What a Day! What a World! The American Right Falls for It

Right-Wing Influencers Pushed Kremlin Propaganda, per Indictment


The Tennessean↱ reports:


Social media is alight with chatter about Tenet's lineup, including rightist influencers Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and Lauren Southern. The indictment↱ shields the names of those commentators, but it's a limited (ahem!) pool.

Activist Alex Cole↱, for instance, asks, "You want proof that Tim Pool was paid by the Russians? Watch this!"

And, yeah, the transcript is pretty wild:


Pool posted to X, claiming to be a victim↱, but deleted the message after it was Noted for misinformation.

There's a lot going on, here, as this story develops, but yes, it is okay to take a moment to give our thoughts and prayers to the gullible gobblers who feasted on Russian propaganda. It's true, I just thought these celebrities were that profanely awful and their audience that immeasurably stupid; the idea of Russian disinformation just seems extraneous.

The right wing is having a bad day.
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Notes:

@acnewsitics. "Russia's asset just got community noted." X. 4 September 2024. X.com. 4 September 2024. https://x.com/acnewsitics/status/1831473542908829947

—————. "You want proof Tim Pool was paid by the Russians? Watch this!" X. 4 September 2024. X.com. 4 September 2024. https://x.com/acnewsitics/status/1831478061294105078

Mealins, Evan and Kirsten Fiscus. "Indictment: Russian propagandists used Tennessee content company to push disinformation". The Tennessean. 4 September 2024. Tennessean.com. 4 September 2024. https://www.tennessean.com/story/ne...russians-tennessee-company-tenet/75074263007/

United States of America v. Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva. Sealed Indictment. United States District Court Southern District of New York. 2024. Justice.gov. 4 September 2024. https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1366266/dl

You gonna cheat, you better be good enough at it not to get caught.
I wonder whether there is anyone to catch them at the voter tampering.

Jeeves said:

You gonna cheat, you better be good enough at it not to get caught.
I wonder whether there is anyone to catch them at the voter tampering.

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Modus operandi seems like

1 The Reps will be disposed to believe anything that makes the Dems look bad.

2 The Dems will be disposed to believe anything that makes the Reps look bad.

3 Any foreign adversary can use these knee jerk reactions as a Trojan Horse (or a carrier virus) to sugar coat its "message" to the host population/electorate.

A charm offensive might seem a more normal way of attempting to curry favour or just cultivate good relations with another State but this seems to be another way(when all pretence of good relations have been abandoned) - and is it obvious that the party that is the target of the infiltration will accept that the case against their Russian assets is not politically motivated?

Certainly many will not.They will see it as the Deep State going after Trump or his party.

Sure hope I am wrong...

It's Okay to Enjoy This One


Maybe this is the part where we're supposed to feel sorry for them.


Or maybe it's okay to enjoy this one. Transcript says:


Yeah, it's perfectly okay to enjoy the hell out of this one.

Remember, it's not that Fuentes wishes he hadn't fallen for it; rather, he just wishes it was real.


This is, actually, really rotten, no-good day for the American right wing. I mean, sure, it's easy enough to say we've always known groypers were a bunch of cucks, but, yeah, this kind of public humiliation stings.

And this is only compounded by FARA indictments striking close to the heart of rightist online influence as several celebrity influencers turn out to be actual Russian poodles. Gullible, much?

Because this wasn't hard. Donald Trump wasn't just grifting from the moment he rode down his golden escalator; his entire reputation was that of a cheapskate grifter. And it was easy to see in people's excuses: It's not the racism, for instance, but that he says what he really thinks. Yeah, it was the racism. Fuentes, for instance, didn't pick that up overnight in 2017. He said what they wanted to hear, and justified what they couldn't have.

It's like the line about reality having a well-known left-leaning bias. It's only true when it happens to be true. The rightist ambition is insupportable and unsustainable. Donald Trump offered them a chance. They took it. And it was always a grift, always insupportable and unsustainable.

And it's not just the disappointment of watching it all fall through, but the sting of coming to understand they're marks, and the embarrassment of knowing everyone else can see.
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Notes:

Mantyla, Kyle. "'A Big Ripoff': White Nationalist Nick Fuentes Blasts Trump for Admitting He Lost the 2020 Election ". Right Wing Watch. 4 September 2024. RightWingWatch.org. 4 September 2024. https://bit.ly/4e8Tqkj

Update: Is Two a Trend?


So—

Tiassa said:

Pool posted to X, claiming to be a victim↱, but deleted the message after it was Noted for misinformation.

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—Yashar Ali↱ makes the point: "The indictment wasn’t leaked. It was unsealed and announced as part of a press conference."

