The developing story that Tenet Media, home to some of the farthest-reaching illiberal voices in US political discourse, have allegedly been substantially funded by the Russian state propaganda apparatus is deeply troubling.
There is perhaps no greater opponent of liberal values today than Vladimir Putin’s Russia. If the Department of Justice’s indictment is true, Russia is engaged in a concerted effort to undermine and attack liberal democracy through the funding of illiberal voices such as Dave Rubin, Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, and others.
It is a cliche to say that America’s enemies hate us for our freedom. It is perhaps both less trite and more accurate to say that they hate us for our openness, our pluralism, and our willingness to welcome and engage with the world. These liberal values, which have undergirded our liberal democratic system since its founding, are the core of the American identity and a threat to the rule of autocrats everywhere.
Is it a wonder then, that the foreign enemies of our liberal democracy are funding and promoting a domestic politics antithetical to those values – a politics of xenophobia, isolation, and identitarian grievance?
If there was any doubt how acute the need for a concerted and unified effort in defense of our liberal values and the liberal democracy that those values thrive within, that doubt should now be gone. If there was any question as to whether illiberal values could be made compatible with the American project, it should now be laid to rest.
Foreign governments will fund voices that seek to tear America apart, but only we can boost the voices that seek to bring us together and strengthen us in our values. Let all of us who prize those values join together in that effort.
Join Project Liberal today and let’s build together, from America’s grassroots, something far stronger than illiberal foreign dictators like Putin can break.