Thinking out loud: I've got a sneaking suspicion about something & I'm curious what everyone else's thoughts are.
It has to do with these Westerners who appear to be #Kremlin sympathizers—especially the #Americans—and/or accounts appearing to belong to average Western people. 1/
I think many of them are actually #Russian agents (or employees in one form or another) trying to create a false perception that 🇷🇺 has much more support among common people for its war of conquest in #Ukraine—and perhaps elsewhere if they succeed—than it does in reality. 2/
Some of them—especially those living in or near 🇷🇺—give it away with poor English fluency and/or their particular accent, or at least suggest the possibility.
Among the "real" Westerners, including sincere ones—unfortunately—are the presumably larger portion of useful idiots. 3/
Among these latter 2 groups, I wonder how many are secretly neither sincere nor useful idiots. (Or at least not the free kind, anyway.) 😏
Rather, they're posers (or actors, essentially) who've sold their souls supporting genocide for a few bucks 💰 & are living among us. 4/
Of course it may not matter which is what, at least in terms of individual impact.
The lion's share of my suspicion, judging mostly by their writings & posts, lies with the former—people in #Russia or elsewhere simply pretending to be #Western or #American. 5/
Their motive is obvious: a perception that lots of common people are #Kremlin sympathizers or Z supporters, even if false, is a multiplying factor for breeding the real thing.
It leverages people's generalized displeasure with the #UnitedStates & other friendly governments. 6/
It makes people more comfortable with getting on the #Kremlin bandwagon, often unwittingly; it misleads them by making the enemy narratives more familiar & believable.
It will cause more people to give their blessing when 🇷🇺 does their next war of conquest elsewhere. 7/
When that future installment of serial aggression comes (and it will), this multiplying factor will further work its Voodoo by increasing indifference & ambivalence.
The number of people complacent & cool with letting it slide will be greater; there are too many of those now. 8/
I hate to give the Orcs this sort of credit, but who would've thought they did so well in psychology class?
It certainly appears that way, and one of the most dangerous things we could do is underestimate them—or any real or potential enemy, for that matter. 9/
Finally, at the risk of sounding naive, I'm not inclined to believe Western support for #Moscow's buffoonery is as much as they'd have you think because I have trouble believing that many are so dangerously stupid or gullible.
Some certainly are—but this many? 10/
This is one of the rare points on which my good friend Alex (@AleksandrX13) & I have a difference in opinion.
He says I underestimate the propensity of people to be stupid, generally speaking.
He's probably at least half right, and he's usually smarter than me anyway. 😏 11/
And you wouldn't think I'd be in the dark on this one working in an emergency room. I see more dumb before lunchtime than most people who can read see in a year.
Nonetheless, I'm hanging onto hope that only a nominal amount of fools wish to end life as we know it. 😌 12/
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Thinking out loud: I've got a sneaking suspicion about something & I'm curious what everyone else's thoughts are.
It has to do with these Westerners who appear to be #Kremlin sympathizers—especially the #Americans—and/or accounts appearing to belong to average Western people. 1/
I think many of them are actually #Russian agents (or employees in one form or another) trying to create a false perception that 🇷🇺 has much more support among common people for its war of conquest in #Ukraine—and perhaps elsewhere if they succeed—than it does in reality. 2/
Some of them—especially those living in or near 🇷🇺—give it away with poor English fluency and/or their particular accent, or at least suggest the possibility.
Among the "real" Westerners, including sincere ones—unfortunately—are the presumably larger portion of useful idiots. 3/