This correction is worth noting because, like Tim Pool's deleted statement¹, Benny Johnson, another Tenet celebrity commentator caught up in the FARA indictment, posted a statement wrongly suggesting the indictment was "leaked".


So, a booster account↱ said the obvious thing, even if there wasn't really any time for new reports that "indicate Republicans are panicking following reports of their largest media supporters being paid by the Russian Government". It's an easy thing for that kind of account to say. To the one, whatever. To the other, it's not wrong; I don't know, what counts as panic, or something like that.

But, then, journalist Bryan Schott↱ pops off with the goods: "Benny Johnson was one of the people who convinced Sen. Mike Lee to create his @BasedMikeLee account".

And, yeah, it's true.

For most of the politicians, it will just be embarrassing. Last week, or so, Lee fell for a fake video of an impossible water slide. And Sen. Lee (R-UT) is ... a long story. No, not really, but think of it this way: Utah used to have a conservative stalwart, powerful and broadly respected, named Bob Bennett. But he wasn't hardline enough, so Beehive Republicans replaced him in the 2010 Tea Party midterm with Mike Lee. Over time, even Lee faced and overcame a right-flank primary challenge, but in the course tacked harder right, becoming "based", a right-wing and altchan word for being realistic. Based people, for instance, know better than to get vaccinated. They know better than to fall for CRT or transgender or feminism.

But inasmuch as social media sometimes gives Lee shit for being a Russian asset, it's mostly because it's a popular insult↱ for his brand of idiocy.

The Kalashnikov/Afansyeva indictment, for FARA violations and money laundering, likely won't touch any actual members of Congress unless one of the podcasters rolls.
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Notes:

¹ A corrected statement↱ omits any suggestion the indictment was leaked.​

@harris_wins. "BREAKING: New reports indicate Republicans are panicking following reports of their largest media supporters being paid by the Russian Government." X. 4 Septembe 2024. X.com. 5 September 2024. https://x.com/harris_wins/status/1831478226155401241

@TheUSASingers. "Just remember that Mike Lee is a Russian asset who hates democracy and he’s also a moron who can’t spell prosperity. Oh yeah and most importantly he’s a filthy rotten traitor." X. 25 February 2022. X.com. 5 September 2024. https://x.com/TheUSASingers/status/1497324659406254086

@yashar. "The indictment wasn’t leaked. It was unsealed and announced as part of a press conference." X. 4 September 2024. X.com. 5 September 2024. https://x.com/yashar/status/1831444466873594298

So, is this thing going to take another six or eight years, thousands of clerk-hours and millions of dollars to prosecute?

The Court of Public Opinion would be the venue I'll be watching.

Gawdzilla Sama said:

The Court of Public Opinion would be the venue I'll be watching.

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As depicted where? (Not facetious; curious.)

Gawdzilla Sama said:

The Court of Public Opinion would be the venue I'll be watching.

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Won't be holding my breath.

Jeeves said:

As depicted where? (Not facetious; curious.)

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Oh, I don't hope for much, but sometimes it works out to the benefit of the people. Never stop hoping, keep working on making hoping happening.

Gawdzilla Sama said:

Oh, I don't hope for much, but sometimes it works out to the benefit of the people. Never stop hoping, keep working on making hoping happening.

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No, I was asking on what venue, what medium, by what means and method is public opinion formed?

Jeeves said:

No, I was asking on what venue, what medium, by what means and method is public opinion formed?

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You think there's a single operative there?

Gawdzilla Sama said:

You think there's a single operative there?

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No, I'm wondering how the information - the actual, factual information - gets to all the people.

Jeeves said:

No, I'm wondering how the information - the actual, factual information - gets to all the people.

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It doesn't get to "all the people", most people are lumpen proletariat and are numb to the vagaries of fickle fortune (as they understand it.) Generous as I am I would get the control of the country to the 10% who would swing an election one way or the other. But they're not a cohesive unit, you can't present one candidate they all love. The party machines just try to get a win by any number, never hoping for a landslide.

Tiassa said:

And don't get me wrong, I'm an adult; I'm not, it's not whining, I'm not complaining about it. I'm saying, you can't say those things, for that reason. Don't get me wrong, I don't regret anything, and we all make our choices, and, look, it didn't work out. It is what it is. So, I'm not saying, I'm not mad, saying I want those years back, I want those decisions back. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that just goes to show what a tremendous betrayal it is. It's just such a callous indifference to the sacrifices that his supporters made on his behalf.

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(Quoting Nick Fuentes.)

Anyone try to parse all that? Way too many "not"s to keep track of.

