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SDSU Poll Shows a Few Knuckleheads Falling for Putin’s Propaganda

There are some moral ignorami in South Dakota who think Russia can justify its invasion of Ukraine. I’m embarrassed that any of those ignorami call themselves Democrats. My thoughtful friends across the aisle should be more embarrassed that a few more of those ignorami call themselves Republicans:

David Wiltse, "Partisan Differences on Perceptions of Russia's Invasion of Ukraine and Transgender Athletes," SDSU Poll, 2022.05.18.
David Wiltse, “Partisan Differences on Perceptions of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine and Transgender Athletes,” SDSU Poll, 2022.05.18.

The percentages of Democrats and Republicans willing to agree with the provocative poll question that “Russia was justified in attacking Ukraine” are, thankfully, in the single digits. But while almost all Democrats pick a side (and 96% pick the right side), 11% of Republicans are willing to stay agnostic on the question of whether a smaller nation that hasn’t fired a shot deserves to be invaded by a larger nuclear-armed neighbor.

There are similar small fringes of doubt in both parties and a wider slice of chicken agnostics among Republicans on the statement of fact that Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine:

Wiltse, 2022.05.18.
Wiltse, 2022.05.18.

Check your agnoticism and your partisanship at the door, please. Russia is waging an unjust war based on lies. It is committing war crimes against the Ukrainian civilian population. Only dupes of Vladimir Putin can believe otherwise.

12 Comments

  1. leslie 2022-05-18 16:13

    A few f**king Putin/Trump/Noem/Thune/Rounds/Johnson thoughts:

    1. Of the four hundred and seventy Facebook accounts known to have been created by Russian saboteurs during the [2016] campaign, a mere six of them generated content that was shared at least three hundred and forty million times. The Facebook page for a fake group, Blacktivist, which stoked racial tensions by posting militant slogans and stomach-churning videos of police violence against African-Americans, garnered more hits than the Facebook page for Black Lives Matter. The Blacktivist ruse was part of a larger Russian plot to divide Americans.
    ***
    Or the Russian ruse of “an impromptu private visit between Lynch and Bill Clinton, on June 27th,[2016] at an Arizona airport.”
    ***
    “Cyberwar” doesn’t simply document Russia’s hacking and social-media campaigns. It also pinpoints another, less well-known, instance of Russian sabotage, and author Jamieson argues that this dirty trick, in combination with the actions of trolls and hackers, may have changed the course of the 2016 campaign. In her telling, James Comey’s decision to issue a series of damaging public pronouncements on Clinton’s handling of classifed e-mails can plausibly be attributed to Russian disinformation.

    Six months after the election, the Washington Post broke a story that solved the mystery. At some point in 2016, the F.B.I. had received unverified Russian intelligence describing purported e-mails from Lynch to a member of the Clinton team, in which she promised that she’d go easy on Clinton.

    Nonetheless, Comey has reportedly told aides that he let the disinformation shape his decision to sideline his boss Attorney General Lynch. Fearing, in part, that conservatives would create a furor if the alleged e-mails became public, he began to feel that Lynch “could not credibly participate in announcing a declination.” A subsequent report, by the Justice Department’s inspector general, described Comey’s behavior as “extraordinary and insubordinate,” and found his justifications unpersuasive.

    It was a Russian forgery. But Comey based major decisions in the Justice Department on Russian disinformation because of the optics of it! The Russians targeted the F.B.I., hoping they’d act on it, and then he went ahead and did so.

    NEWYORKER October 1, 2018 Issue
    How Russia Helped Swing the
    Election for Trump
    A meticulous analysis of online activity during the 2016 campaign makes a powerful case that targeted cyberattacks by hackers and trolls were decisive.
    By Jane Mayer September 24, 2018

    https://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/jamieson-cyberwar-russian-hackers/

    2. on top of stolen election of Trump, stolen SCOTUS seat from Obama.

    3. stolen impeachment convictions #1 and #2

    4. Putin’s hot murderous Ukraine war

    5. climate crisis

    6. economic inequality crisis
    a.) housing
    b.) wages
    c.) inflation
    d.) health care
    and so on and so on.

    Let’s beat billionaires and their enablers 2022, 2024 and so on and on.

