In today's #vatnik soup I'll introduce an American troll and opportunist, Jackson Hinkle (@jacksonhinklle). Hinkle is best-known for his pro-Russian and pro-Putin views, for his feeble attempts at getting attention and for his monetization of the Russo-Ukrainian War.
1/15
In 2019 he ran for the San Clemente City Council, but wasn't elected. His main campaign points were to stop the building of a toll road, and legalizing drugs and prostitution. After this election, Hinkle must've thought "This cute boy approach isn't working, I'll just go...
2/15
...full edgelord asshole - it worked for Trump, why not for me?" Or maybe he had a chat with Tulsi Gabbard, who had a quite similar transformation around that time, and who left the Democratic Party to fight the "elitist cabal of warmongers". Or maybe he noticed...
3/15
...that you don't have to be smart, honest or even have any competence at all to be elected - just look at people like Lauren Boebert, MTG and George Santos. Trump paved the way for this type of representatives a long time ago, and it seems to be working amazingly well.
4/15
Anyway, the Jackson we (unfortunately) see today is very different from the 2019 Jackson. Actually, I'd go as far to say that the current Jackson's persona is completely fabricated and he tries to gain both reputation and money from saying outrageous BS.
5/15
Regarding Ukraine, it's not even worth going through all the pro-Russian narratives that Hinkle has promoted - they're all there. He's actually trying to monetize with Z gear, a symbol for supporting Russia's invasion in Ukraine...
6/15
...and posts videos with titles like "Defund Ukraine" and "Ukraine lies" on his Youtube channel. Hinkle is also one of the few Americans who have been guests at Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyev's show.
7/15
He's also supported the "Stop the Steal" and the "Deep State" conspiracy theories by saying that Biden is controlled by a "Satanic cabal of DC deep state leadership". Not surprisingly, he's been interviewed by Tucker Carlson of FOX News.
8/15
Hinkle's been awarded the Serena Shim Award previously given to such "journalists" as Eva Bartlett & The Grayzone bloggers.The award was given by the Association for Investment in Popular Action Committees who,based on Bellingcat's investigation, supports the al-Assad regime.9/15
Jackson has also recently reached the age when you get interested in girls - first he dated "Sarah" who allegedly left him for Jonah Hill, and later he tried to get a new girlfriend from OnlyFans, the platform he's been very critical of.
10/15
When all other things failed,the Kremlin masterminds came up with a fresh idea: they'll just make Miss Genocide,Anna Linnikova date Hinkle.They spent a week together at the Four Seasons Surfside in Miami. Read more about this dream couple from here: noturtlesoup17.substack.com/p/rage-against…
11/15
Jackson also has a tendency to criticize "wokeness", trans people, and obesity. Ironically, he didn't mind LGBT+ flags when he was running for City Council in 2019. One of the funniest Hinkle moments was when he was put in his place by both of his parents on Twitter.
12/15
He is what I call a "Merchant of Rage" - he posts extremely polarizing views on social media, lets the social media algorithms - that heavily prioritize enraging content - spread them far and wide, and then tries to somehow make money out of this process.
13/15
By spreading his hateful messages due to outrage, people are actually making him MORE money. There are many Americans doing this, one notable example being Putin's old friend Michael Flynn and his ReAwaken America Tour.
14/15
To conclude: Jackson Hinkle is an "edgelord" who will do anything for attention, so everyone stop giving him that attention. There's an easy solution for this: Block him and forget about him.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, made together with chef invité @Martinlaineolen, we discuss the extensive links between pedophile sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and Russian officials and intelligence operatives, and how Western politicians reinforced these links.
1/23
While MAGA influencers remain silent on Epstein, pro-Kremlin propagandists and bot farms have expectedly launched an anti-Ukraine online operation, spreading fake narratives that connect Ukraine, its politicians, and the late sex trafficker.
2/23
But the emails paint a very different picture: in reality, Epstein had very close connections with Russian officials and intelligence operatives, and even built bridges and arranged meetings between MAGA figures and the Kremlin.
In this 5th Debunk of the Day, we’ll discuss something that sounds great in theory, but was completely turned upside-down by the tankie kind of vatnik: anti-imperialism. More consistent anti-imperialists call this the “anti-imperialism of idiots”. 1/5
“Anti-imperialism” was popularized by Lenin, who saw imperialism as the ultimate stage of capitalism. Ironically, the largest empire is now… Putin’s Russia, proud heir to both Lenin’s Soviet Union and to the Tsarist Empire. 2/5
Indeed, Russia is an empire that is still ruled by a de facto all-powerful Tsar, that still proudly flies its imperial flag, that still dreams of expanding its already huge territory through brutal conquest and colonization. 3/5
In this 4th Debunk of the Day, we’ll refute an absolute classic of vatnik BS, the crown jewel of peak dishonesty: whataboutism.
Now, not everything that looks like whataboutism is wrong. Seeking consistency or comparing actions or responses is normal. 1/5
But when someone pulls some completely unrelated event, that happened to completely different people, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, you know what you’re dealing with: a crass denial of the problem at hand, a bad-faith attempt to derail the topic. 2/5
Logic or chronology plays no role here, nor your opinion on these other topics. You could be the staunchest critic or supporter of these other actions thrown into the discussion, it doesn’t matter. It is irrelevant whether these other things are true or not, or bad or not. 3/5
In this 3rd Debunk of the Day, we’ll talk about… “ending” the war by surrendering or ceding territory.
Nearing four years of the 2-day “special military operation”, Russia is desperate to obtain through other means what they failed to conquer on the battlefield. 1/5
An endless army of vatniks therefore tries to demoralize both Ukrainians and supporters.
They sound noble: “anti-war” or concerned about the fate of Ukraine’s civilians, soldiers and cities. They claim that if we just stop fighting or helping, this horror would magically end. 2/5
What they never mention is… WHO started the war, WHO murders Ukrainians, WHO destroys Ukrainian cities: the same monsters they suggest Ukrainians be at the mercy of. Surrendering wouldn’t end the atrocities of the occupation, it would enable them. Surrendering wouldn’t even…3/5
In today’s Debunk of the Day (2), we’ll look at… nuclear blackmail. Vatniks love using Russia’s nuclear threats as a reason for surrendering or for not lifting a finger to help Ukraine: “see, they have nukes, we have to give them whatever they want”.
The argument is absurd: 1/5
Nuclear deterrence has been a reality for decades. Both the US and Russia have lost wars without resorting to nukes. We are not submitting to the whims of Pakistan or North Korea either. For vatniks, it’s just an insidious way of siding with Putin. 2/5
We can’t just give in to the Kremlin’s nuclear blackmail, to the threats their officials and propagandists make five times a day to scare us into letting them have something they know perfectly well is not theirs, with no limit to their appetite. 3/5 vatniksoup.com/en/nuclear-thr…
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce a Ukrainian “scholar” and social media activist, Marta Havryshko (@HavryshkoMarta). She’s best known for spreading anti-Ukraine and pro-Kremlin narratives online, along with a habit of spotting neo-Nazis everywhere in Ukraine.
1/20
Marta hails from Ukraine, where she studied history at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. She received her PhD in history in 2010. Her academic work focused on gender-based violence and wartime atrocities, including publications on sexual crimes in occupied Ukraine.
2/20
She is currently working as a visiting Assistant Professor at the Strassler Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies at Clark University in the US. According to the center’s website, Marta teaches courses on antisemitism, racism, and gender-based violence in armed conflicts.