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I know it's beating a dead horse at this point, but this whole Prigozhin situation made one fact crystal clear: American dissident right (and "anti-nato left" by extension) is extremely solipsistic, much more than other factions in American culture war. Just take a look at some of those takes which are prevalent among this crowd
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Essentially, their model of the world looks like: here we are, honest god-abiding Americans, and then there are "elites" — Biden, Hillary, DNC, Podesta, Bill Gates, World Economic Forum. How then do you view something that lies outside your usual experience and ideology? If you are dumb, you deny it altogether:
"Ukraine War is fake, all of it is CGI, Zelensky and Hunter Biden siphon gajillions dollars from American taxpayers to buy mansions in Bahamas"
For those people Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, Finns, Prigozhin, Zaluzhny, Macron, Scholz, ... do not exist.
If you are smarter, you align yourself with perceived enemies of the elites: Putin, Xi, Orban, .... You say things like:
totally oblivious of cases like this
https://zona.media/online/2023/06/22/sko
being a regular occurrence in Russia, when a girl is sent to prison for putting anti-war slogans on price tags in a shopping mall. Of course they'll have prepared a long list of grievances with "elites" that are intended to persuade you that whatever happens in the US is much worse than repressions in Russia or China. And, sure enough, all of it "glownigger propaganda" anyway.
You might say: "Well, I don't care about anti-Putin Russians, unfortunate pro-Putin Russians who became victims of the regime, neutral Russians, Ukrainians, Uighurs, Tibetans, Taiwanese, ... all I care is that my children don't get castrated and turned into trannies". Fair enough. But then please don't take a high moral ground. You are just as evil as "elites".
Whatever patience I had with American "anti-establishment" right-wingers, it ended. I guess Hanania is the only one I keep reading/listening at this point.
It seems bizarre to me that the paleocon sorts, after having been cast aside by their masters, so quickly fall back into nationalism. They endlessly complain about how identity politics are wrong because they treat groups as monolothic blocs when in fact those groups are made up of individuals that may or may not benefit from the policies being pushed, or are often just being used by grifters for cynical gains. Then they seem to completely lack the ability to take that same perspective and apply it to international relationships. It's almost like they aren't truly protesting identity politics, they are just sad that the masters hand is on a different dog.
There is no foreign poilcy that benefits Americans. There is no policy that benefits Americans because America is broken divided place full of different factions that have competing and contrary interests. The enemy of my enemy is my friend might be an exaggeration, but in these situations the enemy of my enemy is useful seems like a fair statement.
The average anti-nato person isn't rooting for Russia to take over the world and create a universal empire. They are simply rooting for their local elites to lose a bit of face and power. Yes that means the foreign pawns of those elites might also lose power, no that doesn't mean that every Ukranian is going to be tortured to death, because anti-nato sorts are capable of nuance and recognize that Ukraine, much like the US, isn't a monolith with a lockstep populace.
It's just embarrassing to see people rooting for an empire that hates them. All so they can continue with some empty moralizing, the illusion that the country has some kind of benevolent ideology and there is more to politics than power.
Well, what do they think will happen after that? The local elites just go "oh, my bad, we were wrong all along, we now see the light and agree with you, Mr. Fringe Online Ideology Person"?
Other competing elites and their viewpoints gain power. Specifically in this instance the US maximalists and war profiteers that want / think they can keep the US as the sole superpower despite it's obvious decline and decay give way to the "America first" group. More isolationist and at least grudgingly accepting of a more multipolar world elites and the ideas / policy that come with them.
Instead of a Biden starting wars you get a Trump ending them. Though preferably someone that is more stable than Trump and doesn't need to dick measure for ego with rival nations as often.
A fairly odd statement, considering that Trump ended no wars and Biden, rather famously ended the War in Afghanistan (while not starting new ones, in the sense of American troops fighting and dying).
When it came to foreign policy, the practical differences between Trump and Biden were minor and they both hewed to a longrunning general line of American foreign policy. Clearly in this sense they both belong of the category of "local elites".
Only really true in a technical sense. Trump negotiated the 2021 Withdrawal and oversaw the reduction of troops. Biden delayed it from May to August. It was clear the establishment, whom Biden represents, wanted the war to continue as they had been dragging their feet and not actually preparing things. Establishment politicians in congress also regularly tried to stop other troop reductions during Trump's term.
like so
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/03/politics/ndaa-trump-germany-troop-cuts/index.html
bipartisan from what I remember, but the isolationist elite / warmonger elite distinction isn't as straightforward as Republican / Democrat despite Trump and Biden being republican and democrat and being the most notable representatives of the respective factions.
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