• Nanowith@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I can’t shake the feeling all of this is a Russian master plan.

    Not to be conspiritorial, but everything seems to be working out in their favour from Brexit to Trump II.

    • BotsRuinedEverything@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      It started when Obama was elected. The US wasn’t quite ready for a black president but he was so great people loved him. Then the Russian disinformation began. Then rage bots were invented. Ai got more and more powerful until now when probably 50% of online comments are not of human origin and NO ONE TALKS ABOUT IT. Then n Korea figured out how to do not warfare. Then Iran. Then China.

      Until like a shining star on a hill the most manipulable human to ever commit a crime started amplifying the anti American propaganda like a good little boomer and the bots swarmed to support anything he said. It started with the birth certificate 15 years ago. The Republicans couldn’t WAIT to stand in line. Then came the Christians. Then the white supremacists. Then the rednecks… all beating the drum of Russian propaganda.

      Putin KNEW Trump would run the country into the ground like he did every business he ever ran. Wait, what was Putin’s specialty in the kgb again? Oh yeah… The Destabilazition of international governments through propaganda. His specialty was media control.

      IT WAS OBVIOUS FOR DECADES. We KNEW Russia was engaging in a propaganda war against the American people. But the 80 year olds in government couldn’t understand any technology more complicated than a 1980’s VCR.

      I fucking hate everyone for this. It was all so preventable. Another American civil war is almost inevitable. AND THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT HE WANTS. THE WHOLE PLAN FROM THE BEGINNING WAS TO MANUFACTURE A SCENARIO THAT WOULD ALLOW HIM TO DECLARE MARTIAL LAW AND CANCEL ALL ELECTIONS FOREVER. FUCK! CAN’T YOU SEE IT???

      a pox on both your houses.

    • Dasus@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Well it is.

      And it’s not a secret either.

      Trump is Putin’s lapdog and Putin just wants to destabilise US and EU to level the playing field for Russia.

      Often Russian campaigns aim to disrupt domestic politics within Europe and the United States in an attempt to weaken the West

      Russia seeks to promote American isolationism, border security concerns and racial tensions within the United States through its disinformation campaigns

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

    • Strider@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Russias main goal has been destabilizing the west for quite a while. The scope is immense and Putin must be laughing his ass of how well it is going.

    • redditmademedoit@piefed.zip
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      2 days ago

      Consider that Russia has been failing to take over a neighboring country for several years now, for incomprehensible reasons, displaying immense incompetence on every level along the way. It is inherently very unlikely that Russia simultaneously has masterminded the entire fabric of the US and effectively taken over the country through sheer genius.

      No doubt that Trump is playing right into Putin’s hands, but Putin is also an idiot: not omnipotent.

      I think it’s more worth considering that the MAGA doomsday cult has a lot of interests that align with Russia, e.g. shifting U.S focus to the Western Hemisphere for resource dominance, as suggested by Aslı Bâli in the latest episode of The Dig (https://thedigradio.com/podcast/maga-empire-w-asli-bali-and-greg-grandin/).

      • Gathorall@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        Putin is an intelligence operative, it does not seems unlikely that a country headed by one for decades would do well clandestine operations and falter in war.

        American oligarchs are also greedy, base and overall pretty stupid so I think you overestimate the challenge of manipulating them.

      • shawn1122@sh.itjust.works
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        18 hours ago

        While we can agree Russia has been failing as their initial unsuccessful strategy was to take Kiev in one fell swoop, it’s fairly widely agreed upon among Western intelligence agencies that their current strategy is a grinding war of attrition. So we shouldnt perceive them going slow as a sign of weakness. It’s their strategy. Whether it’s a viable strategy time will tell but it’s clear they don’t care if they have to put hundreds of thousands in the meat grinder or if it takes a decade, as long as they eventually achieve their goal. Part of their calculus is that democracies are inherently not as good at long term planning as autocracies.

      • fonix232@fedia.io
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        1 day ago

        I wouldn’t go as far as to call Putin an idiot. Unlike Trump, he’s an effective head of state (note I didn’t say leader), and while he seems incompetent when it comes to Ukraine or to managing Russia, don’t forget that neither are his end goal - he’s ready to sacrifice most of Russia just to cleave a bit more off of Europe for himself, and the invasion of Ukraine is actually helping him: while he may be losing soldiers and equipment at an alarming rate, he’s got his buddies Xi and Kim providing him more and more for the war efforts, which in turn is creating division in Europe and NATO, while also depleting their resources.

        Besides, it’s been proven time and again how effective Russian troll farms are at disseminating disinformation and stoking internal tensions of any one grouping, let it be the US, or any European country. Even if Putin was an idiot in other areas, this part is undeniably true.

