Putin Says Americans ‘Galore' Agree With Him

Miami Herald

6 hours ago

Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed many people in the U.S. agree with Russia's "traditional" views on family, gender, and culture, suggesting that support for these values is growing in the West.
Putin spoke with Russian propagandist Pavel Zarubin, who presents the program Moscow. Kremlin. Putin on state media channel Russia-1.
The Russian president's remarks amplify Russia's continued effort to claim the moral high ground in global cultural debates, casting itself as a defender of "traditional values" in contrast to what it portrays as the West's moral decline. The Kremlin has long condemned liberal policies on LGBTQ+ rights, gender identity, and reproductive freedoms, using these issues to justify its ideological divide with the West.
Over the past decade, the Kremlin has made "traditional values" a core part of its national identity, presenting Russia as superior to what it characterizes as the erosion of family and cultural norms in the West. This ideological framing has placed particular emphasis on rejecting liberal policies related to gender identity, LGBTQ+ rights, and reproductive freedoms.
Putin's interview with Zarubin was published by the Kremlin's newswire, Tass, which stated that the leader told him that "many people in the West, including in Western Europe and America, share Russia's position on traditional values."
"And I've told all the time a lot of people, including in the West, that we have people galore who share our position, and there are a lot of them in Western Europe, and in America, including North America," the president said.
Putin said he hopes Russia's "open, honest and clear position" on family, gender, and cultural issues has "supported those people who thought the same way as us."
He said political changes in the U.S.-likely referring to the election of President Donald Trump-marked a turning point in the country. "People who shared Russia's values also began to express them," Putin said.
"When people, who think like us on the matter, came to power-nothing is totally the same-but they generally share these universal human values, this, of course, was such an impetus for the people in the world as a whole who were sitting there in the rear and just kept quiet about themselves not wanting to face this totalitarian approach on the part of liberal globalists, they have also fearlessly begun to express their point of view, including on the political stage," Putin said.
"This so-called global liberalism, as I have already said, has outlived itself, in my opinion. It turned from liberalism into totalitarianism."
A survey of over 500 political scientists found that the majority believe that the U.S. is drifting swiftly from liberal democracy toward some form of authoritarianism."
Harvard's Steven Levitsky warned the U.S. has "slid into some form of authoritarianism."
"It is relatively mild compared to some others. It is certainly reversible, but we are no longer living in a liberal democracy," he told NPR.
The president also said Russia must rely on its traditional values to preserve its identity, otherwise "we will simply be gone."
"Russia will lose its identity, and this is extremely dangerous from the point of view of the country's future," Putin added.
Russia will continue to promote its traditionalist values at home. As part of this push, Russia in November introduced legislation imposing fines for what news wires describe as the "public propaganda of the ideas of voluntarily choosing not to have children."
On September 1, an order by Russia's telecommunications regulator Roskomnadzor will come into effect which will ban "childfree ideology", local media reported.
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