In Impromptus today, I touch on that hero of the Right, Vladimir Putin. UKIP’s new leader is another great fan. She declared Putin one of her three political heroes, along with Churchill and Thatcher. Too bad the dead British leaders aren’t here to answer her. Of course, their lives do.

She (Diane James) justifies Putin’s actions in Ukraine in the usual way: protecting Russia’s interests, blah, blah, blah. And she praises him in the same language as our GOP nominee: “I admire him from the point of view that he’s standing up for his country. He is very nationalist. He is a very strong leader. He is putting Russia first.”

Yes, but do his actions in Syria count as “globalism”?

Last week, President Obama was mocking Donald Trump for his admiration of Putin. Trump likes to cite Putin’s high poll numbers. In an interview earlier this year, George W. Bush said to me, “Yeah, I’d be popular too if I owned NBC,” and the other networks.

Obama brought up Saddam Hussein. The late Iraqi dictator had a “90 percent poll rating,” he said. “I mean, if you control the media and you’ve taken away everybody’s civil liberties, and you jail dissidents, that’s what happens.”

That is exactly the way Republican leaders once talked. And now it is left to our left-wing president. Which shows you how dramatically and suddenly things have changed.

I would like to add that, in 2002, Saddam Hussein held a referendum on his rule. There was a 100 percent turnout — and he got 100 percent of the vote.

That’s popularity, baby.

My entire life, the Left has told me how popular the Castros are in Cuba. One normal response is, “Yeah? Then let them allow diverse parties, a diverse press, and free elections. Then we’ll see.” Somehow, the Castros never get around to doing this.

And now the Right tells me how popular Putin is in Russia.

Lessons about democracy and dictatorship, freedom and unfreedom, never stick, it seems. They have to be relearned over and over . . .