As the war lumbers along and the atrocities become more atrocious, conservatives will insist that they knew all along that this Putin guy was bad news and will deny their groveling hero worship of a power-hungry mass murderer.
There is just something about an overly aggressive, hostile, boastful jerk masquerading as a tough guy that makes huge swaths of any given population say, “Sure, go ahead and arrest my neighbors, control the media, and kill foreigners, because you’re the boss.”