Aleksandr Gelyevich Dugin, also known as "Putin's Brain" declared that the "Putinization of America" is complete. "The Enemy Within", "The Press is the Enemy of the People" and other trite but effective concepts are tactical levers used by populists with tyrannical desires to create division, hatred and retribution within populations over which they seek conquest. "I am your retribution" is another chant of power used for gaining political advantage. How much Putinization is sufficient to take over America society? Nobody knows, but the answer is probably "just enough". It need not be a majority, nor even a large plurality, but a sufficient number to make the remaining members feel overwhelmed and unable to make a stand for themselves. America must overcome that feeling of dejection and make a stand against a Putinized Congress and the President who is now little more than Putin's poodle.
I don't think any Country should put this war and Putin's involvement with Iran on the back burner. We have to remind our leaders to keep a razor focused eye on what Putin will do next.
I find it helpful to understand today's GOP as a coalition of reactionary political psychologies distinct from any single coherent political ideology, such as neoconservatism, libertarianism, or even the authoritarian, nationalist, and racist ideologies of fascism and National Socialism. I'm interested in what propagandists are saying, but trying to identify this coalition of authoritarian vibes as a single new fascist ideology inspired by new illiberal thinkers somewhere won't lead to much. In fact, if you want to find reactionary source material and motivations, look no further than the US itself. When my grandparents were born, women everywhere and people of color in many places could not vote--and it gets much worse.
This US coalition of reactionaries successfully grew to power in small part by receiving aid, guidance and example from illiberal interests in Russia and elsewhere, but mostly by ridding the GOP platform of any set of written values and policy goals. Check their website, it's basically "whatever our current leader says". The Project 2025 platform replaced the GOP platform for the religious right where some kind of secular-sounding doctrine is needed to link its various religious sects together. For libertarian-leaning parts of the coalition, you get influence social media that is careful to downplay outright authoritarianism from the Heritage Foundation as merely anti-"woke" common sense or something like that, instead of the National Socialism it is. For the socially and sexually repressed incels, homophobes and racists, you have corporate America funding all sorts of anti-trans, anti-feminism, and anti-civil rights ads and influence campaigns. So somehow, so far, the GOP is holding together a coalition where one part hates one half of the First Amendment, another part hates the other half of the First Amendment--AND--neither part bothers to understand that you need both halves of the First Amendment.
(I'm arguing libertarians don't value freedom of speech protected by a democracy and the religious right doesn't value freedom of religion protected by a democracy, if that was confusing.)
The rise of authoritarianism in the West has nothing to do with Russia. It's a consequence of a crisis of expertise in the field of politics. Everyone in the mainstream is advocating government involvement in every aspect of our lives. Many of these same people are then surprised that authoritarianism is on the rise.
The real question we need to be asking is: do we have the right people, with the right skills and knowledge, involved in political commentary?
No doubt Russian authoritarianism doesn't explain all of the problems of the world. Who would think that? Not I. But that the rise of far-right parties that are financed by Moscow "has nothing to do with Russia" is certainly untrue. The flood of anti-liberty disinformation from the Russian state has been known and documented now for quite a long time. Here is an early expose of the Internet Research Agency set up by the late and unlamented Yevgeny Prygozhin: https://gijn.org/stories/real-russian-journalists-exposed-troll-factory-st-petersburg/
A flood of anti-liberty disinformation from a crumbling 3rd-world dictatorship shouldn't be able to do anything unless our culture is already susceptible to anti-liberty information and has no counter.
The kind of characters and ideas dominant in mainstream Western politics are all anti-liberty without any input from Russia. This is entirely an issue caused by Western political intellectuals and commentators.
As long as Liberalism tries to find all of their problems on the other side of the aisle rather than on their own side of the aisle, they will never get it.
Calling Trump things like 'Nazi, authoritarian, dictator and King' do NOTHING to solve the Left's own problems, and certainly does nothing to further discussion across the political divide. All they do is make matters worse by expanding the divide.
The hypocrisy from the Left is so loud it's deafening and quite ridiculous at this point.
The Left campaigned and positioned themselves AGAINST Iran over the course of MANY Leftist presidents. Trump does it and they all switch sides.
They ALL campaigned and positioned themselves against illegal immigration over the course of MANY Leftist presidents. Trump does it and they all switch sides.
