Richard Hanania, President of the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology and a Research Fellow at Defense Priorities, discusses the current Russian war in Ukraine and the intertwined western cultural war deeply embedded within this conflict’s narrative. Noting how the “white conservative Christians bad” forms the ideological core of neoliberal views of this conflict, Hanania explains how wokery has crept into current media and political discourses which show support through emotional readings of the current war in Ukraine without any concern for the humanitarian impact of neoliberal calls to punish Russia. Hanania describes the generational differences of older generations who suffer from Cold War nostalgia lending to their hostile views of Russia while giving detailing the links between television’s influence on the representation of the current conflict. Covering the business model of major media like CNN and MSNBC and the American foreign policy establishment and its policies, Hanania covers the current media bias from the right’s militaristic bent and the left’s focus on identity politics while outlining the dangers in how many intake media. Hanania presents the background of US involvement in Ukraine historically to include its involvement in the protests against Yanukovych and its form of “democracy promotion” which fundamentally amounts to regime change while also accounting for the historical role of NATO in the run-up to this conflict and the post-Soviet situation in relationship to US foreign policy.

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