Thread by @MollyMcKew

New Surkov essay today, includes this trolling -- "In reality, it is even more serious -- Russia is interfering with their brains, and they don't know what to do with their own changing minds." (They = western politicians) /1

"В действительности, дело еще серьезнее – Россия вмешивается в их мозг, и они не знают, что делать с собственным измененным сознанием."

This is a pointed riff on idea of elex interference. /2

Have lecture this morning but will post our translation later. It's a fun one! /3

Here's a translation of the new Surkov essay, "Putin's Long Reign" -- it's a fun one. Will post some comments on this thread

(Here pages 1-4 of 7) /4

Surkov (pages 5-7 of 7) /5

Interesting musing from the guy who authored the "sovereign democracy" concept: "Having rejected this illusion [of choice] in favor of the predestination of realism, our society had to muse about our own unique way of democratic evolution ... /6

... and then it entirely lost any interest in debating what democracy should be like or whether it should be at all."

Typical Surkovian nothing-really-matters/it's-all-hypocrisy-ism. /7

This is the essential point of this essay: it is Russian destiny to be an empire.

"Russia finally stopped collapsing and started rebuilding. It returned to its natural, and the only possible, form of great power, a union of peoples that expands and reassembles its lands." /8

"Putin's great political machine is just gaining the momentum and gearing up for a long, tiring, but exciting journey. It is yet to reach its full capacity. Hence, years into the future, Russia will still remain Putin's state..." /9

"The Russian system of governance may not only be applied domestically, but it may also have a significant export potential."

That shout you heard was the whole Baltic region shouting "no thanks!!" /10

Cc Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissmann

"Foreign politicians credit Russia with meddling in elections & referendums all over the planet. The reality is much more daunting – Russia is meddling with their brains, and they are clueless as to how to deal with their own rewired minds"/11

"In the meantime, the growing foreign interest in the Russian political algorithm is understandable"

Thanks Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc /12

Here's why it's easy for Kremlin to find compatriots in Bannons + grifters around Trump:
"Back in the times when everybody was loving globalization and buzzing about the flat world without borders, Moscow was reasonable enough to remind that the national interests did matter"/13

This is beautiful language -- are we the spiders or flies in World Wide Web? -- and not incidentally times for release exactly as Russia prepares to enact further information restrictions in its own internet: /14

Another articulation of the Putinist view that "the people" aren't a thing, only the security state. Which is false and naive provided the people don't take the bait of the modern dictators that giving up freedom can be easy and profitable. /15

OMG stop watching our darkest TV fiction and thinking it's real! It's grotesquely not, on purpose, to make us reflect in the lesser demons we overlook. /16

This cynicism may be how the Kremlin justifies its history -- but I refuse to accept it. There are more than villains in the world /17

This is the garbage the Kremlin has projected into Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova -- don't strive to be better, be honest you are just this -- and not incidentally the salve of mediocrity that Trump has offered as palliative /18

In much of rest of essay, Surkov explains Putinism reflects the real qualities of the Russian people -- which is astonishingly denigrating.

He says Russian democracy is farce, explains the direct connection between the tsar + people is only thing that matters. I mean Putin /20

Anyway, if you can read this and not understand why we need to fight the Kremlin worldview, then, maybe read it again. /21