Christian Heiens is a Virginia-based political commentator, historian, and analyst known for his sharp critiques of modern liberalism and progressive ideology. A James Madison University alumnus and former legislative assistant in the Virginia House of Delegates, he has built a following as an election modeler and co-host of the podcast Making the Argument.
So many on the Dissident Right in America were actually quite receptive towards Russia at the start of the war in Ukraine because they saw everything leading up to this conflict to be just a thinly veiled attempt to spread yet more gay race communism to another country on the periphery of a West which had been thoroughly hijacked by Progressives.
“We helped topple the Ukrainian government and then incited a war with Russia so we could queer the Donbass” was the logic.
And in contrast to this, Russia was seen as a countervailing force against Progressivism. It was the last European country to be insulated from the modern Neo-Marxist Left because, paradoxically, it had been dominated by the older Marxist Left for 80 years and thus was spared the corrosive social effects of Liberal modernity even as it suffered under the corrosive economic effects of Communism.
This gave some on the Dissident Right the idea that Russia, having been spared from DEI, transgenderism, replacement migration, oikophobia, and anti-White hatred, could actually be the savior of the West by defeating it in Ukraine. A Russian victory on the battlefield would end the relentless foreign policy objective of the EU and NATO to export Wokeism abroad, and once that train had been halted, its aura of inevitability would crumble, leading to an unraveling of the entire project and a return to an older more traditional Europe that loved itself rather than the modern Europe that appears hell-bent on suicide.
When you frame things this way, that the West is irredeemably captured by an ideology that seeks to weaponize the resources of the West to spread itself across the globe even as it dissolves the West itself from within, it’s easy to understand why so many in the DR were Russophiles in 2022.
But what has happened since then?
Right-wing Westerners found out that Russians on X are militantly anti-West, not merely anti-Progressive. Even worse, they’re pro-Third World and pro-Islam. Virtually without exception, Russian public figures are almost universally arrayed against the West as a concrete civilization with a concrete people.
They’re not fighting an ideological war against race communism like so many on the Right originally thought, they are perpetuating one…just of a slightly different variation than our Progressive parasites here at home.
They don’t see themselves as belonging to Western Civilization, despite being settled by Norse Vikings over a thousand years ago and adopting Orthodox Christianity in the early Middle Ages. They see themselves as a distinct Eurasian Civilization locked in a struggle with the West.
Just listen to what Alexander Dugin has to say about the West, about Europe, and about America compared to what he says about India. It’s clear he views his role in politics and his home country’s place in history not as one to save the West from itself, but rather as one to defeat and ultimately destroy it.
Well that’s great if the only thing you care about is ensuring that Progressives lose, but what about the rest of us who have nowhere else to call home? No other civilization or inheritance to call our own?
That’s why so many on the Right have turned against the Russians over the last few years. Sometimes, the enemy of your enemy is just another enemy.
Heiens described how this perception led some on the right to hope that a Russian battlefield victory would disrupt the perceived inevitability of progressive foreign policy goals advanced by the EU and NATO. A Russian success, in this view, might halt the global spread of “Wokeism” and create space for a return to more traditional European self-regard.
That initial receptivity has largely faded, according to Heiens, and it’s hard to disagree. Over the intervening years, interactions with Russian voices online (he mentioned X but Telegram also applies) revealed attitudes that went far beyond opposition to progressive social policies. Russian public figures, he observed, frequently express broad hostility toward the West as a concrete civilization and people, rather than solely toward its current ideological direction. Many display sympathy for the Third World and Islam while rejecting any shared identity with Western Civilization, despite historical ties such as Norse settlement and the adoption of Orthodox Christianity. Heiens pointed to thinkers like Alexander Dugin as emblematic: Dugin’s writings, in his assessment, frame Russia’s historical role as one of confronting and ultimately overcoming the West, not rescuing it from internal progressive capture. Russians, he concluded, often see themselves as a distinct Eurasian civilization locked in struggle with the West.
