Statesians blaming foreigners for the most Statesian things, a tale as old as the US Empire.
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?
They are, but they also serve foreign interests.
It is both
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.
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.
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.
Being tricked into buying magic beans vs voluntarily being fucking evil for money and power
This is a moronic comparison
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.
You could, but it would be stupid
This is dumb as shit, completely pointless.
The purity of our blessed country and it’s founding fathers must never be impungned. All corruption originates with those filthy foreigners, who are ontologically evil, and to suggest otherwise is proof of heresy, of being corrupted by the foreigner.
Washington protects.
Death to all xenos!
Anti-fascism has absolutely nothing to gain from dumb lib conspiracies.
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.
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.
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 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.
The world does not revolve around genocide, good god, can we see the world at large beyond a single topic?
Sure, the Nazis did the Holocaust, so that’s one point against, but their uniforms looked pretty sharp, so that’s one point in favor. All in all, pretty much neutral. I don’t see why people get so hung up on one single topic.
That doesn’t quite fit what I’m saying, but I’m glad you found the opportunity to regurgitate one of your comments I’ve read a while ago.
I frequently call out bullshit attempts to minimize literal genocide as being “just a single issue,” so I’m not surprised it sounds similar to something I’ve said before.
It does, however, fit exactly with what you said.
Nobody’s minimizing anything. I’m saying you and Ensign_Crab are overstating the role that genocide plays in this one topic.
So how does your comment fit that? It’s a thought-terminating saying that you like to repeat as if it proves a point. That’s it. Don’t come at me with your bullshit, either.
I genuinely don’t see how it’s possible to reason with this bullshit.
“Not minimizing, just saying that you’re overstating,” what? Do you not recognize the obvious contradiction in that?
So how does your comment fit that?
I don’t see how you’re struggling to make the connection, it’s literally just swapping out one genocide and one perpetuator of genocide for another, keeping the words and logic exactly the same. I’m not (sarcastically) “minimizing” the Holocaust, I’m just “saying that you’re overstating” the Holocaust in (presumably) concluding from it that Nazis are bad, without considering other factors, such as how they dress.
Brother, you realize that the original statement by Ensign_Crab makes no sense, right? They’re using genocide to grind their axe and have admitted as much. You two are using a hot topic like genocide as an excuse to rail against people and pick a fight. My criticism is a meta comment about that.
What doesn’t make sense is what you’re accusing me of when you haven’t realized why I’m saying it.
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.
Stop trying to blame Russia, blame capitalism. I hate putin as much as you (probably more because I can’t live in my own house, or visit my parents, all because of him), but it is your ruling class at fault and not some russian influence. Whatever putin could do is inconsequential compared to the wealth and influence the 20 richest people of your empire.
Your billionaires have decided that trump and fascism is the most beneficial choice for them at present, it is truly that simple. What you are witnessing right now is a natural outcome of a capitalist system, as intended by your racist proto-nazi founding fathers.
Whatever putin could do is inconsequential compared to the wealth and influence the 20 richest people of your empire.
Are you suggesting that $20k in Facebook ads didn’t decide the result of a $4B election season?
Sounds like Russian propaganda to me
It can be two things. Read this or anything else about Cambridge Analytica to get a sense of the difference between what they were doing and the same hack political radio ad hour after hour.
Trump’s ties to russia are many and varied, going back forty-plus years. It’s all been documented in Proof of Conspiracy, Mueller found collusion; these are not hypotheticals. It’s a known part of the current befuckdedness.
Is it the ONLY part? No. But it starts there and it stays there.
Cambridge Analytica
UK group and Facebook profit maximization is not Russia. Blaming the pure establishment corruption of democracy on Russia is just partisan whining for more establishment warmongering.
Trump’s ties to russia are many and varied
Trump’s ties to the Italian Mafia are stronger. He’s a second generation fence and money launderer who made a fortune helping to move money out of Eastern Europe back in the 90s.
But he’s an American creation who worked on behalf of American institutions. That’s why he’s tied up with Guliani, Bloomberg, Clinton, and Epstein.
The tunnel vision liberals have with Russia ignores a rich vein of corruption for one of its more salacious and partisan tributaries.
Trump’s ties to the Italian Mafia are stronger.
We’re probably splitting hairs, but - what? I haven’t heard that before but I’ve heard a LOT about the russian angle. (we seem to converge on Eastern Europe though)
what? I haven’t heard that before
It was bigger news back in 2016
The picture shows that Trump’s career has benefited from a decades-long and largely successful effort to limit and deflect law enforcement investigations into his dealings with top mobsters, organized crime associates, labor fixers, corrupt union leaders, con artists and even a one-time drug trafficker whom Trump retained as the head of his personal helicopter service.
The Russia connection was minor by comparison, and largely a result of Trump’s status as a lynchpin in NY crime.
I think that DCJ piece is good, and clearly ‘mob’ connections are rife, but outside of that early-80’s wash of Roy Cohn and the ready-mix concrete guys, there’s not a lot more specific to Italian mafia.
