Top Republican says party base "infected" by Russian propaganda

ZeroCool@slrpnk.net to politics @lemmy.world – 509 points –
Top Republican says party base "infected" by Russian propaganda
newsweek.com
59

Remember that time a group of Republican politicians visited Moscow on July 4th?

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/04/625980917/gop-congressmen-visit-moscow-thaw-icy-relations-before-trump-putin-talks

I sure remember Moscow Mitch the Bitch getting upset about being called Moscow Mitch after that but being proud of being called ‘Reaper’ for denying any bills brought forward to get anything done around that timeframe, yeah.

He got called Moscow Mitch before that - it was when he threatened to throw the government into lockdown if Obama revealed the extent of russian hacking and interference in the 2016 election.

He traded his duty to the Constitution in for a drunk rapist and an evangelical nut to sit on the Supreme Court.

Moscow Mitch.

Wait, actually? What the hell is the reasoning behind that? How did Americans vote him back in after that?

How did Americans Kentuckians vote him back in after that?

Voter suppression and some interesting statistical anomalies between the official results and exit polling, favoring the Republicans (that Democrats didn't have much interest in calling attention to, for fear of lending credence to Trump's claims of the election being stolen).

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/01/24/580171396/biden-mcconnell-refused-to-sign-bipartisan-statement-on-russian-interference

Speaking on Tuesday at the Council on Foreign Relations, Biden said the Obama administration sought a united front to dispel concerns that going public with such accusations would be seen as an effort to undermine the legitimacy of the election.

However, McConnell "wanted no part of having a bipartisan commitment saying, essentially, 'Russia's doing this. Stop,' " he said.

At that point, Biden added, he felt that "the die had been cast" and that "this was all about the political play."

"Had we known what we knew three weeks later, we may have done something more," Biden added.

One would hope.

If someone wrote a story with Republicans doing that prior to 2016 no editor would ever publish it because it’s so ham-fisted. Like a political plot laid out in a comic for actual elementary school children.

I remember at the time wondering why that wasn’t a bigger deal.

Can we fucking stop pretending that republicans do not explicitly and blatantly work in Russia’s interests? They’re fucking traitors.

Media: Best I can do is some vague headlines that tip-toe the idea while also donating to republicans.

Just FYI, it's part of Russian propaganda to create political division in the US. Labelling everyone in the party a traitor is playing right into their hands. I wouldn't even be surprised if they help push this in left wing circles and you are inadvertently pushing Russian propaganda.

Any and all trump voters are traitors.

Good good. Help Putin.

My man, you are in denial.

Nah, I just don't live in a bubble and don't have to oversimplify the world into neat black and white categories. I'm capable of understanding complexity and nuance.

If they weren't all in collusion to overthrow democracy they wouldn't get labeled as traitors together. Like I would say Liz Cheney isn't a traitor, she's just a regular piece of shit.

"I think Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it's infected a good chunk of my party's base," House Foreign Affairs Committee chair and Texas Republican, Michael McCaul, told Puck News.

This goes in the (no shit sherlock) pile. Those of us who have been paying attention and saw the instant flip from red scare to licking putins asshole have known this for a good couple of decades now.

That's the frustrating thing, it's so blatantly obvious and out in the open. You'd never know it watching literally any conservative news source.

I'm all for free speech, but wish we had ways to label things as BS because a lot of ignorant people don't know any better or care to know any better. So disappointing.

Fascist whines that another fascist has stolen their toy. News at 11.

Ol' Mike doesn't want to be held responsible for what he helped enable.

It is a misnomer calling a rotting corpse “infected”, it’s just rotting. If foreign powers like Russia join in on scavenging on the rotting flesh of the Republican Party they aren’t “infecting it”.

These foreign agents are only distinguishable from the internal forces of rot by virtue of having originated from outside the body, but in behavior and function they behave identically to the organisms waiting within that had been begun feeding the moment the surrounding entity died.

Well yeah, we know. It would’ve been nice if those dipshits had listened to us, like, 8 or 9 fucking years ago.

