FWIS3

Increasingly, people in Russia’s sphere of influence were deciding that the values that were supposed to bind the West together could no longer hold. That the world order Americans depend on had already come apart.

From Moscow, Vladimir Putin has seized the momentum of this unraveling, exacting critical damage to the underpinnings of the liberal world order in a shockingly short time. As he builds a new system to replace the one we know, attempts by America and its allies to repair the damage have been limited and slow.

What both administrations fail to realize is that the West is already at war, whether it wants to be or not. It may not be a war we recognize, but it is a war. This war seeks, at home and abroad, to erode our values, our democracy, and our institutional strength; to dilute our ability to sort fact from fiction, or moral right from wrong; and to convince us to make decisions against our own best interests.

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The one thing I disagree about. The journalist presents too much hope that Trump might be able to counter Putin and the Russian goal of world of "all against all". Trump, IMO, wouldn't know the truth if it bit him in the crotch. And he is so busy whining about people picking on him that he will miss every opportunity to do any thing truly effective.

Yup, as I said elsewhere, pretty good article.

What both administrations fail to realize is that the West is already at war, whether it wants to be or not. It may not be a war we recognize, but it is a war. This war seeks, at home and abroad, to erode our values, our democracy, and our institutional strength; to dilute our ability to sort fact from fiction, or moral right from wrong; and to convince us to make decisions against our own best interests.

Is this a joke?
This describes the political system and media in the US perfectly.
Do I understand then that the US has been in league with Russia all along or that Russia has finally decided to join the US strategy that seems to be working here given that this has been happening in the USA long before Putin got to power.
wtf?

You could simply say that a lot of people in the US have, despite it all, an authoritarian streak and have found an ally in Russia.

Yep. Sadly a lot of people in high places where they can influence the country.

Democracy is hard. it requires an educated, well informed, engaged populace. It is easy to let someone else make the decisions. Representative Democracy has even more challenges. Because the question becomes who do your representatives answer to? Who is their boss?

And Democracy is naïve. It believes that everyone wants it. It believes that everyone will eventually work for the common good. It believes that the majority are united in working toward common goals.

SciFiFisher wrote:And Democracy is naïve. It believes that everyone wants it. It believes that everyone will eventually work for the common good. It believes that the majority are united in working toward common goals.

This is why I often equate ideology to idealology. They only work in an ideal system where everyone "wants" to follow the system. That however is delusional. Those that don't will always find loop holes to screw the rest and they are getting better at it. They have now convinced a large percentage of the population that even though a small group of families own more than 50% of the wealth of the world, that they somehow managed to "earn" it. Anyone that actually believes this is too far retarded to even understand that no one achieves anything on their own and the only way to get that much transfer of wealth to yourself is to be taking advantage of the system. Of course, trump, Jobs and their ilk will convince many how they created themselves and everything else as a result. All too many are more than happy to listen and worship them.

Till the shit really hits the fan and they all get executed in a bloody revolution of course.