by Chris Jennewein

Right-wing media personality Tucker Carlson had a happy childhood, especially during the eight years that he lived in San Diego and attended La Jolla Country Day.

We know, because he told Times of San Diego that in 2017, happily recalling warm days spent swimming from La Jolla Shores to the cove.

“I had the happiest childhood of anyone I know,” he said. “I’d credit La Jolla for a lot of that. It’s a wonderful place.”

But fast forward to 2023, and he’s found a new home — Moscow. He may not be swimming in the Volga Canal at this time of year, but he still found the Russian capital to be “so much nicer than any city in my country.”

Carlson described Moscow as “so much cleaner, and prettier aesthetically — its architecture, its food, its service — than any city in the United States.”

That was one conclusion from his recent eight-day trip. The other was that dictator Vladimir Putin is a “capable” leader.

There’s a long history of American radicals visiting Moscow and affirming that the Russians have found the future. It used to be communism that beckoned, now its a kind of ethnic and religious nationalism.

Journalist John Reed saw communism as the future in Ten Days That Shook the World. New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer prize for glowing coverage of Joseph Stalin. Liberal Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders famously spent his honeymoon in Russia.

But the politics have flipped, and now it’s the hard right’s time to adore the Russians. Just substitute Putin for Stalin and the Russian Orthodox Church for Communism.

The torch–wielding white supremacists who marched through Charlottesville, VA, in 2017 understood this. “Blood and soil,” they chanted, and “Russia is our friend.”

Carlson’s interview with Putin, the official reason for the trip, didn’t go so well. The 71-year-old autocrat droned on about arcane historical injustices that supposedly justified the bloody invasion of Ukraine. Carlson didn’t get to ask many questions. But then, uncovering the truth probably wasn’t a goal for either man.

Whether the ostensible draw is communism or ethnic-religious nationalism, there’s a darker attraction to Russia. It has always been ruled by an autocrat. There’s no messy democracy; just a brutal leader, his inner circle and secret police. French philosopher Jean Francois-Revel described this attraction almost 50 years ago in an aptly named book: The Totalitarian Temptation.

With Carlson praising Moscow, and Donald Trump urging Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” in Europe, the new American right-wing infatuation with Putin and his country will make for a dangerous time.

Chris Jennewein is editor and publisher of Times of San Diego. This article is republished from The Times of San Diego which, along with The Moderate Voice, is a member of the San Diego Online News Association.