The practical implication, Heiens argued, is sobering for those on the Western right who had hoped for an external ally. Opposition to progressive ideology does not automatically translate into alignment with Western civilizational interests. “Sometimes, the enemy of your enemy is just another enemy,” he wrote. In a follow-up post, he drove the point home: no outside force, whether Russia, China, Iran, or others, will rescue the West from its internal challenges. External actors opposing the current Western order are not allies in liberating it from progressive dominance; they pursue their own interests. The only reliable actor, Heiens insisted, is the right itself. Western conservatives and dissidents must learn to take their own side rather than waiting for foreign powers to do so.
Heiens’ observation resonates within ongoing debates on the American right about geopolitics, cultural decline, and strategy. It reflects a broader post-2022 reckoning among some dissident voices who initially projected their own anti-progressive priorities onto Russia, only to encounter a different civilizational self-understanding. By framing the issue this way, Heiens underscores a recurring theme in his commentary: the necessity of internal clarity and agency. In his view, the West’s problems are ultimately its own to confront, without reliance on external saviors whose goals may diverge fundamentally from those of Western traditionalists or nationalists.
The historical currents that have led to the present impasse are complex, and some argue that opportunities for engagement were squandered early on. The narrative suggests that a critical juncture was missed when, for instance, the George W. Bush administration allegedly snubbed Vladimir Putin regarding eventual NATO membership. Such perceived slights, rather than ideological divergence alone, may have set a foundational tone of mistrust, making genuine reconciliation increasingly difficult as successive administrations pushed forward with perceived Western-centric foreign policy goals.
Furthermore, the current war in Ukraine, fueled by a protracted war of attrition, has effectively foreclosed any realistic path to reconciliation in the near term. Instead, it has solidified an inconvenient alliance between Russia and China, creating a united front that directly challenges the existing Western-dominated international order. This partnership, born of shared strategic opposition, presents a significant geopolitical reality that Western policymakers can no longer afford to ignore.
Ultimately, assessing Putin’s approach requires recognizing the political environment within which he operates. It can be argued that he represents the most “pro-West” stance Russia could realistically sustain, given its history and internal dynamics. However, this pragmatic compromise has evolved. Russia’s commitment to an anti-Western, multipolar future appears unwavering. The implication for the West is clear: clinging to the hope of external salvation, whether from Moscow or Beijing, is a strategic dead end. The true battle for the West’s future must be fought and won internally, through self-awareness and decisive action, rather than through alliances of convenience with powers whose ultimate aims are diametrically opposed.
3 Responses
Of course Russia says it wants to defeat the West, they are at war with it. What do they care (or even understand) that the current globalist West has cannibalized the traditional Christian West. The West as it exists right now is their enemy, and in war, the goal is to defeat the enemy. This mentality may have been lost in the West as, for instance, the USA has often talked about its recent conflicts as being against the government of a country but allied with the people of a country (e.g. fighting the Taliban, not Afghanistan). But that’s not how wars work. How much would Russia be anti-Western and pro-China/India/Islam if the West was actually Christian? Hard to say. But how much did the dissident right in the West actually believe that the Russians were our saviors, or that they were our civilizational examples to emulate? The Russian nation overall might not help the dissident right in our fight, but let us pray that any Christian brothers in Russia are able to overcome in their civilization’s ideological battles as we strive to overcome in ours; and in that, there may still be some allyship possible.
