'the liberal idea presupposes that nothing needs to be done.'

In the past I've been skeptical toward the fearful belief of neocons and globalist liberals that Vladimir Putin is deliberately advancing an anti-liberal agenda worldwide. I'm now compelled to address an interview Putin gave last week to the Financial Times newspaper, in which he said that "the liberal idea has become obsolete." The first thing to make clear is that he's not advocating the abandonment of liberalism by any country, except possibly for the United States. As always, in keeping with his principle of respecting sovereignty unconditionally, Putin claims not to interfere with the domestic affairs of any other country. In each country, he says, the people must decide their own future. Of course, Putin has a habit of uncritically equating "the people" with the regime or ruling party, as if every dictatorship is its people's choice in some sense, if only in the sense that it's not some other people's choice. To make his point more clear, he goes out of his way to state that he does not endorse the domestic policies of President Maduro in Venezuela, implying that much could be done better there. Putin doesn't support Maduro against his opposition because he likes Maduro or his policies. As was the case with Hugo Chavez, Putin works with Maduro "because he [is] president ... not ... as an individual." If he prefers Maduro to the opposition, it's because he abhors the chaos he takes, with Libya as his model, to be the inevitable consequence of regime change driven by ideologically motivated international pressure. No country or part of the world has the right to impose its ideology or values on any other, Putin says. While we in the U.S. identify that habit of imposition with the neocons within the Republican party, liberal Democrats have been just as eager, as in Libya during Obama's administration, to force democratization where the soil doesn't seem to be ready. From Putin's outsider perspective, this may be part of the global "liberalism" he rejects. While he's often critical of Donald Trump in the interview, he interprets Trump's "America First" attitude as a kind of normalization of American foreign policy. "I don't think his desire to make America first is a paradox," Putin says, "I want Russia to be first, and that is not perceived as a paradox; there is nothing unusual there." He sees Trump's election as an uprising against a globalization process that seemingly has done Americans more harm than good, but he warns against an overreaction against globalization that could disrupt global order.

What is "liberalism" in Putin's mind? In the interview, he implicitly equates it with multiculturalism and suggests that the global migration crisis has proven an unconstrained multicultural approach "untenable." Taking what might be called a "populist" stance, the Russian argues that governments must look after "the interests of the core population" first. It's unclear what "core" translates, whether Putin simply means the majority of any country or is asserting some sort of ethnic essentialism implying that some people are more of the body than others. He also contrasts liberalism, more predictably, with "traditional values." He tries to have it both ways during the interview, denying that Russia is officially homophobic in any way while scoffing at modern notions of gender diversity. "Some things appear excessive to us," he says, "Let everyone be happy ... But this must not be allowed to overshadow the culture, traditions and traditional family values of millions of people making up the core population." Are homosexuals not part of the core population? It's hard to tell in translation, but Putin also says that "Russia is an Orthodox Christian nation" and that "traditional values are more stable and more important for millions of people than this liberal idea."

Putin says something else interesting about liberalism as he sees it. The problem with liberalism isn't just that it embraces multiculturalism to an excessive extent, but that "nobody is doing anything." Specifically, they're not doing anything about migrant crime. Echoing Trump, Putin tends to identify unlimited migration with crime, and he definitely sees it as a crisis. However, "the liberal idea presupposes that nothing needs to be done." Putin believes that liberals "say that all is well, that everything is as it should be." The sort of solutions Putin might employ -- he's careful not to endorse Trump's plans for border walls and punitive tariffs -- strike liberals as worse than the problem, presumably because they violate liberal ideals of human rights. "They say this is bad and that is bad as well," Putin protests, "Tell me, what is good then?" Echoing Trump or any number of European populists, he complains that "the migrants can kill, plunder and rape with impunity because their rights as migrants must be protected." Whatever his views on migrant crime, Putin echoes a general point I've made about liberalism. Being uncomfortable with states of emergency or exception, liberals are loathe to acknowledge crises. Their constitutional ideals depend on the absence of crisis or any existential stake in politics. To liberals, a crisis -- or at least a crisis declared by the wrong people -- is the first slippery step toward a state of emergency and dictatorship. In this context, to be anti-migrant is to be authoritarian. This belief has much to do with an ad hominem notion of politics I've discussed elsewhere, which trusts no one to exercise emergency powers or even propose measures that might increase human suffering. If liberals can't seem to answer Putin's question, "what is good?" it may be because 21st century liberals have lost the ability or will to think in a utilitarian way. You may not agree with however Putin defines his "core" population, or how an American politician might define his, but it may still prove necessary for leaders in any country to calculate the greatest good for the greatest number, even when that number isn't "all." If liberals can't bring themselves to do this, they may find it more difficult than they think to prove Putin's claims of obsolescence wrong.