomy, equality before the law, limited government, and an international order rooted in those values. Many NatCons are far more sympathetic to Russia’s crusade against secular liberalism than to Ukraine’s desire for integration into liberal, secular Europe.

I agree with all of her explanations. Each element is in the mix to a greater or lesser degree, but I want to drill down on her first point. Partisan polarization doesn’t just explain the fact of right-wing opposition to Ukraine; it also explains its raw intensity.

Simply put, it’s not about Ukraine. It’s about you. A key reason why the new right hates Zelensky is that the new right hates you. You are the real enemy, and anything or anyone you like, they will hate. And, to be clear, I’m not just talking about polarization between Republicans and Democrats. Most Americans (including most Republicans) still support sending additional arms to Ukraine.

This is about polarization against the Democrats, against the Republican establishment, and against traditional Reagan conservatives like me—a coalition the new right calls the “uniparty.” What the alleged uniparty supports, the new right opposes, and it doesn’t just oppose positions; it opposes the people within the alleged uniparty with an almost primal ferocity. Just watch a typical Carlson monologue. It’s peppered with schoolyard insults and juvenile name-calling.

Along with the vitriol, there is a kind of potpourri of positions that goes along with membership in the new right, including vaccine skepticism (or outright opposition) and election denial. No, not every person shares the same position, but the overlap is tremendous—including among most of the public voices I highlighted above.

Kirk, for example, spent much of yesterday tweeting against Zelensky and in support of Kari Lake’s hopeless effort to reverse the results of the Arizona gubernatorial election, which Lake lost. There are few more prominent opponents of the COVID vaccine than Owens. Carlson has also relentlessly criticized COVID vaccines.

At first glance, these issues might seem to be completely disconnected. But scratch beneath the surface, and they all share the same fundamental characteristic: furious defiance of majority consensus. Again, what the “uniparty” is for, the new right is against.

And this defiance makes a difference in people’s decisions. Republicans are less likely to get vaccinated against COVID, and now there’s evidence that this was a deadly choice. A study of voters in Ohio and Florida has revealed some startling facts: “The fates of Republicans and Democrats began to diverge markedly after the introduction of vaccines in April of 2021. Between March 2020 and March 2021, excess death rates for Republicans were 1.6 percentage points higher than for Democrats. After April 2021, the gap widened to 10.6 percentage points.”

That defiance is also making a difference in American support for Ukraine. The same poll I cited above, which indicates that a majority of Republicans still support additional arms for Ukraine, also shows that support for arms and economic assistance to Ukraine has dropped far more with Republicans than with Democrats or independents.

I’ve written about right-wing contrarianism before, but it’s important to identify each time it arises. And it’s important to identify the sheer amount of hatred that animates new-right discourse. You don’t compare foreign leaders to strip-club owners, call them leeches or welfare queens, or fantasize about punching them if you’re simply holding a different opinion about a complex and difficult point of policy.

That’s why it’s become particularly difficult to discuss policy. The new right’s objections to supporting Ukraine, or taking a vaccine, or accepting the results of an election are largely born out of hatred—the conviction that the evil “they” are out to destroy “us”; it’s difficult to reasonably debate policy differences against the backdrop of such extreme animosity. If the new right believes its Democratic and Republican opponents are fundamentally evil, then of course it will believe that the policies and people they support are evil as well.

We saw this animosity again yesterday, when 18 Republicans joined Democrats in the Senate to pass an omnibus spending package that included a substantial increase in aid to Ukraine. And how did Johnson react? “Senate Republicans are traitors,” he tweeted. Carlson hosted a segment called “adventures in idiocy” in which his guest, yes, decried the “uniparty” and called the bill a “betrayal of the American people.”

Of course, not every opponent of Ukraine aid shares these dark motivations. There are thoughtful people who raise serious concerns about escalation, or about the increasing financial costs of our support. But right-wing infotainment doesn’t feature reasoned argument. Instead it sensationalizes. It insults. It provokes. And those insults and provocations have far more reach than reasoned arguments.

The longer I write about American politics and culture, the more I realize that animosity is our real enemy. The anger in so many American hearts blinds them to the truth, renders them vulnerable to conspiracies, and tempts them into dehumanizing their opponents.

That’s what we saw unfold online this week during Zelensky’s visit. It wasn’t the new right rising in reasoned opposition to American policy, but rather hysterical rage animated by very real hate. And the hatred isn’t truly against the people of Ukraine or even necessarily against Zelensky himself. It’s against you. It’s against me. It’s against the people of this country who the new right believes are rotten to our very core.