> That cynicism is one the explicit goals of Russian propaganda.
I don’t need Russia to tell me to be cynical of the western political situation.
I don’t need Russia to tell me to be cynical of the western political situation.
To reframe it: changing these bad situations is easier than it seems. It’s not easy, but many people feel as if change were impossible.
I believe this feeling of hopelessness is one of the main reasons why political and financial fascists can rise. They yell that the world is falling apart and that they have the (final) solution. Russian bot farms amplify this narrative, helping massively to weaken democratic societies.
This is an information war and Europe has been losing it for about 10 to 20 years.
There are just too many objective things that can be well measured. Grocery shopping bills, utility bills, payslips. Even job ads for hardware developers like me. I quit television as a teen and newspapers during 2014 Ukraine war. The west makes ruzzian troll farms easy life.
Does democracy still work? I often provoke German colleagues and ask who voted for 5 millions new immigrants into welfare system during last 10 years. Nobody gave me positive answer. So what’s happening? Voters obviously get what they don’t want. Nobody voted for falling apart infrastructure. I started thinking about offroad suspension and tires for my car. I regularly visit my older neighbors and have a chat, old people see the same. And have statistics. They remember the years when there was no train at all. When the train run every 4 hours, when the train came every 30 minutes and when chaos started 2 decades ago. Maybe there are enough internal factors that weaken so called democratic societies and ruzzian trolls are only very minor factor. Deindustrialization in Germany can be seen on plain sight and well paid positions will never come back: https://group.mercedes-benz.com/company/news/mercedes-benz-v...
Edit: probably wrong link. Sprinter production goes to Poland. Apparently German production is too expensive.
I think that is what Pavel does. Look at how he mentions chat control, but not that it was turned down and revoked. Then directly goes on to criticize Germany (who shut down chat control) for being anti freedom. He doesn't say anything that is wrong. Due to their history, Germany does not allow you to say anything you want about their politicians, deny history or praise nazism. It's that same history that makes Germany such strong proponents for privacy though, because they've lived the Surveillance state before it was cool. That is what has turned Germany is a privacy haven on par with Sweden, but where does Pavel ever mention that?
For that is the main issue with people like Pavel. It's not that the message is wrong. The internet has become mainly controlled by a couple of SoMe companies which are controlled by the aristocracy. It's that he polarizes it, but only against the west. I get why he wouldn't criticize Russia even if he wanted to, but he's certainly not walking the walk, is he? The fact that he spreads the message on X just makes it even more hypocritical. (If you think that part about X is me being "woke", please keep in mind that Twitter banned Trump.)