Let’s say that you hypothetically prove it. Then what? It’s not like the average voter votes for this person because Putin has somehow managed to install a microchip in their brains. Moscow’s money just gives these people a platform to stand on and launch their campaigns from. The rest is their own doing. And it’s not only Russia that has these interests in mind. It’s also the American right, hardcore evangelical groups that pour millions upon millions into these people.
What I’m trying to say is that the issue is systemic. Getting rid of Putin or hardcore American evangelicals won’t solve the problem. The underlying problem is how capital has commodified and hollowed out the average person, increasing inequality, and creating multiple social crises. Until that problem is not solved, we’ll keep seeing these hard-right reactionaries pop up out of nowhere.
I agree with you that it’s systemic. If I look around me (I live in NL but I also see it across the border), people have just become more right-leaning. Talking about foreigners like they’re the problem, blaming them for stuff, it’s all part of “normal” conversation to them now. This really changed a lot the last 5-10 years, before that there was maybe the occasional nut job but everyone else was pretty moderate.
If anything, being locked in their houses for so long and the (at times pretty intense) discourse around getting vaccinated is what drove a big wedge between groups of people that were before able to discuss things in a somewhat civilized way. I don’t think Putin had much to do with that but he sure profited from it.
Let’s say that you hypothetically prove it. Then what? It’s not like the average voter votes for this person because Putin has somehow managed to install a microchip in their brains. Moscow’s money just gives these people a platform to stand on and launch their campaigns from. The rest is their own doing. And it’s not only Russia that has these interests in mind. It’s also the American right, hardcore evangelical groups that pour millions upon millions into these people.
What I’m trying to say is that the issue is systemic. Getting rid of Putin or hardcore American evangelicals won’t solve the problem. The underlying problem is how capital has commodified and hollowed out the average person, increasing inequality, and creating multiple social crises. Until that problem is not solved, we’ll keep seeing these hard-right reactionaries pop up out of nowhere.
I agree with you that it’s systemic. If I look around me (I live in NL but I also see it across the border), people have just become more right-leaning. Talking about foreigners like they’re the problem, blaming them for stuff, it’s all part of “normal” conversation to them now. This really changed a lot the last 5-10 years, before that there was maybe the occasional nut job but everyone else was pretty moderate.
If anything, being locked in their houses for so long and the (at times pretty intense) discourse around getting vaccinated is what drove a big wedge between groups of people that were before able to discuss things in a somewhat civilized way. I don’t think Putin had much to do with that but he sure profited from it.