They are just jumping at vaguely russian shaped shadows at this point

It’s weird to watch once you see it, how many USian people truly struggle to recognize bad stuff happening in their country as bad without relating it to [country vilified by the US now or at some point]. Two of the classics being like “we’re going the direction of Nazi Germany” (Nazis learned from Jim Crow laws though…) or “we’re becoming like North Korea” (from people who think the DPRK is cartoon evil and think Occupied Korea is a wing of democracy TM). And then of course stuff like this, the “it’s actually Russia that is behind our intersection of deeply embedded racism, worship of celebrity figures, ad-based popularity contest presidential campaigns, and increasing inequality, combining to create a president who has a rightist cult of personality, we’re not responsible.”

And it’s like… this is the DNA of the US. Everything that’s happening in it is the DNA of the US and the continuation of that. It doesn’t need “foreign interference” to keep going that way. If the rest of the world disappeared tomorrow, the US would start blaming the tides, the star patterns, the particles in the air, anything but taking some goddamn responsibility. For a nation obsessed with personality responsibility rhetoric, it sure tends to be allergic to taking any responsibility for the makeup of the nation and its history.