A fascinating thing about Vladimir Putin is how he’s managed to get both the American/European center-right and -left aligned against him at the same time he’s got the extremes of both wings rooting for him, for different reasons:

winning the marginalized right and alienating the center-left with his repressive Christian traditionalist posturing; winning the marginal left and alienating the center-right (and to a degree winning the off-right) by opposing the NATO imperium (plus some off-left bonus from reviving the 20th century “anti-fascist” imaginary).

He’s got both the channels and the rhetoric to speak out of both sides of his mouth to different crowds - able to justify any given geopolitical move in both registers at the same times - and I’d be shocked if this wasn’t the plan all along; one of the strengths of the KGB he came up through was its ability to fracture coalitions and inspire internal conflict in the western bloc

Wouldn’t say I in any way trust his commitment to any cause beyond “Russia strong”, but I certainly respect his relentless competence at power politics. (Admittedly, the Chuck Norris masculinity charms me a little too.)