      • Bazell@lemmy.zip
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        1 day ago

        The great conspiracy plot: real Putin died more than a decade ago. Now his duplicates are acting as symbol puppets in hands of the Russian government. So, it is not just 1 idiot but rather a lot of them.

        • fonix232@fedia.io
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          1 day ago

          What Russian government? Putin IS the government. He’s the only irreplaceable thing in the Russian state.

          • Bazell@lemmy.zip
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            1 day ago

            He is an official mascot of the government. The real government are the ones using this mascot. The ones in shadow pulling by the threads.

              • Bazell@lemmy.zip
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                1 day ago

                Trump is a mad man who for some reasons fulfills the plans of a shadow World government on creating world chaos and accelerating changes. I even started to think that both Putin(whoever acts as him since original is dead) and Trump are simple actors who do what they are being told. Because of both of their actions have the same comical stupidity but similar patterns.

                • fonix232@fedia.io
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                  24 hours ago

                  Wow. You’re incredibly wrong, and/or blind.

                  Trump is in the pockets of the 0.00001%, the billionaire corporatist elite, that’s been obvious since the beginning. Hell, go and read about how the elite of New York viewed him, and it will all make sense - he’s a useful puppet and in return he gets to be part of the big boy club.

                  Putin on the other hand… The man is anything but an idiot. You don’t survive and raise through the ranks of the KGB and FSB and then rule a country for 26+ years by being an idiot. His most recent steps might seem… less than ideal, but they’re hardly dumb steps. Attacking Ukraine, even with the war stretching now nearly 4 years, is a brilliant way of keeping Europe distracted AND divided (especially with the disinfo campaign going on, a good chunk of European population actually sides with Russia and/or disagrees with the support provided to Ukraine, heightening tensions locally and across Europe), resources tied down, and disrupting trust in governments (look how the rushed energy independence move caused energy prices to skyrocket in the middle of an economic slump, angering people against their governments). Again, Putin cares not for the Russian people, because he’s a dictator. To him, the people are just a resource to use, as they’d still be too sheepish to rebel and kick him off. Last few times the Russian people stepped up, their movements were immediately co-opted by authoritarians and caused more damage than the previous oppressive regime, this would make anyone more cautious.

                  Simply said, it might seem stupid but Putin is playing the long game and he’s most definitely isn’t in someone else’s pocket.

                  • Bazell@lemmy.zip
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                    23 hours ago

                    I said this is a conspiracy plot. So your response is not relatable. Don’t state that someone is wrong if he specified that his point of view is a conspiracy plot. Learn to be more attentive. From my side I apologize for wrong using of terms. I meant the conspiracy theory, not plot. Forgot that these 2 have different meanings.

        • Omgpwnies@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          It’s based on a kernel of truth - Carney said that Canada would side with the remainder of NATO if the US tries to take Greenland by force - which would mean declaring war on the US if article 5 is invoked.

          • NotSteve_@piefed.ca
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            24 hours ago

            Ah, right I didn’t really think about that. I don’t think it even needs to be said but damn that’s such a propaganda-flavoured twisting of the truth even if it’s technically not a lie.

            • Omgpwnies@lemmy.world
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              23 hours ago

              Right-wing propaganda does this all the time - starting with a bit of truth means someone can google it and get a headline that sort of agrees with what they’re saying, but the content largely disagrees with the narrative they extrapolate from it.

        • lechekaflan@lemmy.worldOP
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          2 days ago

          It is, but even then there are always the cultists and Black Hundreds eating it all up, eager for a final showdown.

    • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      It’s pretty obvious that it is. Trump is truly an idiot except when leading stupid people. All of the smart people on his team are in bed with Russia.

      • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 day ago

        All of the smart people on his team are in bed with Russia.

        The thing is that Trump himself was apparently in bed with russia … sort of. At least i remember reading him sleeping with 14yo russian girls (via epstein). they literally did empire marriage.

      • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 day ago

        Wow that’s interesting!

        The book emphasizes that Russia must spread geopolitical anti-Americanism everywhere: “the main ‘scapegoat’ will be precisely the U.S.”

        Wait a moment … blaming the US … that’s what a lot of people here on Lemmy do, does that mean we’re influenced by russian propaganda?

        • boonhet@sopuli.xyz
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          18 hours ago

          At this point it’s Trump who’s influencing us to be anti-US. But there’s a vocal group of people who wished death to the US before that as well. You know who they are.

        • Goodeye8@piefed.social
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          1 day ago

          A good piece of propaganda has a sprinkle of truth in it. It’s like when Nick Fuentes uses popular leftist talking points when talking about the kind of world he wants to live in, you know being able to afford food and housing and not being screwed over by big businesses etc. And just as you go “he’s actually making sense” he pulls a 180 and goes “the only way to get those things is if we get rid of all the non-whites and jews”.