I read that Giuliani’s ‘cleanup’ of Italian mobsters allowed in the russians which was duly appreciated. Early 80s is the same time the Kremlin started to keep tabs on Trump, giving him a tour and business opportunities then.
Felix Sater, Michael Cohen, Rybolovlev and others who consistently and repeatedly appear in any honest accounting of his blatantly illegal dealings.
Unger’s account of infiltration also exposes how Trump’s financial entanglements laid the groundwork for this betrayal. In the 1980s, as Trump struggled with debt from failing casinos and overextended real estate ventures, Soviet-linked financiers appeared, flush with cash.
Deals involving Trump Tower properties drew in shadowy buyers connected to Russian organized crime and intelligence fronts. Even when Western banks deemed him too risky, new Russian-linked money never seemed to dry up. Each transaction pulled him closer into Moscow’s orbit.
By the time the Soviet Union collapsed, Russian oligarchs kept the pipeline open, ensuring that Trump’s business empire would survive—and remain beholden to foreign backers whose first loyalty was to the Kremlin. (via)
So while there certainly were ties to Italian mafia, his later business and almost all of his political life is awash in russian mob ties. Given that russia is run by mafias-within-mafias that’s not so surprising, is it.
outside of that early-80’s wash of Roy Cohn and the ready-mix concrete guys
The article goes significantly farther than ready-mix concrete. Trump was in tight with the Gambino family, among other mob affiliates and organizations.
I read that Giuliani’s ‘cleanup’ of Italian mobsters allowed in the russians which was duly appreciated. Early 80s is the same time the Kremlin started to keep tabs on Trump, giving him a tour and business opportunities then.
It ties out with a shift in policy from Cold Era Italy being a major bridge between NATO agencies in the West and their informants/operators in the East. Post-collapse, Sicily was old news since you could march your goons directly into St. Petersburg and Moscow to commence the looting.
But Trump’s roll as a money launderer and fixer remains consistent during the transition.
So while there certainly were ties to Italian mafia, his later business and almost all of his political life is awash in russian mob ties.
His primary ties were to US and German lenders, with black market business interests using his properties to clean their ill-gotten gains. The flood of money and refugees coming out of Eastern Europe following the post-Soviet crash changed the composition of his criminal clients. His roll in legitimizing the looting through financialization did not.
It could be two things! But it isn’t lol
Cambridge Analytica is a good place to start. Previously:
- IT Pro: Cambridge Analytica models were exaggerated and ineffective, [UK Information Commissioner’s Office] claims
- Wall Street Journal: Mueller Doesn’t Find Trump Campaign Conspired With Russia
- Jacobin: Democrats and Mainstream Media Were the Real Kremlin Assets
- Washington Post: FEC fines DNC, Clinton for violating rules in funding Steele dossier
- Washington Post: Russian trolls on Twitter had little influence on 2016 voters
- Jacobin: It Turns Out Hillary Clinton, Not Russian Bots, Lost the 2016 Election
- Matt Taibbi: Move Over, Jayson Blair: Meet Hamilton 68, the New King of Media Fraud The Twitter Files reveal that one of the most common news sources of the Trump era was a scam, making ordinary American political conversations look like Russian spywork
- Jacobin: Why the Twitter Files Are in Fact a Big Deal On the Left, there’s been a temptation to dismiss the revelations about Twitter’s internal censorship system that have emerged from the so-called Twitter Files project. But that would be a mistake: the news is important and the details are alarming.
- MSNBC Repeats Hamilton 68 Lies 279 Times in 11 Minutes
- Matt Taibbi: CIA “Cooked The Intelligence” To Hide That Russia Favored Clinton, Not Trump In 2016
- Aaron Maté: Under Trump, the CIA is still covering up its Russiagate fraud
- Matt Taibbi: Note on New Trump-Russia Disclosures Thanks to explosive new document releases, the Russiagate hoax is now exposed, commencing a new era that will be about accountability for the guilty
- Matt Taibbi: No Doubt Left: Russiagate Was a Cover-Up
- Chris Hedges: Why Russiagate Won’t Go Away The cynical con the Democratic Party and the F.B.I. carried out to falsely portray Donald Trump as a puppet of the Kremlin worked, and continues to work, because it is what those who detest Trump want to believe.
Those archive.today links didn’t work for me, but that could just be me. The “studies” are opinions otherwise and if you want to pick one, I’ll kick it apart but I’m not going to go through all of them.
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Capitalism is a form of authoritarianism. Its anti free market and anti personal freedoms. It uses power to gain more power and control.
You are describing an oligarchy, or maybe plutocracy.
Yes, that is correct. And it is also an accurate description of that shithole between Canada and Mexico.
Sorry to say, but the whole world is pretty much fascist. Even the most progressive countries have ever widening income inequality along with the majority of their policies written by corporations.
Both can be true?
I can agree to that.
I was with you until last half of the last sentence.
Racist, sure. “proto-nazi”? Who and why? One example would be great, I don’t understand the connection.
