Welcome to the administration of Comrade Trump.
We know that the Russian government, under the direct guidance of Vladimir Putin, hacked into the American election with the hope of getting Trump into the White House.
Now we have evidence that more people in the Russian government are embracing Trump’s nationalistic and white supremacist followers. And we can see just how closely those people are tied into the American nationalist neo-Nazi movement.
Even better, we have this evidence because some of the people working for Russia are as impulsive as Donald Trump when it comes to social media.
Two recent posts point this out beautifully.
First there is this tweet, sent from the Russian Embassy- UK.
In today’s papers: pundits call on @Theresa_May to disrupt possible Russia-US thaw. No trust in Britain's best friend and ally? pic.twitter.com/4TNf9x8PCh
— Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy) January 9, 2017
At first the tweet seems simply juvenile. Taking a poke at the Prime Minister of the U.K. seems unprofessional and slightly stupid. But it’s the image that was chosen that makes the tweet more significant. It doesn’t seem to have much to do with U.S.- U.K.relations, does it?
“Pepe the Frog” is a symbol that was used extensively by white nationalist groups during the recent presidential campaign. It has been labelled as a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League as well as the Southern Poverty Law Center. The tweet tagged several Twitter accounts, including that of Donald J. Trump.
Creepy, scary and ominous.
The other post came on Facebook, and was put up by a political philosopher and extreme nationalist named Aleksandr Dugin. The proponent of far right political ideas is known as “Putin’s Rasputin,” a reference to the mad monk who held power over the last of the Russian Czars.
Dugin has been a supporter of neo-Nazi ideas for decades. He has risen from being a fringe political figure to a prominent supporter of President Putin. He has also publicly praised Donald Trump. Last February he wrote:
“[He is] tough, rough, says what he thinks, rude, emotional and, apparently, candid. The fact that he is a billionaire doesn’t matter. He is different. He is an extremely successful ordinary American. He is crude America, without gloss and the globalist elite. He is sometimes disgusting and violent, but he is what he is. It is true America.”
Obviously, this Putin crony sees Trump as a puppet to be used by Moscow. On November 14, after Trump won the election, Dugin posted this on Facebook:
It says (translation by this writer):
“So. Washington is ours. Kishinev is ours. Sofia is ours. All that is left is to drain the swamp in Russia itself.”
Dugin, who is a close confidant of Putin, reflected on the election of “rude, crude, disgusting, violent” Donald Trump. He compared the capitals of the U.S., Moldova and Bulgaria, saying that they are all under Russian control.
As if this isn’t enough to convince us all of Russia’s influence over our incoming President, I’ll point out that Dugin is also a friend and confidante of both Steve Bannon and Alex Jones.
You know those two right wing nutburgers and conspiracy theorists. They’re good buddies with none other than Donald Trump. Bannon is even going to have an office in the West Wing.
The following video is fascinating, in that it shows Putin/Dugin’s view of how the U.S. election was covered by our “liberal media.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOWIoMtIvDQ
Featured image by flowcomm via Flickr. (CC BY 2.0)