It's weird how Fuentes frequently makes a good point almost inadvertently, and were he actually a child, his grievances might have some merit. As it stands, however, it seems that everyone in this world is simply too much of a "Jew" or a "homosexual" for sensitive souls like Fuentes.

That said, I can only have so much sympathy for poor Nick--he should have seen this coming. Donald Trump's daughter is married to a Jew, and Trump himself has shaken hands with a Black man--on more than one occasion! Moreover, Trump has been known to "dance" to gays songs, while plainly miming some homoerotic fantasy. Funetes did not do his due diligence.

parmalee said:

That said, I can only have so much sympathy for poor Nick--he should have seen this coming. Donald Trump's daughter is married to a Jew, and Trump himself has shaken hands with a Black man--on more than one occasion! Moreover, Trump has been known to "dance" to gays songs, while plainly miming some homoerotic fantasy. Funetes did not do his due diligence.

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I've also heard that Trump is a big anime fan.

Jeeves said:

So, is this thing going to take another six or eight years, thousands of clerk-hours and millions of dollars to prosecute?

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Probably not. They've already got to the stage of indictment so just the trial, sentencing, and appeals to look forward to. It's not like Mueller's investigation, for example.

Indictment Update: The Bigger Picture


The dirty, rotten, no-good week gets worse for conservatives.

Think of it this way: Twenty-eight hundred influencers, around 550 in the U.S., pushing AI-generated content to pique traditionalist sentiment, and the flag-lovin', All-American patriots apparently couldn't tell the difference.


Here's an analogy that might make sense: Imagine a cartoon crossover where Soviet-era villains Boris and Natasha show up in Arlen, Texas, home of the Hill family. When the bad-guy buffoons from Rocky & Bullwinkle get a radio spot or podcast in King of the Hill territory, just imagine Hank, Bill, Boomhauer, and Dale, listening to the thick Russian accents comedically failing to recite American colloquy, and gobbling up every word, and soon enough their back-alley beertime banter starts to fall in line, including phrases like, "That's the way the cookie bounces, baby!"

I don't know, is that a little bit hard to believe?

Okay, so maybe Boris and Natasha pay Nancy Gribble four hundred-thousand dollars a month to read the Russian scripts in an American accent. Dale's not going to worry about the ex-KGB strongman, Bill will stick with his friends, and J.D. Boomhauer will fall for pretty much anything.

That leaves Hank.

At what point did Hank believe all this stuff?

So, then, think about the idea of "flyover country", "middle America", and other fancies of rightist moral outrage in recent decades. Coastal liberals, elite effetes, oh, the paternalism and condescenscion!

It is difficult to explain to international neighbors just how badly Hank Hill would be humiliated in this moment, but that's approximately what's happening all over flyover country, all throughout middle America. Imagine the millions of Hank Hills who are, today, utterly embarrassed, because there is no way nobody noticed, especially as Hank and the boys made a point of telling folks.

It's like the idea of the Crazy Uncle↗ character, or, as it happens↗, that "there are entire cities and towns that are essentially that Crazy Uncle".

That's part of the joke of King of the Hill, and also part of the conservative perception of liberal bias against "middle America"; Hank Hill, at his most serious and admirable, is still a joke, or, at least, supposed to be.

Another way of looking at it is that if Hank listened to Rush Limbaugh, and Dale listened to Art Bell, some of us are just not surprised that it's pretty much the same audience, these days. The Limbaugh audience followed Salem, Sinclair, iHeart, Blaze, and Rumble; the Bell audience followed Jones and Beck (Blaze), among others; both blocs, over time, were receptive to pretty much anyone who told them what they wanted to hear.

And it's weirdly like the idea of Republicans being weird. Hank Hill never thought of himself as the crazy anything. "Good Old USA"? They think of themselves as normal. And they're so desperate to set the norm they now find themselves on the same side as the Russians.

When Democrats were "pinkos", the Soviet KGB was to be feared; now American conservatives somehow think they've found a friend in the ex-KGB Russian right-wing strongman. To find they're just awash in it, suckers for Russian state propaganda as long as it tells them what they want to hear, and to know everyone else can see: This is not a good week for American conservatives.

(Reminder: Yeah, we kind of knew, but one of the reasons the whole Russianoia counterpoint seemed effective is because, c'mon, that's not really how things work, so be realistic. So, of course this is how it works out.)
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Notes:

Oamek, Paige. "Unsealed FBI Doc Exposes Terrifying Depth of Russian Disinfo Scheme". The New Repubilca. 6 September 2024. Yahoo.com. 6 September 2024. https://www.yahoo.com/news/unsealed-fbi-doc-exposes-terrifying-142611196.html