Documents show how Russia's troll army hit America

[Tommy_Carcetti]

377. Being a useful idiot isn't that difficult.

Often times, one can get swept up into a frenzy without even thinking about it--you start off with the best of intentions, someone with an agenda takes advantage of you, and suddenly they have you parroting their agenda without you even thinking twice about it.

And when it comes to the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, I would say the vast, vast majority (95%? 98%? 99%?) of folks here raising claims of a "US sponsored coup" in Ukraine are of the useful idiot variety, not of the Putin apologist variety.

Russian propagandists know after horrible debacles of US interventionism such as Iraq (or if you want to reach back further, Iran or Chile), people have a right to be distrustful of US foreign policy. There are a lot of angry, upset people out there, for all the right reasons. But that distrust is exploited by those propagandists to cover the tracks of Russia's own horrid record of foreign interventionism, in this case against its direct neighbor that they've exploited for centuries. But hey, if there's a regime change, the US must be behind it--that's what's trumpeted. And after a while, it seems to make a lot of sense.

They fart, and then they blame it on the ever-flatulent dog. And because that dog has frequently farted in the past, well....it just seems to make sense. Even when they themselves are the ones who have farted in this case.

But the much more malicious Putin apologist variety....I only believe people fit that label when they've expressed that sentiment with their own words. So if you excuse the Russian invasion of Crimea by comparing the interim government of Ukraine to the Third Reich and claiming that "Putin knows his history", that's a clear indicator. Or if you maintain a Twitter page and you are constantly posting adoring pictures of Putin and lauding Stalinist era accomplishments of the Soviet Union (all while throwing some of the most horrid vitriolic language and imagery towards President Obama), that's also a clear indicator.

I'm not going to label everyone who posts conspiracy theories about Ukraine as a "Putin apologist". That's not my game, and never has been. But when someone unequivocally shows themselves to be one, I'm not going to hold back.