          That’s just an extreme example to get the point across, more often than not it’s way more subtle and you’re not supposed to get whiplash from going a leftist position to a far right position.

        • Bazell@lemmy.zip
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          1 day ago

          Only a part of Lemmy heavily likes Russia and dislike the USA and EU. As I understand, this part hates both the USA and Russia. And while everyone got used to dislike Russia, the USA is a new one here because of its government behavior.

    • lechekaflan@lemmy.worldOP
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      2 days ago

      It’s been a very long game they’re playing since Khrushchev, the objective being is to destroy Western powers from the inside.

      So when they can’t use overt means like supporting “national liberation movements”, they just use agents of influence on the inside, find weak spots, and start creating the rot in the system. Eventually the Soviets are replaced with mobster plutocrats, and this time they want to break the West so that once the US becomes an empty hole in the ground they can easily move their money around without penalty. A world without laws but theirs.

    • wakko@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      If you think Russia is the beneficiary here, you aren’t paying close enough attention to China.

      • itflows@feddit.org
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        1 day ago

        Who cares if it’s Russia, China or India. This is not about any single country, but a much more fundamental conflict now emerging. Which rule of law will prevail?

      • Nanowith@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        China haven’t had a war since the 70s, so until they decide to go for Taiwan I’m cool with them at this point.

    • TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca
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      1 day ago

      It’s more of a rich asshole oligarchs master plan. Pampered rich asshole babies that can’t compete because they were brought up in a sheltered life or because they only knew to appeal to criminal elements have to make sure democracies and accountability fails so they can create closed markets that secure their way of parasitic life. They are unwilling to adapt to a lifestyle that isn’t them being rich pampered assholes.

      Then there’s the psychopaths who’ve been training in narcissistic psychopath playground MMOs, like notable conservative mods in social networks. The overlap is breaking the unspoken social contract like a cancer to better themselves, where being a sadistic narcissistic immoral asshole that can manage some semblance of loyal subservience to other likewise is a key identity trait.

      • CannonFodder@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Why else would trump destroy nato? It simple makes zero sense for security purposes. It’s hard to believe, even with the orange moron that he would cause war as a temper tantrum because he didn’t get a peace prize.

        • Riverside@reddthat.com
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          17 hours ago

          You are correct in that why would the US destroy NATO. The entire point is that the people in power in the US have decided that EU is now subservient enough to the US (and since the blowup of Nordstream 2 energetically dependent too) that they will simply do nothing when the US takes Greenland in whatever form that takes.

          Greenland becomes strategically important when arctic ice melts and new shipping routes open between China and Europe, and the US plans to control this more directly than it does now.

          Trump does not have the power to decide geopolitical policy of the US, if he went against US interests he would quickly be removed. This is not Trump’s personal designs (maybe the messaging is but not the core events), this is the US betraying yet again its allies as it has always done.

          • CannonFodder@lemmy.world
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            17 hours ago

            But who is it that cares about US interests in this context? The billionaires aren’t really rooted in the US; they have assets and control resources around the world. NATO enforced control is good for them, I would think ; and there’s literally nothing stopping the US from using its own base already in Greenland to project power throughout the arctic. Attacking Greenland will destroy NATO. The destruction of NATO will push the Europe to align more with Russia and China. The US will lose power in Europe as its bases there are severed. This will also mean less power in the Middle East. If trump continues on this path, he will take over Canada, and that will lead to an insergency throughout the US that will hurt everyone including the billionaires for decades.

            • Riverside@reddthat.com
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              16 hours ago

              I clearly won’t convince you and I don’t think you’ll convince me either, so let’s each guess based on their own ideas:

              A) Trump destroys NATO through whatever form of invasion of Greenland

              B) The US gains greater control over Greenland above what they have now (whatever form it may take) and EU keeps bootlicking the US

              I’m betting on B), as a tankie. I wish it were A) because NATO is close as it gets to literally Satan, but I don’t believe the powers in the US are going to waste the EU influence in its most subservient moment in decades.

              • CannonFodder@lemmy.world
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                13 hours ago

                The EU won’t just give up Greenland. An invasion by the U.S. will trigger defence provisions and the EU will do what it takes. And the EU has nukes. Be careful what you wish for.

        • trollercoaster@sh.itjust.works
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          1 day ago

          He is just the right idiot for the job. His megalomaniac narcicissm combined with his utter stupidity makes it easy to nudge him in the right direction, because he is too dumb to even realise that he is destroying the empire he longs for.