They campaigned and positioned themselves against a bloated economy, corrupt spending and flagrant abuses of power over the course of MANY leftists presidents. Trump goes to expose them for doing the very things they campaigned against and they all switch sides.
It's utterly ridiculous and everyone sees it.
Every. Single. Time. Trump does does something that the Left had previously campaigned for, he's maligned for it. He's publicly ostracized, smeared, degraded, shamed in an attempt to shut him down.
Why does the Left do this?
It's very simple. Brett Weinstein and Jordan Peterson explained it clearly and articulately on Joe Rogan almost a decade ago.
The Left's move toward identity politics is a classic, Marxist / Communist move used to divide the people using emotion and subjective reasoning to continue to enrage the people, rather than use proper logic and objective reasoning to set down immutable boundaries.
The Left's agenda is PREDATORY.
The Left supported and endorsed the BLM riots, they tried to justify the shooting of an innocent man in Charlie Kirk who only used words...and if THAT wasn't enough, they pushed for the mutilation of children with a horrific and unnecessary Trans agenda, they pushed to keep people locked in their homes unnecessarily over the pandemic, they pushed an experimental, unproven and mostly unnecessary drug into the veins of people who didn't want it AND didn't need it, and they by proxy supported and encouraged violence and anger against anybody who opposed their ideologies.
Rather than give them tools like logic, reason and objective thinking to oppose the regime they dislike, they empower them to hate and fight back. That's it.
They have empowered their followers to use violence against words. Public violence and force is the primary tool of the Left.
Why and how did they do this?
They did this because they CAN NOT oppose their opponents using LOGIC AND REASON, because those tools are not on their side.
And so, by enraging the public they have decided to use POWER rather than reason and open discussion to push their agendas through.
Conservatives generally speaking do not condone violence. They don't condone anger. They don't condone rage or emotion. They condone proceeding with caution. They just want to stop the Left's hypocrisy, weaponizing of empathy and the abuse of people who disagree with them.
The Left has thrown caution to the wind and thrown everything including the kitchen sink at the Right...
In fact, the Left have become the very authoritarians they accuse Trump of being.
Here is the punchline:
Many if not MOST of the general public knows it and sees it. They see through it all.
The only people who can't see it are the ones trapped in the Marxist / Communist / Socialist Cult that they now want to become the normal way of living.
The very thing millions of people died fighting against, and left behind in other countries to live in freedom has now been instituted by the Left.
God help us all.
Physicians, you need to heal yourselves before you can heal others.
Berny and Shikha may warn you not to reply to me. ;-)
They're convinced I'm intellectually dishonest, but I only want what's best for society. I'm actually apolitical these days. I have ideological values and am solution oriented. I don't care which side of the aisle the solutions come from.
As a lifelong, Liberal hippy trying to stay objective, it's easy to see and prove that the influence that is destroying the country comes from within, from Liberal ideologies that have pushed destructive, anti-human agendas and their constantly evolving, subjective reasoning to pit Americans against each other.
The last election proved that the majority of Americans disagreed with Liberal policy and ideology and rejected it.
The Leftist media STILL tries to pretend that they haven't been rejected, but if you get your opinions from a proper cross section of people in the streets made up of the middle and lower classes (and even many wealthy people) that the Left have lost their minds.
They have seen an exodus as people have Left the Democratic party for the center or right side of the aisle.
I am starting to believe that there is an actual uniparty and we are all just caught in the middle.
The sum of the matter to me is this:
The first rule of improvement is being honest with yourself.
We simply CANNOT effectively and honestly criticize / cross examine Trump without first criticizing / cross examining the far Left, addressing this hypocrisy and once we do so, everyone will realize that at some point the Left have done almost everything they are accusing Trump of doing.
The Left are not liberals. The Left are advocates of government involvement in every aspect of our lives. This is called, authoritarianism.
The whole issue we face in politics today is that the GOP has gone even further left than the dems. The biggest figures in the GOP are even lifelong democrats (Trump, RFK, Musk).
As for actual right-wing positions, advocacy of rights-protecting government, and capitalism (actual liberal values) there are no such voices in the mainstream, nor a voting base for such positions.
Everyone wants authoritarianism. The only disagreement is whether the flag will have a swastika or a hammer & sickle.
