General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: As a 35 year teamster truck driver to all those owner ops planning on protesting in dc [View all]Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Not to blame Putin for it all, because many huge factors go into growing aggressive populist antagonisms into movements and then combining them into a nation-destroying monster, but:
In 2016 American populist movements, LW class warfare and RW white nationalist, were both used by Russia and domestic plotters to help elect tRump and devastate Democratic Party resistance.
After that great success, our intelligence services warned that Putin himself said his next step would be to unite and grow U.S. populists into one big movement of the kind that destroys nations. We're seeing that anti-establishment/anti-institutionalist/anti-democratic movement form.
Crucial to understanding populism, though leaders always wave ideological flags, the aggressive types who rally to them characteristically far less motivated by ideology than by a range of high-fuel negative emotions that blame "the establishment" for excuses to attack and destroy. Covid disruptions of course.
It also explains the lack of decency and morality, how they can demand freedom while spreading disease into a national holocaust. This is populism.
Btw, tRump's new social media platform is supposed to launch TODAY, in time for this populist exercise. The app has been available for download over the weekend.