Why do Republicans have to be secretly in the thrall of the Russians to be evil? Can’t the Republicans just be scum based on their own will?
It is both
They are, but they also serve foreign interests.
Sometimes they do things that serve themselves, sometimes the American Oligarchy. Sometimes they do things that serve the Russian one. I think its important to be clear which.
They’re easily manipulated, the Republican party has made sure of that by keeping schools shit there for decades. You have entire generations of people that will do whatever they’re told
Can you really fault Putin for using such an easy target?
They don’t have to be, but they are.
I think this kind of mentality partially absolves the US of its own homegrown horrors and ignores the imperialist and fascist parts of our own society that have existed here since it’s creation.
Right. Like, yeah, they might be Russian agents but they’re WILLING agents. If Russia is asking them to do things, they’re things these traitors already wanted to do.
Whether they’re Russian agents isn’t exactly irrelevant, but it also doesn’t really change anything. Russia night have sped up the process, but we’ve been on this road literally since the inception of our country.
It’s wild to me how much of a boogeyman Russia has been made into in lib circles.
There are probably a dozen or so countries who actively root for and foment political discontent in the US, but for some reason any American that falls into alignment with some loose formation of anti-democraric positions qualifies specifically as a Russian agent
Libs do not realize just how xenophobic their own politics have become. Just because you think your fears are justified doesn’t mean they arent irrational
It’s wild to me how much of a boogeyman Russia has been made into in lib circles.
It’s a convenient thought terminating cliche. It stops them from introspecting. After you are so fucking delighted to support genocide that you would rather lose to trump than stop, you don’t want to do any introspecting.
Few countries had figures like Putin who played a long-game over decades to destabilize the US. The ones that do, we’re so into with oil deals, we don’t care if they did 9/11. I guess… now that I think about it, it is kind of weird.
They willingly cooperate with russia because russia helps them to take power via online botnets. Yeah, they are absolute scum, but you can find those in any society. The problem is foreign interference that gives them voice. Like the one USA now tries to apply to EU countries, boosting the far righters via social media algorithms.
because russia helps them to take power via online botnets
What makes you think the richest country in the world doesn’t have the power to create such botnets in the first place and relies on Russia?
They have their own botnets but they also use russian ones. It’s not mutually exclusive. The volume of bullshit matters.
Ok, now, do you have reliable numerical information comparing the volume of US vs Russian botnets? And by reliable, I mean taking into account that the US propaganda apparatus is much better funded and refined and less prone to being caught red handed. A good example of a good study would be to compare demonstrably pro-US-geopolitical-interest-netbots vs pro-Russian ones
What does pro-USA propaganda has to do with personal media power of MAGA election campaign? They weren’t even at power to control the state propaganda before they won the elections.
Like, yeah, they might be Russian agents but they’re WILLING agents. If Russia is asking them to do things, they’re things these traitors already wanted to do.
So if your grandma buys magic beans from some guy that promises they’ll cure her cancer, do you say “we’ll she bought them, she deserved to get tricked”?
You are projecting your own mindset onto others.
I don’t know why I’m here
all I care about is that we (as in US citizens) don’t blame the other countries for the shit that we did and correcting the stupid ass people who think that they’re the reason everything is so fucked up.
No.
This is like my grandma wants to kill every groundhog in the world and is working on it one groundhog at a time, then she buys magic beans that the seller promises will make groundhogs easier and faster to kill after she plants them, but the seller is also a violent murderer and says that if she doesn’t buy them and plant them then he’ll stab her. So she buys and plants them, not because of the threat but because it’s what she wants to, and then she goes on killing groundhogs but now it’s faster and easier.
You see, the words “willing” and “tricked” are antithetical in this case. The threat is incidental to the story and, on a narrative level serves no purpose but to characterized the seller as evil; he didn’t threaten her because the threat was necessary to successfully extort her, he threatened her because it’s in his nature to threaten people. The threat doesn’t change the outcome in any way.
Precisely. The US is suffering what they have inflicted on other countries for decades. It’s hard to have any empathy for them now when they are still doing it (e.g. Trump supporting Milei in Argentina).
