What does Russia hold over us?

blackmail on a guy that a significant portion of the country was stupid enough to elect as president twice.

• Formation of USSR - 1991 : Boo USSR
• 1991 - 1999 : Maybe if we accept Yeltsin, we can reform Russia and help it not be a gigantic pain in everyone's ass.
• 1999 - ????: Let's give Putin a chance, he was Yeltsin's right hand man
• ???? - 2014 : OK, there is some shady shit going on, but it's under dubious, deniable circumstances
• 2014 -2016 : What the fuck, they literally took Crimea.
• 2016 : They are literally manipulating our elections. What the fuck. They made Brexit AND donald trump happen?
• 2016 - now : THEY CAN'T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS!!! (Spoilers : they are)

Looking from the outside, the US was already losing its focus and leading into ideological/tribal thinking with the Viet Nam war and the fight over Afghanistan. By the time the USSR fell, the US was heavily entrenched in tribal manifest destiny, and no longer focused on progress or willing to learn from what other nations were doing well.

Russia, in contrast, was quickly captured by the soviet power mongers without the traditional trappings of the communist government to keep them at least partially in check. So they gathered their oligarchs and went full on tribal mafia.

The US eventually picked China to be the new target of hate, but China was more canny and used that window to buy all the production and delivery out from under the US, and then went on to buy a lot of the land and companies within the US. As a result, the US government could only push Chinese hatred so far.

And then Russia succeeded in working with rich Americans to get the oligarch class installed in the US as well, so there were people in power with shared interests.

It all happened out in the open and shouldn’t be a surprise; there were even people warning about the likely result every step of the way.

The USA lost the narrative on democracy and freedom. They have supported Ukraine with exactly ZERO dollars for the past 18 months. They don’t seem to realize that a European war will cost them lots more, once Europe can’t buy US products anymore, the USA economy will do even worse than now. They have forgotten who their friends are. Over here in Europe the majority now hates US America politics (present, and past too), their products and yes… many consider the average US American to be selfish and uneducated.

Voting does still matter, and depending on where you live, it can matter quite a bit! Especially pay attention to local positions and ballot measures.

Remember, if voting didn’t matter they wouldn’t try so hard to prevent it! Use your rights while you still can!

The right wing needs an enemy, so when the USSR fell they switched from hating Russia to hating Democrats. 30 years of Fox yelling at them really works.

States always lie to benefit themselves. You never had anymore reason to hate a Russian than you would any other human on Earth. Your nation required it of you because it benefitted them.

There was never a reason to hate Russian people, any more than any other humans on Earth. During the Cold War, there was a very good reason to reject the USSR for being communist, not for being Russian.

Now that Russia's state ideology is no longer communism, that is no longer applicable. It's still a very authoritarian country that does a lot of bad things, recently more of them than in the 1990s; but still considerably less bad than what the USSR was doing.

Google the word kompromat. That's what happened.

massive propaganda apparatus via troll farms, plus funding most right wing groups and governments. plus thier hacking expertise was very useful in letting trump win. The DNc is complicit.

It's just that the current regime in power of the USA enjoy the landscape of corruption that they now share with places like Russia. It's easy to make deals with similar rulers. The are not really serving the people any more. Privatize everything. Including the country. People are expendable assets for the ruling class.