Last week, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny joined a long line of ordinary and noble people who were and are the victims of Stalinist tyranny and now Russian authoritarianism. 

Just 10 days prior, Tucker Carlson interviewed Putin, Navalny’s nemesis—and soon to be murderer—in a two-hour conversation at the Kremlin. The name Alexei Navalny never came up.

Then, when Carlson appeared onstage at the World Government Summit in Dubai and was asked why he hadn’t pressed Putin about Navalny, he replied: “Every leader kills people. Some kill more than others. Leadership requires killing people.”

Carlson went on to talk about how wonderful the Russian capital was, how it was “so much nicer than any city in my country.” (All onstage in a country that runs on indentured servitude and sharply curbs freedom of expression, mind you.)

Today, Free Press senior editor Peter Savodnik explains why Tucker Carlson—and so many on the American right—are confused about Putin’s Russia, and about what Navalny—a hero of our darkening century—died for. Putin is a warden of the deepest of deep states. So why does Carlson and his lot believe he’s worthy of admiration? And how did so many on the American right succumb to the same idiocy and myopia that grip so many progressive identitarians?

The way the left and the right arrived at their own brand of anti-Americanism was different, Peter argues. But the outcome is the same: this is exactly what the Kremlin wants.

For further reading on Navalny's death, check out:

Alexei Navalny Lived and Died in Truth, by Bari Wiess

Navalny’s Letters from the Gulag, by the Free Press

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices