Funnily enough, if you watch the entirety of the videos from this guy he is pretty clearly talking about leftist subversion. Without taking any side here or agreeing with him, just listen to when he talks about subversive education (for example he talks about a push for more social sciences and other "unsubstantial" education ) or to what he refers to as demoralization (which is according to his definition is saying stuff like america was never great, we shouldn't feel proud of our past, and just in general a constant push for victimization).
It's funny how I guess both sides ended up thinking he is referring to the other side though.
I'd say it is working. The sheer quantity of anti-American rhetoric online, places like Reddit and even on HN, is astounding. Ostensibly coming from our own citizens, in many cases. If this kind of self-loathing is reality, we have a big problem indeed. The optimist in me likes to assume that a good chunk of it is planted deliberately by America's foes.
The sheer quantity of anti-American rhetoric online
The only way to make a great country greater is to acknowledge its flaws and strive to correct them. The default mode of communication seems to have been people pointing out US failures, and US people widely shouting them down, regardless of the merit of the claim. That has also been a major factor driving anti-American rhetoric, you can't blame that on foreign influence.
Or, in other words: anti-American rhetoric coming from American citizens is a good thing: it makes the country better.
> Funnily enough, if you watch the entirety of the videos from this guy he is pretty clearly talking about leftist subversion.
Wouldn't subversion be opportunistic, though? Maybe during Cold War, their tactics had more success on the left, but more recently they've had more success on the right. If your goal is to subvert the whole, it's six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Say what you want about the right but they are good for fervent patriotism and turning a blind eye to the government exploiting other countries, the environment, etc. These are definitely not ideals we want to embrace but a blindly patriotic and immoral U.S.A. is a way bigger threat to Russia/China than a self-loathing one constantly battling internally.
From what I understood from his speeches, I think he's saying that some leftist ideology is inherently subversive.
I guess it makes sense and it doesn't have to be pejorative: conservatives are usually more attached to traditional structures while historically leftist groups push for a transformative change. Subversion is a good way to transform a structure.
A good example would be the 1619 projet that, whether you agreed with its message or not, explicitly aimed at undermining the current mainstream narrative on the history of the USA. I can't think of any right wing equivalent
There is no right wing equivalent because of the structurally different ways in which the right and left position their narratives. The appeal to the right wing in the US is via Christian nationalism and distrust of authority (from scientists to lamestream media to the US gov't). The right wing in the US buttresses its legitimacy by claiming that Christian nationalism is the historically correct point of view and is the "traditional structure". This is in fact false, but the whole point is that the right wing (as you point out) couches its message in terms of "this is the truth and the way it's always been" while the left wing appeals for transformative change. A wholesale move to Christian nationalism would be in fact a transformative change for the US, but you gotta be cognizant of how you sell it, right? The new right-wing distrust for the US military and US intelligence and support for Russia is pretty transformative. It's just good sales.
Since when is "distrust of authority" a right wing thing? This has been traditionally been a leftist doctrine (with various ideologies such as anarchism focusing on that, along with revolutionary groups that fight against said authorities).
I know! Isn't it amazing?! Yet now it's a hallmark of right-wing thought in the US! My Republican relatives are absolutely sure that everyone in government, medicine, science, and education is lying to them or trying to manipulate them.
> Wouldn't subversion be opportunistic, though? Maybe during Cold War, their tactics had more success on the left, but more recently they've had more success on the right. If your goal is to subvert the whole, it's six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Read what I wrote in another comment. It doesn't matter if it's left, or right for as long as disturbing random discourse keeps your mind jammed, and prevents you from seeing things for what they are.
Yes but a lot of people actually are starting to think that things have actually gotten worse (especially since 2020, and they are obviously totally wrong imo)
And yes of course it's demoralizing, his theory was that if you think your country is evil or based on evil and not much better than anything else why would you ever fight for it? Especially when faced with an enemy who actually believes that he is dying for a great cause, and the best system.
From a cold war perspective, if the other side doesn't believe his system to be superior anymore that could've been decisive to win a war. Just look at the vietnam war and how it (thankfully) ended.
The first feeling I had upon reading your comment was that it felt like it was pulled from the Milosevich playbook, who used Russian support and at one point had potential for Russian troops to help him continue to further divide his country and and basically pursue genocide.
Then my normalcy bias kicked in and I thought "it would never get that bad"
Don't forget the "sex cults" he constantly mentioned, that not only came to fruition, even better - everyone is now scared to even discuss how trans should not compete in women's sports for example
I guess bannon has a pretty subversive aim but I don't see how Tucker Carlson, no matter how controversial he is, is subversive when he mostly supports traditional power structures. He's basically pushing a bog standard anti war populist narrative,which he has done consistently in the past 4 years regardless of it involved russia.
What I'm essentially saying is that he doesn't really fit into the "demoralize/destabilize/subvert/normalize" framework. But that's not to say he doesn't fit very well in others ;)
Tucker clips are being broadcasted right now inside Russia as part of their state sponsored propaganda. His description of Ukraine as a US client state and other pro-Putin propaganda is harming Ukrainians.
I think the question is if he is intentionally spreading information which he knows that it is wrong, which is not necessarily true. This seems to be a common perception of the situation. As for whether it is harming Ukrainians I would say that it is debatable.