Without having to click links it’s basically this; Hitler had a Hardon for American Exceptionalism and shit, Nazis are based on American ideas just taken to the extreme.
So hence proto as in precursor to the Nazis.
Thanks for the description! When I think ‘founding fathers’ I’m thinking of the literal dudes who wrote and signed the US constitution and the Bill of Rights.
I didn’t see any connections for the term to that time period in American history.
You mean the guys that literally genocided native peoples? That wrote into the constitution that black people were worth less? That only rich land-owning people should be allowed representation?..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_and_slavery
Do you even care to do a bit of research?
Stop trying to blame Russia
No.
blame capitalism.
We can do both, but one of them has a more defined paper trail.
The notion that your “Trump and the GOP are Russian assets” conspiracy theory has a “more defined paper trail” than the countless volumes of work done by thousands of historians, philosophers, economists, and scientists, going back hundreds of years regarding the depravity of American capitalism is just downright laughable.
What are you even trying to say here? Are you seriously saying the Russia/Trump connection is more well understood than the pitfalls of American Capitalism?
If Trump is a Russian asset, why didnt the US pull out of NATO months ago? Why was Trump shipping Jevlins by the truckload to Ukraine at the beginning of the war? Why is Trump’s entire schtick that NATO (Russia’s primary adversary) needs to increase spending (which it has, in record amounts)?
If Russia is blamed for Trump’s election, we avoid the unpleasant reality of our failed democratic institutions and decaying empire. We avoid facing the inevitable rise of a Christianised fascism borne out of widespread impoverishment, rage, despair and abandonment. We avoid acknowledging the complicity of the Democratic Party in the orchestration of the largest social inequality in our nation’s history, the evisceration of our basic civil liberties, endless wars and an electoral system bankrolled by the billionaire class, which is legalised bribery. The myth allows us to believe that Democratic politicians, like the establishment Republicans who have joined them, are the guarantors of a democracy they destroyed.
All the investigations into Trump’s ties with Russia are unequivocal. There was no collusion. The Steele dossier, financed at first by Republican opponents of Trump and later by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and compiled by former MI6 British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, was a fake. The charges in the dossier — which included reports of Trump receiving a ‘golden shower’ from prostituted women in a Moscow hotel room and claims that Trump and the Kremlin had ties going back five years — were discredited by the FBI. Sources, including the one that claimed Trump had long-held ties to the Kremlin, turned out to be fabricated. Special Counsel Robert S Mueller concluded that his investigation ‘did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.’ Mueller did not indict or accuse anyone of criminally conspiring with Russia.
- Chris Hedges
We can do both, but one of them has a more defined paper trail.
Capitalism’s trail of blood in your country goes back to its founding. It is incredibly well-defined and has been studied a lot (except they won’t tell you about it in school or many universities).
And if you want a more concrete link between capitalism and trump, look at inauguration footage again, or look at campaign contributions.
Russia’s entire state budget was less than revenue of just Apple in 2024. If your ruling class didn’t want trump, he wouldn’t be a president right now.
Uh yeah, okay
Exhibit A: USian prompted to interrogate their internalized racism
So, y’all just say whatever comes to mind and pretend it’s a real thing, huh? Cool.
At this point, I can’t see any other reason you’d stick to blaming “the russians” for the state of your country. Even if putin has kompromat on trump, putin is not the reason republicans hold all three branches of your government.
Again, it’s not just “the russians” but so many of you are jumping out of your seats about it.
So many of you from .ml that is.
Curious.
It’s because you called out russia. Now the tankies are here to defend them and blame capitalism for everything.
Delusional
The NYT found no clear evidence of that though.
😆
Log off and go read a book kiddo
If your ruling class didn’t want trump, he wouldn’t be a president right now.
You’re projecting. Maybe YOU can’t be nudged towards an ideology by propaganda, but millions of people can. They can be tricked.
Until you realize that, it’s not going to get any better.
The propaganda is coming from inside the imperialist house. Fox isn’t owned by some Russian billionaire.
You cant just blame “those pesky, conniving foreigners” when your country descends into fascism after 2 centuries of racism, genocide, and withering away of social safety nets.
You cant just blame “those pesky, conniving foreigners”
Nice, trying to dismiss the very real threat Russia poses as racism. Sounds like something a Russian would do.
Nice, trying to dismiss the very real threat that American capitalism poses as Russian shilling. Sounds like something a State Department agent would do.
Face it: whatever threat Russia poses wasn’t a major factor in getting trump elected. It was paid for by US oligarchs, not putin.
Agreed. Those damn Russians forced us to genocide the natives and do slavery too, and anyone who tries to deflect blame off of Russia and onto Americans is clearly trying to serve Russian interests, so their perspective can be dismissed without consideration.
Those fucking Russians crapped my pants, too.
Stop blaming Russians it’s BlueAnon shit. The conservatives can be acting like garbage all on their own.
None of this is simple, and anyone blaming a single source or calling it simple is trying to mislead.
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.
I really agree with you. Divisive language will only get us more division.
Most Republicans hate Russia and Putin. So this makes sense.
