Objection

I never said that. Please cite the line where you think I did.

I said, "Biden lost because of a wave of global inflation, and people aren't economic experts so they attributed it to him," and your response was, "No shit they're not experts, that's why they attributed it to him." Don't tell me things that I just told you.

Who cares?

No, that wasn't the topic at all. How does America influencing Russia's population relate to anything we were talking about at all?

You're doing it again omg 😭

I don't think what I'm saying is even registering because the hyper-partisan brain kicks in and has to defend your favorite politicians, even on points where they're not under attack.

It doesn't matter if "a large portion of voters" agree with your position if I already said the thing you're trying to convince me of.

Second, Musk and Zuckerberg aren’t foreign states, try to stay on topic.

I'm super confused by what chain of reasoning would lead you to say this. First, it doesn't matter at all that they're not foreign states, they still have interests directly opposed to the vast majority of Americans. Second, we're talking about whether the American government has the ability to influence Americans' media diet in a way comparable to what Russia does, so the point that they're "not foreign governments" is doubly confusing.

None of this made any sense. What don’t you understand? Westerners see the charlatan grifters that Russians fund on YouTube/Rumble because it isn’t blocked, meanwhile the Russian population has no access to Wikipedia and wouldn’t be able to see “western propaganda” on YouTube because it is blocked. Duh

Your argument is that Russian propaganda is effective because they're able to censor platforms with conflicting views, but they aren't able to control what media Americans have access to, meaning that your position makes absolutely zero sense.

Also, I'm not talking about the US government using propaganda to influence Russian citizens, I'm talking about the US government using propaganda to influence US citizens. Which seems to be a fully alien concept to you. But US citizens have access to the same set of media that could be used to host either Russian or American propaganda, it's an even playing field. Except the US has more money and a major home field advantage, so why would Russian propaganda be so much more effective? It's nonsense, and there are much simpler, more logical explanations.

No shit they’re not economic experts, that’s why they blamed Bidens admin,

Again, you're getting distracted playing defense on points I already conceded. Jesus, it's hard to talk to people who are so partisan-brained. Even if I try to give you something you'll refuse to accept the gift, and then demand it.

Not everything I say is trying to paint Biden in the worst possible light. I'm not arguing that Biden singlehandly caused global inflation and every other problem in the world. I'm just trying to engage with reality as it is and not this hyper-partisan bullshit that says he can do no wrong and nobody could ever have a legitimate reason to disagree and everything is Russia's fault.

Yes, I'm aware that Russia makes attempts to influence American public opinion. But you're vastly overstating the scope and effectiveness of these efforts.

The West can’t engage in the same disgusting tactics even if it wanted to because unlike the authoritian state of Russia, we don’t control our internet to the point of blocking YouTube/Wikipedia

You can't be serious with this. First of all, the US did recently move to ban TikTok because it had too much pro-Palestine content, when it was unbanned, it sent out a message praising the Trump administration, clearly having come to an understanding with the government. Twitter was bought out by Musk who censors left-wing content and is deeply involved in the government. Zuckerberg suddenly unveiled a bunch of anti-woke policies as soon as Trump was taking office. So, censorship of platforms is an issue in the US.

But secondly, and much more importantly, you're talking about Russia propagandizing Americans, who have access to YouTube and Wikipedia! If the reason that Russian propaganda is so effective is that they censor those platforms, then how can it be that it's still so effective when people have access to them? It's complete nonsense.

Again, you're doing that thing of getting distracted reaffirming that Russia is bad and losing sight of reality.

which wasn’t Bidens fault.

You're always injecting this stuff. I already said it was global inflation that caused other incumbent parties to lose. You're constantly trying to reaffirm your beliefs and it gets in the way of critical thinking and rational discussion. The goal is to see the world as it is, not stan your favorite politician.

People got brainwashed regardless into blaming him for inflation.

People didn't get "brainwashed," jfc. Not everyone is an economic expert following global trends. People saw prices go up, so they got upset because the prices were higher. Not everything that happens is because of Russian propaganda.

And your argument does not still stand. As I said, Kamala failed to distinguish herself from Biden's unpopular policies.

Putin even copy/pasted the same excuses Hitler used to invade Czechoslovakia.

I never realized that Czechoslovakia had a coup which banned opposition parties, leading to rebels to seize control of the Sudetenland who then requested aid from Germany in the ensuing civil war.

Otherwise your insinuation that this is no different from anyone else who was incorrect about their reasoning for war just ends up being empty garbage.

Hubris. "Everyone else in the past 80 years who said the things I'm saying now has been wrong, but I'm obviously correct, because This Time It's Different."

It should at the very least give you significant pause, especially considering that the people responsible for lying the public into Iraq and Afghanistan not only faced no consequences for it whatsoever, but, in many cases, are the exact same people drumming up support for Ukraine. Fool me ~~once twice three times four times five times~~ six times, shame on me.

“It’s not an existential threat”, do things need to become existential before you tend to them? What kind of brainlet argument is that?

Missing the point. The point is, since it's not an existential threat, Americans aren't going to remain invested in the long term. And the war could go on indefinitely. In the face of that kind of stalemate, it's inevitable that Americans will lose interest and throw in the towel. So, we shouldn't get involved in what could be another 20 year long commitment like Afghanistan if we're not prepared to follow through, instead we should persue diplomatic solutions. The justification of the conflict is irrelevant, it's better to not fight a justified conflict at all than to fight a justified conflict for a little bit and then give up after a bunch of people have died. Or to put it a different way, a war cannot be justified unless it's possible to win.

Americans are losing interest in the defense of Ukraine because Russian propaganda is working its way through the smooth brains in the states.

Blah blah magic Russian propaganda. We have our own propaganda, there's no reason to think Russian propaganda would be so much more effective than our own, it's just a talking point and not a serious explanation.

Nonsense take. Biden dropped out because his brain was melting and it got to a point that nobody could reasonably pretend otherwise, he was also polling like shit, and both of those factors are why he dropped out. Three months is plenty of time to build a campaign, it's comparable to election seasons in other countries, if anything, it was more advantageous to Kamala for her to be able to skip the primary, especially considering how badly she did in the 2020 primary.

Conditions declined under Biden, in part due to a global wave of inflation that caused incumbent parties to be unseated in many elections around the world. Kamala failed to distinguish herself from Biden's economic policy despite the fact that purchasing power has declined, and followed his unpopular Israel policy as well.

Your narrative is heavily biased, it's designed to absolve democratic candidates of any and all blame and shift it onto the voters rather than looking at what actually happened. If the democrats fail to learn from their mistakes, they will keep making them again and again.

That's the narrowest margin I've ever seen described as "a majority" lmao.

If Russia has the ability to brainwash half the country using a handful of bot farms, then I can only imagine what our own, much more powerful and well funded intelligence agencies are capable of.

This whole, "they disagree with me therefore they've been brainwashed by Russia" but is tiresome. Sure, Russia has made some attempts to influence public opinion but it's not nearly as broad as you suggest. Even if it were, that raises the question of why they were so receptive to Russia's techniques and why your side can't employ similar ones to persuade them. Honestly, when people say stuff like this, I have to wonder if they really believe it themselves, or if they're just saying it to discredit the other side or to resolve the psychological discomfort of other people disagreeing about something.