Simple

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

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.

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.

You could, but it would be stupid

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.

Yes, that is correct. And it is also an accurate description of that shithole between Canada and Mexico.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism + https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_nationalism_in_the_United_States

↓

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_genocide_in_the_United_States + https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny

↓

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_and_slavery

Do you even care to do a bit of research?

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.

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.

Hey, why the fuss? You won, didn’t ya?

Is Zombie Mao doing a Red Terror against the US ruling class? No? You got the wrong team buddy

All political struggle is either bourgeois infighting (flip on the telly to see it), or class war (the ruling class doesn't want you to think about it). The former can be fun to watch at times, the latter is the one which has any chance of improving your material conditions.

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

I read in the previous comment "american capitalists". Which is a step up from elsewhere. But yes, also, Russia isn't anywhere near as bad as the formerly united states. Not when averaged over the past decades since WW2. However, at this very moment, Russia is worse - because for once, that other shithole regime has no hot war ongoing. Unless you count their assistance towards the genocide and otjer war crimes committed against the palestinian people. At which point it becomes a tie again in terms of evilness :(

Yep.

When libs keep using "Ruzzia" the same way Nazis were using "Judeo-Bolshevism" 90 years ago, it's useful to refer to historical episodes even if they don't perfectly parallel

Which makes it all the more ridiculous.

Hmm, I wonder where russian oligarchs imported christofascism from back in the 90s. Could it be the same country that nazis used as inspiration back in the late 30s?

Face it, you have plenty of billionaires spouting propaganda and buying elections at home, no need for any foreign influence.

The EU which is often shown as the most progressive countries on the planet, has right wing bullshit coming in hard core. You gonna suggest that's just internal and not foreign actors pushing the division?

Never said the usa was a perfect haven of anything. I'm pointing out that russia has had a big role in creating division in countries for a while now, not just in the USA. Then you have a bunch of tankies coming out with "but usa" deflection.

Will do tankie