He is responsible for every covid protest
He is responsible for electing Trump
He is responsible for the war in Syria
He is responsible for inflation
He is responsible for airplane crashings
From the blog post -
Stock market go down? Blame Mr. Putin and Russia. Pension fund problems? Blame Mr. Putin and Russia. Having problems finding that missing $50,000,000,000,000 that you set aside? Blame Mr. Putin and Russia. https://www.shiftfrequency.com/blame-mr-putin-and-russia-for-everything/
He is a for-life dictator of no particular talent other than being an ex-spy who believes the Russia of post-WW2 should be what 21st century Russia aspires to.
Using its military to bully surrounding countries and basically make much of Europe desire NATO membership out of intimidation. From a country that is only relevant do to the energy sector not because they have a strong GNP.
The modern interpretation is that media is now a collective singular, similar to 'team', 'group' etc. Therefore the singular use of the media is and the media listens is perfectly acceptable in 2022. Academic discourse is just about the only exception to this new rule.
"He is responsible for every covid protest"
Nope. But he has no problem trying to amplifying these if possible to his advantage, by trying to weave his own policy preferences and narratives over time. He mostly reacts, and adapts, but occasionally initiates. Pretty standard covert ops stuff, actually, and not surprising from a former intelligence operative.
"He is responsible for electing Trump"
No, the Iraq War and the fact that both parties were tainted by it, along with economic factors, Hilary's shadiness, and the Comey announcement mostly did that, but Putin certainly had his hat in the ring. Impossible to say to what degree he influenced it, only that he did have a preference and did his best to help bring it about to whatever extent was possible at that time. Ultimately, though, enough people went into a booth and voted for Trump to allow for a win the Electoral College.
"He is responsible for the war in Syria"
No, the destabilization of Iraq War II and the rise of ISIS it helped bring about caused that. This in turn caused a refugee crisis in Europe, which in turn help to a degree to bring about Brexit. Putin did his best to help stoke these problems to his advantage but he wasn't "responsible" in a literal sense. He also used the situation in Syria to pursue his own foreign policy objectives to gain a port and a base.
"He is responsible for inflation"
No, the supply chain shocks of COVID-19 caused this. Some of the inflation sparked by rising gas prices AFTER the Ukraine invasion you could perhaps lay at the door of the sanctions on Putin. Biden obviously is using the Ukraine invasion to avoid mention of the fact that inflation was rising before this. That's politics.
"He is responsible for airplane crashings"
Not sure what you are referring to. The plane crash in China is under investigation. I doubt it has anything to do with Russia, though. If you are referring to the shoot down of the Malaysian airliner in 2014, then yeah, the separatists he backed in the Donbass certainly did cause that.
*this doesn't mean that Putin doesn't have shills and propagandists (both paid and entirely voluntary) doing his dirty work for him online. Quite a few on this very site, in fact.
*this doesn't mean that Putin doesn't have shills and propagandists (both paid and entirely voluntary) doing his dirty work for him online. Quite a few on this very site, in fact.
I think the same applies to every other country's leaders.
The point I was trying to make is that Putin is the boogeyman of the decade. Politicians in the western hemisphere blame every single thing (local and international) on Putin in order to shift the blame from their own incompetency.
China can't be ignored in this conversation, but what's unique about Putin is his longevity, vast individual wealth and power inside Russia. I could see Xi being pushed to the sidelines, but not Putin. So, we shouldn't oversell or undersell his influence. My contention is that he was always a somewhat malign influence and he's only gotten worse with age.
Xi is doing himself no favors with the covid war - peeps are running out of food in Shanghai, last i heard.
As for the malign influence, I fear nearly every world leader has been a huge malign influence on the world at large in the past 2 years. The entire world is turning into a dictatorship - just look at Canada.