@NJ: Please understand. Russian supremacy and imperialism has been “a thing” since at least the 1400s and depending on how you view history since the 800s. The leadership and form of government may change but the ideology never does. China? Same. Mongol Empire then? Communism with Chinese characteristics now. So “How much would Russia be anti-Western and pro-China/India/Islam if the West was actually Christian?” ignores that history. Russia spent hundreds of years at war with Christian Europe. Russia held Armenia, Poland and all of formerly Christian eastern Europe behind the iron curtain for nearly a century. During that time Russia allied themselves with India and Iran and only didn’t ally themselves with China because China refused to cooperate with Russia’s intent to rule the world as China sought – and still seeks – to rule Asia. Conservatives who willfully ignore this history are misplaced. Here is another thing: “the west” and “white people” and “white culture” is part of the postwar consensus. Russia never joined that consensus. They see themselves as a distinct people and culture from – say – Germans, Italians, French, Anglo-Saxons, Poles etc. Not only that, they view those other European tribes as threats to either subjugate them or outright attack and conquer them. Because of this, they believe that their only recourse is to conquer first before they get conquered. Russia views democracy and capitalism as inherently flawed and doomed to fail and when that happens they will be in an ideal position to ride in and plunder. Of course, Russia has been claiming this since like the 1930s. But because “being Russian” means so much to them, joining us is unthinkable. So they’ll just keep waiting even if it takes 1000 years. Which means yes, Russia does prefer being ruled by China and India than by the west. China and India are geographically closer plus more culturally and ideologically similar. They would be able to spin it as “it took us awhile but we finally built a coalition that toppled the Brits, French, Germans and the mongrel American state that they created.” But joining us? That is an outright defeat. As for Christianity, you might want to investigate the vast difference between Catholicism and Protestantism. And then between Roman Catholicism and Orthodox Catholicism. And finally the differences between Russian Orthodoxy and the other streams of Orthodoxy. In the west, we are ecumenists who believe in a form of Christian unity. Russians and Russian Orthodoxy do not believe this. They see the Russian Orthodox Church as part of the Russian state and Russian people. Which means the Russian Orthodox Church has to win just as the Russian state does. The idea that the Russian Orthodox are fighting some common religious or cultural battle with Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians etc. is absurd. Bottom line: Russians do not see the world the way that we do. They never have and never will. And blaming this fact on ourselves or anything other than Russians is nothing but choosing to deny the truth.
“The narrative suggests that a critical juncture was missed when, for instance, the George W. Bush administration allegedly snubbed Vladimir Putin regarding eventual NATO membership.”
Said narrative is a willing falsehood. For you youngsters who weren’t alive back then: Russia tried to take over the world. They succeeded in taking over western Europe. They succeeded in turning most of the third world into puppet vassal states. It was only NATO that kept them out of western Europe. Russia is very bitter about that to this day. It was the Monroe Doctrine that kept Russia out of North America and limited their spread in South America. Russia is bitter about that to this day. It was also our putting our bases pretty much all over the world and forming alliances with the likes of Pakistan, South Africa, Iraq and – yes – Israel that kept Russia from taking over even more of Africa and Asia (plus Russian arrogance that sabotaged relations with China and Viet Nam). Russia is bitter about that to this day.
What does this mean? George W. Bush did not snub Russia over NATO membership. That is what Tucker Carlson and the pro-Russia crowd want you to believe. Instead the decision to keep Russia out of NATO was unanimous? Why? Because of the terms that Russia demanded. What were those terms? Russia only wanted to join NATO if they could run NATO! Seriously. Russia never believed that NATO was an alliance of equals with one country one vote. See my previous comment. Russia has an imperialist mindset through and through. Russia convinced themselves that NATO was America’s fiefdom. So their pitch: “We’ll join NATO if you let us take America’s place. You have been taking orders from America all these decades. So you can just start taking orders from us instead. Why not? What’s the difference? We’ll give you better terms than the Americans did! And we’re more similar to you than this decadent mongrel state made up of people from all over the world that has no actual history or culture anyway! America has only been around for barely 200 years and is going to inevitably topple! We’ve been around since the Roman Empire and aren’t going anywhere!”
Yeah, that was pretty much their pitch. And NATO told them to go kick rocks. You have to remember this: George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton tried their level best to engage Russia after the Soviet Union fell. So did most of western Europe. Russia didn’t want to be engaged. They wanted to rule. The eastern European countries spent decades trying to warn western Europe and the United States. No one listened because, well western Europeans regard themselves as superior to eastern Europeans. It was only after their full scale invasion of Ukraine that western Europe FINALLY got the message. And even the, the national conservative right still chooses to delude themselves. Hilarious to see that it took Russia helping Iran kill our soldiers for SOME natcons to admit the truth.