Paul KrugmanGood roundup of the anti-Zelensky right, but I think it misses one additional point: the importance of the musclebound, thuggish Russian soldier in right-wing iconography 1/ https://www.thebulwark.com/putins-useful-idiots-right-wingers-lose-it-over-zelensky-visit/
Before Putin's war, lots of people on the right, from Ted Cruz on down, idolized bicep-flexing Russians who were supposed to be much tougher than our supposedly pampered service members 2/
Even now you see people saying "a woke military is a weak military" — in the face of the definitely anti-woke Russian army's string of disasters . And how many times has Tucker Carlson declared that Russia is winning? 3/
You don't have to be a military expert to see that while courage and endurance are as important as ever, a modern military also needs smart people who can act on their own initiative 4/
And that recruiting people from as wide a pool as possible, and with the promise of decent treatment, is going to work better than brutalizing and hazing. But admitting that would undermine the whole RW world view 5/
Colin DanbyMoreover, you need to build a functioning organization out of the people you recruit -- one that is flexible and quick and able to integrate new information. A lot of what goes on under the flag of diversity is making organizations work properly. The war has been a clear management lesson that brutalizing and hazing and harassing makes dysfunctional organizations.