With the Ukraine war, I'm seeing something that at first surprised me. It revealed a big blind spot of mine. I should've known better.
Humans are naturally tribal. It's in our DNA. And that's ruling much of our attitudes on this war. We want to believe our side is right. Is smarter. Is better informed. Sees what the ignorant masses don't see. Isn't influenced by the propaganda and disinformation. Because they're our tribe and our survival depends upon them being better.
The pro-war faction has of course talked loudly about how bad Putin is. Much of their propaganda has focused on him personally. There's plenty of material to mine there. With Russia itself Reagan's old 'Evil Empire' rhetoric gained new life. The war hawks parroted Ukrainian disinformation; the 'Ghost of Kiev', the heroes of Snake Island and other fairy tales. And of course the history of western misdeeds and manipulations are dismissed or just not talked about at all. Our enemy media is their loyal cheerleader.
The anti-war faction has rightly rejected the pro-war narrative. But they've also rejected the underlying facts. As a result we're seeing them accepting a lot of the Russian propaganda as 'truth'. I've seen them making excuses for Putin's actions and history. I've seen them saying Putin isn't such a bad guy after all. I've seen some describe him as a reasonable man, even a hero for defending his nation. I've even see claims he's converted to true Christianity and is now a religious moral leader. And that Russia is 'the victim' in all this.
As the invasion plan went to hell in a handbasket I've seen the anti-war faction make the insane claim that Russia failing to take Kyiv, losing 10,000+ troops & hundreds of armored vehicles, suffering one of the worst military humiliations in modern history was 'what they planned all along'. That they never intended to take the city in the first place.
In the middle there's a few voices. People who have transcended the tribalism. Intelligent people like Matt Taibbi, Eric Weinstein and Joel Pollack. People who can simultaneously hold in their head the concepts that Putin's evil, Zelenskyy’s a political whore, the west is corrupt, Ukraine is corrupt, Russia is corrupt, and that there's no good actors in this whole thing except the Ukrainian people and those on the ground helping them. They don't ignore facts based on which side they're on. But those voices are almost universally ignored. The two tribes are themselves at war. You're with them or against them, as these unaffiliated voices have discovered, being branded as 'the other side' by both sides.
It caught me by surprise that our side was blinded by tribalism, and that I was blinded in my opinion of our side. And the discovery that I eagerly joined a side without even realizing it or thinking out its implications. It caught me by surprise that I'm no smarter than everyone else. That Dunning-Kruger bit me in the ass. That as much as I try to be informed and seek the truth, in fact tribalism was ruling me the whole time, just like everybody else. That in the battle between the reptile brain and the gray matter, the reptile always wins in the end. That I failed to remember the most important thing of all. I'm human.
My Sadly Imperfect Vision
While I think you probably overstate the number of times you have seen people state the "Putin is not such a bad guy" I think your overall experience is not unique. It is very difficult to find any information to counter the preferred narrative. I recently started listening to a podcast called "Russians With Attitude" just to get something other than the standard narrative. It's imperfect, sure. But when people like Mika Brzezinski say, out loud on national television, that it is her job to tell people what to think, what other choices do I have?
You and me both: neither of us as smart as we think, but thankfully, both human and able to keep on watching and thinking.