Does it matter? The average American does not understand imperialism, their understanding was not needed to create it and it’s not required to unravel it
Healthcare, housing, wages… These are the polar bears. They’re the poster child, everyone is like “yeah, those are cute. I want to save them”
You don’t have to then explain why they should care, which requires them to understand a complex system of relationships
We don’t need informed support, we just need support to do good things, some of which should be done loudly and others we don’t need to make a show over
One could just as easily say that a meme about US homegrown horrors ignores the effect foreign propaganda efforts are having and absolves the countries hostile to America of blame.
This is dumb as shit, completely pointless.
Anti-fascism has absolutely nothing to gain from dumb lib conspiracies.
Labeling everyone as ‘traitors’ might feel satisfying, but it kills any chance of persuasion. Better to stick to specific actions/evidence and hold those accountable.
Most Republicans hate Russia and Putin. So this makes sense.
The fuck, Russian doesn’t control shit, they can’t even control their own troops half the time.
Trump’s just a shithead who will do almost anything when praised by powerful people, especially if given a shiny object.
Idk man, you remember that time when Republicans went to Russia for July 4th? Russia might not be able to control their troops, but they have enough dirty money they can buy some US politicians.
I figure that’s because Russia hates the gays and is ultra right as a government so it does not take much to buy some of the members of the GOP. Doesn’t mean the government as a whole is compromised by Russia.
There are people in Reform UK that have been paid to spew Russian propaganda and I’m fairly certain Tulsi Gabbard has a similar thing going on. Not to mention that Witkoff dude who’s obviously just on team Russia
Also, the ties run all the way from the US, across Europe and into Russia via CPAC and Heritage Foundation and more recently the Christian Orthodox church
So yea, I dunno if “control” is the right word but they defo coordinate
Most definitely agree. There’s influence, but it’s not a yes sir Mr Putin kinda thing.
Russia has got nothing to do with it. It’s all on the people of USA. No one else
It’s becoming clear there is only one oligarch ruling party in the US, so they’re looking for something new to blame since they can just pass the ball from red to blue anymore.
it’s simpler than that. the oligarch class here and the oligarch class in russia are friends. the inner party, or oligarchs, in china are friends, too. we all live in one imperial top down system that’s designed to look like it’s opposed to itself
(good point but I think you said “russia” twice by accident in first sentence.)
whoops!
Russia and China are less corrupt than west because they control oligarchy. Yeltsin was our CIA puppet that gave away Russia to their oligarchs with western financing/profit flows. Putin has reformed corruption, which is why our demonic filth opposes him. China also does not need oligarch support to maintain rule, and in fact spreads prosperity more pluralistically than west does.
Our corrupt propaganda against Russia needed treason by oligarchs to beg Putin to destroy Russia so they can get their yachts back. We can only project corruption on entire world, and it is the dumb plebs that believe in the strategy.
It has something to do with it inasmuch as it’s in their best interests for the US to destroy itself and they do whatever they can to help it along.
Sure. But the way you counteract oh-so-scary foreign influence is by having institutions and leaders behave in a way that builds public trust.
Just pointing at some nation on the other side of the planet and saying, “They’re trying to trick you!” does jack shit. It’s misplaced priorities at best and rabid jingoism at worst.
You’re grossly underplaying the influence foreign governments have had on each other within the past century. They’re going above and beyond “trying to trick you.”
They’re heavily investing in popular talking heads to support a path of radicalization, buying ads that target voters on Facebook, forming special interest social media groups, manipulating social media with bot farms, heavily bribing politicians, blackmailing the powerful, recruiting millionaires, lobbying policy, running a counterintelligence campaign, running hacking operations, and more that we don’t even know. They’re weaponizing intelligence and trying to convert people’s opinions to their advantage so that their opponents crumble from within. And they’re damn good at it.
Nobody’s “just pointing” at Russia or other countries. We have a recorded history of them doing it, and we can trace it back to them. They’re all doing it.
OK great. Amend your comment to mine. The last point still stands:
You counteract forgiven influence by giving people a reason to trust their local institutions. By delivering positive material change to hundreds of millions. Without that, it is just pointing fingers and complaining.
