Pete - it's not Russia. Surely you can see the systemic crisis of western sponsored globalism, of the western post war world order, of the credibility of mainstream political elites all across the EU?
Yes and no. I see the far right exploiting the fears of the people by blaming everything from globalism, Muslims, Jews and the guy next door if they can.. all to gain power. That the mainstream politicians have been unable or unwilling to do anything about it is the main problem. Historically this has happened every so often and is more than often triggered by the "elitists" losing power.
Take Germany.. up to WW1 the country was run by the same type of elitists that ran most countries in Europe including Russia. Since the late 1800s a new idea and movement had come around called... socialism and workers rights. The elitists hated it, so at first the sent in the troops killing thousands in all countries. At the same time they were playing the same old games they had been doing for centuries.. power grabs and war in Europe. Out of this came WW1 and then the **** hit the fan. The socialists, aka communists threw out the elitists in Russia and the revolution threatened to spread. Germany lost the war and the government was weak.. it had to stop the flow of socialism. So they invited the socialists into government after a decade of beating the crap out of them. It was to control them, as they never had any real power. It back fired. The great depression hit and the crapper really hit the fan. In a desperate attempt to maintain power, they turned to a guy named Adolf and his falsely named "National Socialist Party". They managed to maintain power, and to their delight, Adolf also started to round up the socialists and kill them. We all know how that ended.
Point is, we have been through this before.. the only difference is, that this time around we have mass media and the internet so it is much easier to manipulate the population. It is also easier to find out the lies... sadly often too late.
Surely you can see that to ascribe all this to Russia is ridiculous?
No because Russia is at the moment, the main instigator behind the "anti-globalist" movement... not because they believe in it, but because it causes instability in the main rival states/organisations. Before Russia it was the US who did the same against the British Empire.. although through different methods. It is the classic divide and conquer strategy.
Do people not have very genuine personal reasons why they vote and think the way they do?
To be fair.. no. The most rabid Brexit people are pensioners...what personal reasons do they have to vote that way? Mostly ignorance and stupidity as it turns out, because they have been living of a diet of anti-EU bs through the British tabloids for 4 decades.
The Swiss immigration vote..who voted for less immigration? Those that were directly effected by immigrants? no.. the rural peoples who rarely see immigrants and are least effected by them.
Mass inequality and a visibly failed system which produced it is not Russia's fault. Western elites have presided over and created this over decades. Why support a system which has alienated significant numbers of mainly working class people?
But there is NO mass inequality!...While inequality has gotten worse the last decade, we are still far far far better of than 40+ years ago. What has alienated significant numbers is basically fear mongering and the massive flow of information or rather miss-information.
For example.. there are 10 murders in a country... 2 are done by Muslim immigrants. These 2 murders are all over the media and net, where as the 8 others are barely covered.... that over time will cause the problem we have it today. The steady stream of miss-information and lies by the British print media over decades about the EU and Europe, did in part lead to Brexit.
I have some elderly friends of my late parents, who are Facebook addicts. The amount of "the Immigrant gang did this" crap they spread is astounding. One would think that all crime in Denmark is done by Muslims and immigrants and they all live right around where these friends live. Now I know that most Muslims and immigrants dont live anywhere near them, and that statistically most crimes by far in Denmark are done by white christian danes..But listening to them, and you would think we live in freaking Syria sometimes.