Impossible. Tucker Carlson is clearly an independent and reliable source. /s

Not only the base. Or does he just differentiate between "swayed by propaganda" for the plebs and "blackmailed or bribed" for the party officials?

Wow, no kidding.

Now if we only get many more of them to start conveying what is obvious, and in addition, get certain leftists to stop talking about "Russiagate" as if it is some kind of "hoax" that duped the "liberal media".

What’s important about this is not that the public knows about it, but that someone from the party actually said the quiet part allowed.

We should be cheering for this person speaking out against not only a government party, but a party they themselves were in.

Here’s to a more brave and intelligent America.

I mean, yeah you're absolutely right, but until he comes right out in the open and says "Vote for Democrats instead", it's all just a fucking shell game. The difference in moral fortitude required to say, "hey guys this is some messed up shit" versus "I'm leaving the room until you clean your mess up" is HUGE. He doesn't have to switch parties, but as long as he sits at their table and votes in lockstep with every stupid partisan game they play, he doesn't get my gratitude.

Who the fuck is Puck News?

You can't actually figure out jack shit about them from their website.

They know what they are doing, they just hate their own countrymen more than the Russians.

I don't think they even hate the Russians. They imagine it is some kind of white ethnostate creating special privileges for cishet xtian white males.

Everyone needs to take a side.

Russia or Ukraine

Palestine or Israel

Liberty or Tyranny

Coke or Pepsi

Not, like, to do anything about it. Just to cheer while other people do the dying.

"I think Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it's infected a good chunk of my party's base," House Foreign Affairs Committee chair and Texas Republican, Michael McCaul, told Puck News.

Just noticed that? We figured that out almost a decade ago. Doesn’t help that the republican leadership parrots it too.

Can we just turn the Red Scare against them again? Just go all out and yell at them that they're Commies and un-American.

It worked in the 1950s.

It doesn’t work that way because, for instance, the congressmen that celebrated the 4th of July in Moscow belong to a political party that weakened campaign finance law and allowed the potential for foreign influence while nominating a man who they themselves claim is paid by Vladimir Putin; a political party whose voters fly the confederate flag, threaten fellow citizens with “2nd amendment solutions”, who say they want to drown the federal government and constantly argue for states like Texas to secede…

You know REAL AMERICANS.

Traitors should've been purged after the civil war and the land given to newly freed peoples; Reconstruction was a mistake.

REDUX: let Texas secede; watch conservatives move there, start a war, conquer it, reclaim it as a US territory with no voting rights or citizenship. Build the wall.

Or… I’m just throwing out ideas here… what if we ship them and their lifted trucks to russia so they can totally be in such a conservative utopia?

Oh look, another thing that's been obvious for years that establishments are just now deciding to focus on.

I too wait until my house is completely engulfed in flames before realizing that there is a problem.

You've been in office since 2005, you saw this shit firsthand and said nothing. Go fuck yourself.

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Russian propaganda pushed by the Kremlin has "infected" part of the Republican base, a senior GOP congressman has said, as indications grow that a vital U.S. military package for Ukraine will come up for a vote with U.S. lawmakers this month.

"I think Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it's infected a good chunk of my party's base," House Foreign Affairs Committee chair and Texas Republican, Michael McCaul, told Puck News.

"If there is no U.S. support, it means that we have no air defense, no Patriot missiles, no jammers for electronic warfare, no 155-milimetre artillery rounds," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told The Washington Post in an interview published in late March.

"The delay in passing the supplemental has undoubtedly emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin and his regime," the U.S. think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in December.

Should Ukraine fall, the Kremlin will turn to neighboring nations like Moldova and Georgia, and then look to the Baltic region on NATO's eastern flank, he said.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson—contending with his own precarious position—is now expected to bring a vote on Ukraine funding when Congress returns from recess next week.


The original article contains 528 words, the summary contains 201 words. Saved 62%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

As if we needed more proof that Republicans are a blight upon the world.

So is the white Christian bigotry just considered home grown terrorism?

"country and party that propagandizes the entire planet gets propagandized" is way too funny.

real talk though, shills or not, i just think the republicans want to pull another kissinger, but this time with russia. fwiw i dont think its a smart strategy for them, given the ukraine war and shit.