Trump and Brexit illustrate the lesson that Putin learned decades ago

Jared Yates Sexton in his book ‘American Rule: How a Nation Conquered the World but Failed Its People’ lays it out on page 285 beginning with the para’ that starts, “Russian intelligence services recognised the potential of using social media to undermine and infiltrate the political affairs of its rivals”.

Note 67 takes us to this document:

Exposing Russia’s Effort to Sow Discord Online: The Internet Research Agency and Advertisements

Note 68 within Sextons text takes us to this article:

How Russia used social media to divide Americans

And don’t I know about this propaganda campaign having fielded many a perverse post from supposedly intelligent people on FB. Many ex servicemen seem to fall to the simplistic, half baked but persuasive (if one is of narrow education and has a restricted information stream) messaging on Brexit and anthropogenic global warming, with which latter many are still in denial despite the increasing evidence that something is up.

True patriots would recognise the real enemy to society here, Putin’s puppets. Of course acknowledging that is much to painful, cognitive dissonance of a high order. Our pair of ‘tunnel visioned’ protagonists here really are a threat to America’s future.

It appears that Long Covid is very real presenting a hazard to a wider spectrum of the populace than some would acknowledge.

From The Guardian today:

Exclusive: study of low-risk individuals finds impairments in organs including heart, lungs and liver four months after infection

Trump and Brexit illustrate the lesson that Putin learned decades ago – one does not need to use the military to bring down a nation, one simply needs to exploit its social divisions and sow discord. The internet provided Putin (and Western fascist and corporate interests) with the perfect vehicle to overthrow democracy in favour of plutocracy and kleptocracy.

“It boggles my mind when Trumpites claim that Trump has had a less belligerent foreign policy than his predecessors.”

Yup — either they don’t care or are simply ignorant (ignorance in general is always the safest bet with them) about trump’s massive expansion of drone attacks. I though Obama went overboard with the expansion of this crap — as with most things, his actions in the “war on terror” make him a piker compared to the shitstain running things now. Nor has the outcome of the current actions been any different than the things predecessors did.

Or perhaps the Republicans just wanted a distraction. The Senate’s ramming through unqualified judicial nominations has been bumped below the fold. Trump’s recent purge of the military’s high-level civilian leadership, while concerning to some, has met only mealy-mouthed displeasure from Republicans committed to backing his electoral posture. Commentators predict that Trump hopes to shield himself from future federal prosecution or selectively declassify information that undermines the Russiagate investigation with his new Pentagon personnel. And stoking election conflict is providing cover for the White House conman to fleece his loyal followers once again. A fundraising campaign promised to “stop the steal” but actually lined the pockets of Trump’s personal Super Pac.

As one commentator put it Trump is orchestrating “not a coup, but a cover-up and a con game”.

Republicans might succeed in holding Trump’s base. They might confirm a few more judges and retain control of the Senate and successfully grift Magaphiles. But they’re playing with fire and we are all in extreme danger of getting burned.

Republicans are playing with fire. And we all risk getting burned

Whatever if they, and their cheerleaders, expect respect when the dust, from all that disturbed drying dung, has settled then they will be disappointed. Beyond parody.

A better question, given what we’ve found out about his views of the military in general, is when has he cared about troops?

I didn’t bother reading mikeN’s comments — I’ve had enough intentional dishonesty and mispresentation of facts from him and rickA to last a lifetime. I will guess that he posted an off-topic diversionary bit of bullcrap and completely avoided the fact that the people trump is slotting into these positions are completely unqualified for those positions, but were chosen simply because they will do whatever he tells them to without any questioning. Typical modern republican move: don’t like people with knowledge questioning your ideas? Get rid of people with knowledge and replace them with people even less intelligent than you.

https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1327242401967181825

MikeN comes out from his hole with a throwaway comment. The mad narcissist did not fire Pentagon staff and rehire loyalists to get US troops out of the Middle East, but to bolster his coup attempt. What other reason could the malignant orange liar have for waiting until his term only has 70 days until it officially expires?

As always, Trump cultists never get anything right. They are oblivious to reality.

He should have done this a long time ago. Trump ordered them to draw up plans to get troops out of the Middle East, but they decided they didn’t like that idea, and kept delaying or making up reasons.