“I mean, Elon Musk joked to me, and he has, I think, many times, that he’s going to go to prison if Trump loses,” Carlson said.

LOL. Billionaires don’t go to prison in America.

They aren’t intended to win, they’re intended to do exactly what they’re doing - selecting particular wedge issues to split the Democrat vote and give them a lower total percentage vs Republicans

But surely that would happen even if someone else like Cornel West was the Greens leader.

All Putin achieves by (somehow) installing his plant as the Greens presidential candidate is lowering the Greens’ vote share by preventing them from getting the most charismatic and effective candidate.

If Putin really did subvert the Greens’ selection mechanism and install a less popular candidate with limited appeal, the Democrats should be thanking him.

I’m not Russian.

But these accusations don’t even make sense.

Why would Putin benefit from having a Russian plant as the presidential candidate of the Green Party? Does he mistakenly think the Green Party has some influence in American politics?

And how could he known his plant would be selected by the party as their presidential candidate? Is he psychic? Is the entire Green Party comprised of Russian plants?

If his goal was for the Greens to be a spoiler for the Dems, surely they’d be just as much of a spoiler no matter who their candidate was. In fact, without Stein, they could probably find a better candidate and be more of a spoiler.

I’m not worried about Stein being a Russian plant because it literally would make no difference to anything.

Didn’t you earlier claim to not know anything about Russian culture?

I don’t know much about Russian culture.

I do, however, know a little bit about the Turkic culture of the Tatars.

до свидания!

I’ll assume that means “I love you”.

Thanks! I love you too, man. Despite our differences, we’re all just trying to do what we think is best for the world.

So you’re arguing that as long as an invader/occupier can displace or genocide the entire population that lives in a territory, there should be no barriers to an invading force claiming whatever land they want.

Well, if that’s your argument, then neither Ukraine nor Russia have a claim to Crimea. It should belong to the Crimean Tatars.

the second statement of yours doesn’t work.

So you’re arguing against self-determination for the inhabitants of the Donbas on the grounds that the territory historically belonged to Ukraine. (Which does seem to be the attitude of the Ukrainian government.)

I don’t think that’s a good argument against self-determination. And that’s how you end up with separatist violence.

It was a rhetorical question

It wasn’t rhetorical.

Ah, cool. I’ll check out that app. (I think it must be specific to that app. I’m on desktop right now and I don’t see any option for tagging people.)

I used to use RES Reddit Enhancement Suite back in the day, and it had support for tagging people. I found it quite useful.

(I mean, I get it. We live in a 1984-style dystopia where I can’t question our very questionable government without being accused of being a traitor and secretly loyal to whichever foreign power is considered the enemy this week, and I should consider myself lucky that I don’t end up in Room 101, or Guantanamo Bay, or the Embassy of Ecuador in London. Yeah, I know.)

deleted by creator

Well, I specifically said I don’t have any particular sympathy for the Russian government, but whatever.

How are you tagging people? Is there a third-party software for that? I’m not very good at using Lemmy.

I can’t access the link you posted. So I’ll take your word for it. But I can’t see how many votes it has or what their reasoning is.

You might have the poster blocked. You can see it if you open the link in an Incognito window. It has 15 upvotes.

I definitely have you marked as maybe pro-Russia

First of all, even if I was pro-Russia, that doesn’t mean I’m a Russian asset. Assets operate under instructions and get paid for it (I assume).

Secondly, I’m not pro-Russia. I mean, I’d like to think I appreciate Russian culture in the same way I appreciate all world cultures, but I have no particular loyalty or sympathy for the Russian government. (And I don’t even know much about Russian culture. I’ve never read Tolstoy or Pushkin. I don’t think I could name a single Russian dish apart from borscht.)

I think that Ukraine is a puppet of the Western powers, and I think that the US and NATO provoked the war in the Donbas. I don’t think that makes me pro-Russia. If I was pro-Russia, then I would want Russia to win the war, and truth is I don’t care which side wins the war. I just want it to be over. Ideally, I’d like the people of the Donbas to have a referendum about which country they’d like to be a part of, but neither Ukraine or Russia are going to let that happen.

I also think a lot of the information we’re getting about the war in the Ukraine is blatant propaganda. Like, we’re supposed to believe they killed 10,000 Russian troops last week? Then why are they freaking out about 1,500 troops coming from North Korea? (Even if North Korea sent 10,000 troops, that’s still only one week’s worth, right?) Again, I don’t think that makes me pro-Russia. That makes me pro-truth.

I am also pro-BRICS, because I support a multi-polar future for our world. I don’t think that makes me pro-Russia anymore than it makes more pro-Brazil or pro-Ethiopia. (I don’t see BRICS as an anti-Western alliance. Also, Brazil is a Western country.)

I will be upfront about all of this. I am not hiding any of it.

"[…] No leftist/proper radical/cool tough guy who is very cool and tough like me would ever accuse Tlaib of being a Russian asset, so if you do, I am drawing myself as the Chad Leftist and you as the Soyjack Centrist” It’s the kind of openly silly opinion that, if you say it openly, people laugh at you, so OP simply assumes it

Are you saying that I’m (sneakily) assuming that’s it’s ridiculous to accuse Tlaib of being a Russian asset? (I’m not trying to paraphrase you, I’m just genuinely not exactly sure of what you’re saying.)

I do believe it would be ridiculous to accuse Tlaib of being a Russian asset. I am not being sneaky about that. I will openly say it. Here, listen to me say it:

No leftist/proper radical/cool tough guy who is very cool and tough like me would ever accuse Tlaib of being a Russian asset.

Which comment? Perhaps you could link to it.

OP is also pushing the assumption: “Everyone is either 100% paid by Putin directly, or 100% totally fine.”

That’s not something I believe, and I don’t see how anything I’ve said assumes that.

I haven’t seen that response unless someone has credible connections to Russia, like Trump or Stein.

I’ve seen people on Lemmy suggest that the Pope is a Russian asset.

https://lemmy.world/comment/12053409

Also, I’ve been called a Russian asset plenty of times, and I’m even banned from some subs for supposedly being a Russian asset, and I have no connections to Russia at all. I’ve never been to Russia, I have no family from Russia, and I don’t speak Russian.

It was a question.

I’m familiar with what that is. I just don’t think I’m doing that.

I want the people reading this to look more critically at the opinion you’re trying to insert

What opinion am I trying to insert?

you could openly name the assumption you’re trying to push

I literally have no idea what assumption you’re talking about, and I’m starting to suspect you don’t either.