Aleksandr Gelyevich Dugin, also known as "Putin's Brain" declared that the "Putinization of America" is complete. "The Enemy Within", "The Press is the Enemy of the People" and other trite but effective concepts are tactical levers used by populists with tyrannical desires to create division, hatred and retribution within populations over which they seek conquest. "I am your retribution" is another chant of power used for gaining political advantage. How much Putinization is sufficient to take over America society? Nobody knows, but the answer is probably "just enough". It need not be a majority, nor even a large plurality, but a sufficient number to make the remaining members feel overwhelmed and unable to make a stand for themselves. America must overcome that feeling of dejection and make a stand against a Putinized Congress and the President who is now little more than Putin's poodle.
I don't think any Country should put this war and Putin's involvement with Iran on the back burner. We have to remind our leaders to keep a razor focused eye on what Putin will do next.
I find it helpful to understand today's GOP as a coalition of reactionary political psychologies distinct from any single coherent political ideology, such as neoconservatism, libertarianism, or even the authoritarian, nationalist, and racist ideologies of fascism and National Socialism. I'm interested in what propagandists are saying, but trying to identify this coalition of authoritarian vibes as a single new fascist ideology inspired by new illiberal thinkers somewhere won't lead to much. In fact, if you want to find reactionary source material and motivations, look no further than the US itself. When my grandparents were born, women everywhere and people of color in many places could not vote--and it gets much worse.
This US coalition of reactionaries successfully grew to power in small part by receiving aid, guidance and example from illiberal interests in Russia and elsewhere, but mostly by ridding the GOP platform of any set of written values and policy goals. Check their website, it's basically "whatever our current leader says". The Project 2025 platform replaced the GOP platform for the religious right where some kind of secular-sounding doctrine is needed to link its various religious sects together. For libertarian-leaning parts of the coalition, you get influence social media that is careful to downplay outright authoritarianism from the Heritage Foundation as merely anti-"woke" common sense or something like that, instead of the National Socialism it is. For the socially and sexually repressed incels, homophobes and racists, you have corporate America funding all sorts of anti-trans, anti-feminism, and anti-civil rights ads and influence campaigns. So somehow, so far, the GOP is holding together a coalition where one part hates one half of the First Amendment, another part hates the other half of the First Amendment--AND--neither part bothers to understand that you need both halves of the First Amendment.
(I'm arguing libertarians don't value freedom of speech protected by a democracy and the religious right doesn't value freedom of religion protected by a democracy, if that was confusing.)
Trump as the Trojan Horse for Russia to unravel our democratic republic.
The rise of authoritarianism in the West has nothing to do with Russia. It's a consequence of a crisis of expertise in the field of politics. Everyone in the mainstream is advocating government involvement in every aspect of our lives. Many of these same people are then surprised that authoritarianism is on the rise.
The real question we need to be asking is: do we have the right people, with the right skills and knowledge, involved in political commentary?
No doubt Russian authoritarianism doesn't explain all of the problems of the world. Who would think that? Not I. But that the rise of far-right parties that are financed by Moscow "has nothing to do with Russia" is certainly untrue. The flood of anti-liberty disinformation from the Russian state has been known and documented now for quite a long time. Here is an early expose of the Internet Research Agency set up by the late and unlamented Yevgeny Prygozhin: https://gijn.org/stories/real-russian-journalists-exposed-troll-factory-st-petersburg/
A flood of anti-liberty disinformation from a crumbling 3rd-world dictatorship shouldn't be able to do anything unless our culture is already susceptible to anti-liberty information and has no counter.
The kind of characters and ideas dominant in mainstream Western politics are all anti-liberty without any input from Russia. This is entirely an issue caused by Western political intellectuals and commentators.
As long as Liberalism tries to find all of their problems on the other side of the aisle rather than on their own side of the aisle, they will never get it.
Calling Trump things like 'Nazi, authoritarian, dictator and King' do NOTHING to solve the Left's own problems, and certainly does nothing to further discussion across the political divide. All they do is make matters worse by expanding the divide.
The hypocrisy from the Left is so loud it's deafening and quite ridiculous at this point.
The Left campaigned and positioned themselves AGAINST Iran over the course of MANY Leftist presidents. Trump does it and they all switch sides.
They ALL campaigned and positioned themselves against illegal immigration over the course of MANY Leftist presidents. Trump does it and they all switch sides.