Yeah “pointing fingers and making things up”, huh?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections
https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/cyber/russian-interference-in-2016-u-s-elections
Putrid disinfo shill
Is this comment an example of misplaced priorities or rabid jingoism?
Vote now on your phones!
I never said “making things up”, that’s all you baby
"Wikipedia is evil for saying bad things about Ruzzia!!! "
Yeah about the level of rhetoric I expected from you
This is why you never win any of the wars you start. Oh, sorry, “special military operation”.
Operation MEATGRINDER ruahahahahah
…what are you reading? It’s clearly not what I’ve written.
Because you’re pathetically avoiding discussing Russian disinfo, and instead just pretend any implication that any exist is “rampant jingoism” or some other ridiculous bullshit.
Honestly if you were a bit smarter maybe one Finn (or modernly Ukrainian actually) wouldn’t be equivalent to 10 Russians. As it stands, we and they very much are.
yeah like why do people keep saying it’s Russia like chill
Might help if centrists could stop calling people to their left fascists and russians for disliking genocide.
But then they’d have to defend the indefensible
They defend the democratic party all the time.
The world does not revolve around genocide, good god, can we see the world at large beyond a single topic? I’m not even a centrist, and I know that’s not the reason for the name-calling.
The world does not revolve around genocide,
The democratic party does.
I’m not even a centrist, and I know that’s not the reason for the name-calling.
You’ve never called genocide wrong, so centrists don’t call you a russian.
None of this is simple, and anyone blaming a single source or calling it simple is trying to mislead.
What to me will never stop being funny is that the group that was the most anti-red, the group that would happily end someone’s carreer over some faint implied relationship to Russians, that always was the self proclaimed redski hunter, the group that always talked about bombing some freedom into dictators…
That group
That group is the same group that now went fully behind a fascist dictator wannabe who is controlled by a Russian actual dictator
It goes to show, this group, the Republicans, the conservatives, they have no ethics or morals, the leaders will say or do anything to stay in power, lie, steal, cheat, and their supporters are mostly either dumb or racist, mostly both
And they’ll never stop making sure you know what they’re thinking, they are the prototype loud mouthed arrogant “we’re number one babey, yeeaaaahhh!!!” Americans
Fucking pathetic
They want the Confederacy back. As in an oligarchy with slaves based on race. Modern day Russia is pretty close to that, as were a lot of the Latin American dictatorships, which they also supported.
The main issue with the Soviets in their eyes, was that the Soviets at least pretended to have some decent values. Something, which they despise in other groups as well. Take for example the Democrats.
Stop blaming Russians it’s BlueAnon shit. The conservatives can be acting like garbage all on their own.
It’s a class stuggle.
It’s that simple.I thought it was a political struggle.
Holding the bedrock of a nations political power to just being an ethnic group is a pretty wild take, albeit unsurprising.
Like a zoo of a take.
The Overton window of mainstream US politics has gotten so narrow and so rightwing the major dispute seems to only be about which foreigners are to blame for everything wrong.
Stop calling them Conservatives. They’re Russians
Just absolutely peak liberal. You cannot accept that American conservatives are bad. You need them to be Evil Foreigners.
This is how you end up side by side with Liz Cheney, pockets stuffed full of O&G money, telling your base voters to stfu about climate change if they want to win the next election.
Just absolutely peak liberal.
What if there’s more liberal than that? Ha! Hoisted by your own petard!
You cannot accept that American conservatives are bad. You need them to be Evil Foreigners.
I don’t know why you’re interpreting this so literally, but obviously US conservatives are not all russian citizens. And they are doing bad things.
This is how you end up side by side with Liz Cheney, pockets stuffed full of O&G money, telling your base voters to stfu about climate change if they want to win the next election.
Oh right, Democrats bad again. Hey, why the fuss? You won, didn’t ya? Not enough corpo-libtards voted just like you wanted and here we are waist-deep in insanity shit. Mission Accomplished!
Oh wait you wanted the magical unicorn election where we all hold hands and chant instead of voting so that the outcome of the vote is guaranteed to be pure. Well since that’s literally never, ever going to happen I hope you can take some comfort in pretending it might if you just shit on the Democrats enough.
