An interesting phenomenon is emerging in Ukraine. 11 million Russians have relatives in Ukraine, and Ukrainians are finding that when they communicate with their Russian relatives, they are being told there is no war, Zelensky is a Nazi, Russian soldiers are only in the east, they are passing out food and blankets, Kiev hasn't been touched, and the only strikes are precision strikes on military infrastructure. Anything else, they say, is fake news. Yes, the very people who are watching these things happen, are being told by their Russian relatives that it is fake news. Ukrainians have described the phenomenon as 'surreal'.
Sound familiar?
Trump applied the Putin psyop playbook to the United States with stunning success, driving a wedge into the vulnerable minds of humanity's less intelligent-- typically the elderly, boomers, the uneducated, the uninformed, and it is seemingly just as successful in Russia as it was in the United States.
This is nothing other than a psychological sickness, a vulnerability in the human psyche that autocrats, kleptocrats, and other bad actors have learned to weaponize with great skill. I'm really hoping we find a cure, some way to counteract this. In the hands of someone like Trump, but more intelligent and capable, this has the capacity to continue to result in the destruction of our society, as the people who control the reins slowly dismantle our institutions while the brainwashed cheer them on.
This has always been a vulnerability in the human mind and in our social dynamics, but without the internet and social networking, it could never be weaponized this effectively, until now.
Who knew that the term viral would be so prophetic, because that's exactly what this is; a cognitive virus, just like religion, just like political tribalism.
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