When the Democrats recently accused, without proof, the Russians of causing and indeed funding the recent race riots, it took us back the big news of 2016, Russian interference in the US election.
I’ll deal with the elephant in the room here, did Russia try to influence the US election? Yes, of course it did, that is what all major international players do, and you know what? They learned from the best.
Let us head back 24 years, the Soviet Union had imploded, and Russia had dropped all vestiges of communism to embark on “shock therapy” capitalism. Shock therapy capitalism might as well be called wild west capitalism, as it created billionaires via the barrel of a gun. Now would you guess, but shock therapy and poverty was not all that popular with the Russian masses.
To the west Yeltsin was great fun, he was opening up the country, we could finally make some money there, and Russia was now playing ball. But, you see, that is the problem with democracy, people don’t always choose the right person.
With Russia going to shit and the fortunes of its citizens no longer resembling that of a superpower, it looked distinctly like the Communist Party of might win the 1996 elections. To put this into a bit better perspective, Yeltsin was hated so much that in January of 1996, his approval rating was 6% lower, not than his rivals, bot of Ironman Joseph Stalin.
This was not exactly a popular prospect in the USA, and Bill Clinton desperately wanted to help. “I want this guy to win so bad,” he told Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, “it hurts.” It was almost a love affair.
America then stepped into action by not only pressuring the IMF into a $10 billion dollar loan but also sent over senior advisors to help with the campaign.
Yeltsin thus went from the last place to winning by 13% in an election considered a complete fraud by most. Alas, you are unlikely to hear about this fraud, as it does not suit anyone’s current narrative. To give some background on said fraud, Chechnya, a place that had just gone through a brutal war and had a population of 500,000, managed to register 1 million voters, of which 70% voted for Yeltsin.
With Yeltsin in power and now having been shown how to manipulate elections the torch was eventually given over to a certain President Putin, who obviously still rules the country today, or as you could call him “our mans, man.”
So whether or not Putin did manipulate the 2016 election is unimportant and inconsequential unless we face up to our past.
Personally, I’d love to think that Putin helped get Trump elected in the ultimate act of trolling and revenge.
I will go out on a limb though and say Putin probably has nothing to do with the current riots in America. Uncle Sam, this one is squarely on your doorstep, it is because you are so racist.