  2. Mark Anderson 2022-05-18 18:19

    Well Cory, what do you expect from Republicans? They also believe the election was stolen among a dozen other things. They lie to themselves and they don’t care about others. We’re going to replace them, right? Soros is the worst person in the world right? Critical Race Theory, don’t go there. Black Lives don’t matter….What can you say? Payton Gendron is their hero, they won’t say it of course but really he’s right up there with Kyle Rittenhouse. Just keep calling them out.

  3. larry kurtz 2022-05-18 18:31

    Misidentifying one’s political affiliation or buying a social media platform to own the libs is a thing. Polls like Wiltse’s are like inkblots spilled from a Yahtzee cup in zero gravity—run the experiment again and again the results will be different every time.

  4. Bob Newland 2022-05-18 18:47

    “Knuckleheads.” G. Marty’s word for those of us who thought SoDak legislators needed some written boundaries, back in ’16, when America was Great.

  5. Arlo Blundt 2022-05-18 19:53

    Well…when you get your news from Fox and talk radio, your critical thinking apparatus is all ready impaired. No wonder the “election deniers” are winning Republican primaries.

  6. sx123 2022-05-18 21:51

    I’m still trying to figure out why the US and EU are helping Russia destroy Ukraine. Pumping weapons in just prolongs the thing.
    Anyone have an answer?

    Either we go defend Ukraine or we don’t. Sure, sending US troops would lead to ww3, but this proxy war stuff is nonsense.

  7. John 2022-05-18 23:19

    Our high school and college civics and history failed.
    And Noem and her abortion of 1776 Project will amplify the failure.

    Zelenskyy knows the deal. He addressed the problem in his introduction and greeting to the Cannes Film Fest last night.
    Best version I find with English subtitles. https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/uryep9/president_zelenskyy_i_recalled_the_words_of_the/

    Charlie Chaplin’s speech at the end of his enduring, The Great Dictator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8HdOHrc3OQ

  8. O 2022-05-19 09:09

    Frankly, I would have predicted a much larger split. Tucker Carlson is going to have to work MUCH harder!

  9. Donald Pay 2022-05-19 09:45

    I’m with O. It’s really quite stunning that Republicans have (so far) completely repudiated Trump foreign policy. If Trump was President, Putin would have crushed Ukraine without a peep from the US.

    The comment by sx123 is interesting. I think the US and NATO countries are doing about as much as they can without escalating the conflict. I’m sure no one wants to see an expanded war. I’m sure that the US and NATO are providing lots of intelligence to make their forces more effective. Clearly, Putin is not winning all his objectives, and the conflict appears to be heading toward a stalemate. Ukraine is largely intact. Putin is immensely weaker. Why risk WWIII?

  10. Arlo Blundt 2022-05-19 15:18

    At this time, despite the Russian slaughter of civilians and the destruction of entire cities, the Ukraine armed forces, conventional and volunteer, are holding their own and advancing against the Russians in some areas. Russia has lost one-third of its conventional military forces including tanks, artillery, armored personnel keepers, and combat ready infantrymen. That is stunning. The Ukraine military with our assistance and funding remains intact. Russia has to escalate with air power, and relies on air strikes but cannot hold land it has destroyed. Their Army is mostly 18 and 19 year old conscripts who are demoralized and very poorly led. Russia, with a Gross National Product smaller than Italy and a non existent supply line has to make significant sacrifices to stay in the fight. Their economy is in tatters due to the war and sanctions.It will be a bloody war of attrition until Russia collapses in revolution.

  11. Clyde 2022-05-22 22:38

    It simply amazes me how little critical thinking modern Americans are capable of.
    This group claims Putin is putting out propaganda. WHERE??? Our disinformation board in the “homeland security’ group” sees to it that we are not harmed by Russian “disinformation”. All sources of a counter narrative have been silenced or censored yet American’s think they are not the victims of propaganda????? The western media, all controlled by a handful of players, is the most amazing propaganda machine ever devised! Zelinski, is an actor and Biden is doing pretty well at acting as well. Just today I see him claiming the nasty Russians are going to starve the world by not letting them have any wheat. Not a word is mentioned that they will sell any wheat people need for RUBLES! Not a peep about that! I would think that should make the news narrative.
    The fact is this is no war of poor oppressed Ukrainians against Russia. This is a war of the USA against Russia and the rest of the BRIC countries. This is a war, as they all are in recent history, about money and whose pockets it ends up in!

  12. leslie 2022-05-23 08:04

    link to “ facts@?

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