In recent days, I have been detailing some of the ways in which the Right has become the Left — in which the Right of today acts like the Left of yore (and now, in some respects). Two days ago, I discussed “blaming America first” — the habit of blaming the United States for international conflicts instead of the enemies of America and freedom. In her speech at the Republican convention in 1984, Jeane Kirkpatrick (then still a Democrat) blasted left-wing Democrats for this very habit: blaming America first.

In those old days, we conservatives also spoke of “moral equivalence” — a false moral equivalence between the United States and the world’s dictatorships. People on the left were constantly saying, in so many words, “Yes, such-and-such dictatorship may be bad, but America is just as bad, if not worse.” Blasts against moral equivalence were a staple of conservative magazines and newspaper columnists.

Today has seen, particularly in the social media, an avalanche of moral equivalence: “Yes, Putin treats his opponents badly. But look at Joe Biden and the Democrats! Look what they’re doing to Trump!”

Here is a flagrant example:

U.S. senators are not immune. Last August, Alexei Navalny was hit with a 19-year prison sentence. But, as Russian human-rights activists say, “The real sentence, for political prisoners, is: ‘Until you die or Putin is out of power.’” The reaction of our secretary of state was as follows:

And here was the response of Senator Mike Lee (R., Utah), who tweets as “Based Mike Lee”:

You see, the various indictments of Trump, the Kremlin’s brutalization of Navalny, Vladimir Kara-Murza, et al. — what’s the difference?

The difference is very big indeed. I hope that the Right, generally speaking, will reestablish its moral bearings. When I was coming of age, the Left, or much of it, was outright anti-American. These guys would reflexively side with the Kremlin, Castro, Qaddafi, and all the rest against the American government. The right to criticize our government — or any government — is precious, of course. But I do hope the Right will wake up from this moral-equivalence stuff, and avoid the errors that made the Left noxious.