The interesting thing is to notice how Putin calls the Ukrainians Nazis. It's like he's thinking that it's an easy word to throw around because our society is so prevalent with people throwing that word around. It's like the subversion tactics were to make it easy to call someone a nazi and make it so commonplace to cancel people that he's literally using that term himself.
> It's like he's thinking that it's an easy word to throw around because our society is so prevalent with people throwing that word around.
No, it's more like he is a Russian authoritarian leader appealing to the greatest imagery of Russian national struggle to make a war of aggression look like something more noble.
Bezmenov is ideologically a conservative and pushed conservative ideology once he was in America, so it warrants taking this with a grain of salt. That said, today it feels like Russian misinfo targets anti-establishment groups on both sides, both far-right and far-left types.
Oh I completely agree that he doesn't have a lot of credibility but I guess his message is still theoretically interesting even if it's potentially only fiction.
He's actually a genius. Why? Because it's all couched in another layer that the audience doesn't have access to. He describes the approach being like judo. Rather than meet your opponent head on, use their momentum against them. That is a tacit admission that the US has momentum in its real weaknesses. This is clear to anyone who has dabbled in US history. There are consistent historical divisions based on class, geography, race, religion, federalism, &c. that defy attempts to be mended. A subverter need not create new divisions, but rather amplify already existing divisions.
That's why so many of his examples are relatable today - we haven't actually fixed anything. And that's why it's unclear if the subversion was successful or not, these divisions already had momentum. They were already going to happen, the subversion, if present, only served to accelerate their unwinding.
This part is the most fun. Peeling back the curtain on these subversions doesn't do anything to make the subversion less effective! He has a reactionary perspective, certainly, but it could just as well be framed through the lens of leftism. It just happens that this particular framing leverages the fears of his audience to a decay of a glorious past whereas the leftist version would be the denial of a glorious future. That's why I like him so much. He's cementing his audience's stance in a way that makes them feel more resolute in their defiance to subversion which amplifies the division. It's like finding a perfectly crafted puzzle. Pure genius.
The division is because we haven't had anything to unite over since 9/11. The Iraq war was divisive.
At this point it is half the country living in one media fantasy land and the other half living in different media fantasy land. Both think they are the ones not living in a media fantasy land but believe the other side is. Both think the fantasy land they live in is objectively true.
Just like from your post the fantasy land you are in is no mystery. It is fun to watch this process honestly when you don't have a horse in the race.
If another country invaded the US though this would all disappear instantly overnight. A legit war with China or Russia that brings the threat of intercontinental missiles, this would all vanish overnight.
I keep hearing this on places like Reddit. I see memes parroting this. But with all the right-wing folks I know, I've yet to hear ONE say they actually think this invasion is a good idea, or that Putin is a good guy. I even visited Townhall.com for the first time in like a decade just to see what "the right wing" had to say. And... it's not there. No one other than Donald Trump has actually taken Putin's side. I just now went to check Newmax as I was certain THEY would be lending this support. But no... it simply isn't there.
"A congressman from New Jersey has disclosed that he is receiving calls from viewers of Tucker Carlson’s primetime Fox News show, expressing distress at the Biden administration’s backing of Ukraine in the tense military stand-off with Russia."
>But with all the right-wing folks I know, I've yet to hear ONE say they actually think this invasion is a good idea, or that Putin is a good guy.
How many right wing folks do you know?
Edit: Here's Candace Owens with 3M followers implying that the first air strikes in Kyiv were the work of NATO because Putin said he's only attacking the eastern parts.
If I bring up 2 examples of leftists being as pro putin as the 2 examples you have linked does that make both sides ( ;) ) pro putin? Because finding anti-Nato leftists isn't that hard at all.
Seriously, from everything I have been seeing going from meme accounts to trump aligned figure heads, there has been an overwhelming support for ukraine (while criticizing biden of course but that's still not being pro putin). Yes there are some on right who are but thats because the right isn't a monolith. Imo it's just unhelpful and it reeks of terminal partisanship mentality when even a pretty bad situation like this is used to score points against the other side using cherry picked examples even if it's so easily disproven. Inevitably it also turns into a "the other side is not as willing to go to war as we are so they are against us"
There are plenty of American leftists taken in by Russian propaganda because it plays to their biases, but the difference from the right-wingers who have been in that the leftists are marginalized politically, whereas a number of the right-wingers are influential, several in major media, some federal elected office-holders, and some people discussed seriously as Presidential candidates for 2024.
Now, part of this is the asymmetry of American politics where leftists, qua leftists, are generally marginalized, but it goes beyond that.
So we have a guy saying that he's receiving calls against Biden's support of Ukraine. Certainly we have something more verifiable than that, right? That insane tweet by Candace Owens, yep. That is the type of thing I'm looking for. What I'm not seeing is some overall support from "the right".
If this were some big Russian support smear campaign by the right, certainly we should see it in all their normal channels, right? I really do not feel like visiting any more right wing sites to prove my point. The simple fact is, we read comments like the grandparent, and we're supposed to believe that Russian support is wide-spread. The truth is, aside from a couple of nut-cases, both sides of the aisle seem to overwhelmingly condemn this invasion.
It's funny how I guess both sides ended up thinking he is referring to the other side though.