Its time to give Russia hell even Laura Loomer thinks so

Everybody loves a redemption arc, and Laura Loomer’s abrupt reversal on the war in Ukraine is a particularly rewarding one.In the days, weeks, months and even years following Russia’s unprovoked invasion, Loomer — a popular MAGA influencer and far-right conspiracy theorist — joined a majority of her peers in assailing Ukraine, its leader and its American supporters.In no uncertain terms, too.Loomer had described Ukraine as “a country full of Nazi apologists,” cast doubt on the ghastly civilian casualty count it’s suffered and lambasted President Volodymyr Zelensky both a “fake Jew” and a “Jihadi apologist.”Yet on Thursday, she conducted an amiable interview of Zelensky during her first-ever visit to the war-torn nation.And by the time she sat down with her ex-punching bag, she’d undergone a laudable change of heart.“Just experienced my first air raid in Ukraine.Sirens blaring.

This is every day for every Ukrainian,” she marveled on Tuesday.Even more impressively, she had admitted to — and apologized for — amplifying destructive Russian propaganda.“There are people in Ukraine who have to run to a bomb shelter everyday and some of us had the audacity to say Russia wasn’t wrong because we believed the lie that Ukraine is a country full of Nazi sympathizers,” Loomer lamented.“I said the worst things about Ukraine and then I traveled here myself in the middle of their war to learn more about Ukraine with my own eyes and I am floored with how many Russian lies I fell for.”Her conversion story is an especially compelling and consequential one.First, Loomer is being forthright about the contrast between the basis of her initial armchair attacks on Ukraine’s righteous cause, and the logic behind her U-turn.From afar, it was easy to lose the plot in a sea of disinformation and bad incentives.Many on the right had overreacted to the faux Trump-Russia collusion scandal by concluding that Vladimir Putin’s government was a natural U...