They campaigned and positioned themselves against a bloated economy, corrupt spending and flagrant abuses of power over the course of MANY leftists presidents. Trump goes to expose them for doing the very things they campaigned against and they all switch sides.
It's utterly ridiculous and everyone sees it.
Every. Single. Time. Trump does does something that the Left had previously campaigned for, he's maligned for it. He's publicly ostracized, smeared, degraded, shamed in an attempt to shut him down.
Why does the Left do this?
It's very simple. Brett Weinstein and Jordan Peterson explained it clearly and articulately on Joe Rogan almost a decade ago.
The Left's move toward identity politics is a classic, Marxist / Communist move used to divide the people using emotion and subjective reasoning to continue to enrage the people, rather than use proper logic and objective reasoning to set down immutable boundaries.
The Left's agenda is PREDATORY.
The Left supported and endorsed the BLM riots, they tried to justify the shooting of an innocent man in Charlie Kirk who only used words...and if THAT wasn't enough, they pushed for the mutilation of children with a horrific and unnecessary Trans agenda, they pushed to keep people locked in their homes unnecessarily over the pandemic, they pushed an experimental, unproven and mostly unnecessary drug into the veins of people who didn't want it AND didn't need it, and they by proxy supported and encouraged violence and anger against anybody who opposed their ideologies.
Rather than give them tools like logic, reason and objective thinking to oppose the regime they dislike, they empower them to hate and fight back. That's it.
They have empowered their followers to use violence against words. Public violence and force is the primary tool of the Left.
Why and how did they do this?
They did this because they CAN NOT oppose their opponents using LOGIC AND REASON, because those tools are not on their side.
And so, by enraging the public they have decided to use POWER rather than reason and open discussion to push their agendas through.
Conservatives generally speaking do not condone violence. They don't condone anger. They don't condone rage or emotion. They condone proceeding with caution. They just want to stop the Left's hypocrisy, weaponizing of empathy and the abuse of people who disagree with them.
The Left has thrown caution to the wind and thrown everything including the kitchen sink at the Right...
In fact, the Left have become the very authoritarians they accuse Trump of being.
Here is the punchline:
Many if not MOST of the general public knows it and sees it. They see through it all.
The only people who can't see it are the ones trapped in the Marxist / Communist / Socialist Cult that they now want to become the normal way of living.
The very thing millions of people died fighting against, and left behind in other countries to live in freedom has now been instituted by the Left.
God help us all.
Physicians, you need to heal yourselves before you can heal others.
You have some interesting thoughts. What do they have to do with the piece to which this comment is attached?
Berny and Shikha may warn you not to reply to me. ;-)
They're convinced I'm intellectually dishonest, but I only want what's best for society. I'm actually apolitical these days. I have ideological values and am solution oriented. I don't care which side of the aisle the solutions come from.
As a lifelong, Liberal hippy trying to stay objective, it's easy to see and prove that the influence that is destroying the country comes from within, from Liberal ideologies that have pushed destructive, anti-human agendas and their constantly evolving, subjective reasoning to pit Americans against each other.
The last election proved that the majority of Americans disagreed with Liberal policy and ideology and rejected it.
The Leftist media STILL tries to pretend that they haven't been rejected, but if you get your opinions from a proper cross section of people in the streets made up of the middle and lower classes (and even many wealthy people) that the Left have lost their minds.
They have seen an exodus as people have Left the Democratic party for the center or right side of the aisle.
I am starting to believe that there is an actual uniparty and we are all just caught in the middle.
The sum of the matter to me is this:
The first rule of improvement is being honest with yourself.
We simply CANNOT effectively and honestly criticize / cross examine Trump without first criticizing / cross examining the far Left, addressing this hypocrisy and once we do so, everyone will realize that at some point the Left have done almost everything they are accusing Trump of doing.
And only then can a proper dialogue begin.
The Left are not liberals. The Left are advocates of government involvement in every aspect of our lives. This is called, authoritarianism.
The whole issue we face in politics today is that the GOP has gone even further left than the dems. The biggest figures in the GOP are even lifelong democrats (Trump, RFK, Musk).
As for actual right-wing positions, advocacy of rights-protecting government, and capitalism (actual liberal values) there are no such voices in the mainstream, nor a voting base for such positions.
Everyone wants authoritarianism. The only disagreement is whether the flag will have a swastika or a hammer & sickle.
Anti-left focus and obsession often leads to support for right-wing collectivism