The Russian government just tweeted an image of a white supremacist frog
Source: Vox
The Russian Embassy in the United Kingdom loves to troll the West on Twitter. On Monday morning, it outdid itself tweeting an image of a cartoon frog linked to Donald Trumps white nationalist fans.
Even absent the image, the tweet would be pretty trolly. Its a response to British pundits who are calling on UK Prime Minister Theresa May to disrupt President-elect Donald Trumps attempts to cozy up to Putins Russia. The Russian Embassy is making fun of these UK pundits for seeming not to trust America, Britains closest ally which is rather amusing, given how often the Russian government blasts the United States.
But its the appended image of the frog that elevates the Russian tweet from a bit trolly to holy shit, this is actually happening.
The frog is named Pepe, and it was originally a character in a web comic called Boys Club. But more recently, the frog has been appropriated by the alt-right a racist, sexist, and anti-Semitic online subculture full of Trump devotees. It became so closely associated with the alt-right movement that the Anti-Defamation League, Americas premier anti-Semitism watchdog, declared Pepe a hate symbol akin to the swastika.
Read more: http://www.vox.com/world/2017/1/9/14212496/russia-embassy-pepe
In case there is any doubt that Russia's angle is to stoke anti-immigrant and racist sentiment among whites in the West, Russia decides to post a white nationalist symbol:
I guess we can just refer to Trump and Republicans as R4 - Right-Wing Racist Russian-loving Republicans.
Alice11111
(5,730 posts)Rubbing it in our faces. The Republicans are thinking, thank you, but the ignorant are just enjoying the racism.
The darkest days of our country, since slavery, are here.
IronLionZion
(45,450 posts)Racial conflict in the west would benefit Russia how?
Mc Mike
(9,114 posts)out to their pals. And maybe also laughing at the rest of the people who'd already noted the pepe post-ers' nazi pro-dRumpf activities this election.
TomCADem
(17,387 posts)In the 1940s, American Hero Charles Lindbergh urged America to back Hitler's Nazi regine and, in return, Hitler took steps to cultivate Lindbergh's support:
http://www.express.co.uk/expressyourself/201613/Charles-Lindbergh-Hitler-s-all-American-hero
And in a sickening anti-Semitic outburst, Lindbergh added: Their [the Jews] greatest danger in this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government. Lindberghs supporters and very probably the man himself really believed that the Jews were critical of him because of his blond, blue-eyed Nordic good looks. These, they claim, were not the kind of looks that Jews favoured. Similar views were held in Hitlers Germany.
It became increasingly apparent that Lindbergh himself was decidedly racist. He maintained everyone of European descent would eventually be replaced with a pressing sea of yellow, black and brown. And he openly stated that if it was a matter of choice, he would rather see America allied with Nazi Germany than Soviet Russia.
During the pre-war years Lindbergh was also open about his great admiration for Hitlers Germany. He travelled several times to the country to report on German aviation and the German air force, all at the request of the US government. But so impressionable was he that the commander in chief of Germanys air force Hermann Goering was able to convince him that it was far more powerful than it really was.
Sensing that Lindbergh was an admirer of the Nazi regime, he let him become the first American to examine Germanys newest bomber the secret Junkers JU88 as well as the Messerschmitt 109. Lindbergh was also given an opportunity to pilot the Messerschmitt which he would later praise fulsomely.
So delighted had the Nazi government become with Lindberghs lavish praise of their aircraft that at a dinner held in his honour at the American embassy in Berlin in 1938 he was presented by Goering on behalf of Adolf Hitler a decoration the Commander Cross of the Order of the German Eagle.
Likewise, Russia is using xeno-phobic sentiment and insecurity among whites to cultivate support in foreign countries for Russia.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/03/world/americas/alt-right-vladimir-putin.html?_r=0
As the founder of the Traditionalist Worker Party, an American group that aims to preserve the privileged place of whiteness in Western civilization and fight anti-Christian degeneracy, Matthew Heimbach knows whom he envisions as the ideal ruler: the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin.
Russia is our biggest inspiration, Mr. Heimbach said. I see President Putin as the leader of the free world.
Throughout the presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump mystified many on the left and in the foreign policy establishment with his praise for Mr. Putin and his criticism of the Obama administrations efforts to isolate and punish Russia for its actions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. But what seemed inexplicable when Mr. Trump first expressed his admiration for the Russian leader seems, in retrospect, to have been a shrewd dog whistle to a small but highly motivated part of his base.
For Mr. Heimbach is far from alone in his esteem for Mr. Putin. Throughout the collection of white ethnocentrists, nationalists, populists and neo-Nazis that has taken root on both sides of the Atlantic, Mr. Putin is widely revered as a kind of white knight: a symbol of strength, racial purity and traditional Christian values in a world under threat from Islam, immigrants and rootless cosmopolitan elites.
dwayneb
(768 posts)No question it would benefit Russia, or any of America's enemies. Their approach has always been to destabilize us, and nothing works better than fomenting internal division.
heaven05
(18,124 posts)Last edited Tue Jan 10, 2017, 03:00 PM - Edit history (1)
they are and have, just like the USA, been a racist culture, hidden by media window dressing, obvious hypocrisy and lies. When I was in college in a prominent Boston university/college, I talked to Africans at the time who had attended Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow and they said at that time that had faced many racist incidents in Moscow from restaurants, social settings to the university itself. They felt the racism here but said, at that time, Russians were worse, so no surprise in this latest turn of events, here.....
AgadorSparticus
(7,963 posts)I wonder if the ignorant deplorables who wrap themselves in the flag every night will find nationalism stronger than their racism.
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,330 posts)This isn't trolling. It's manipulating.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)hollowdweller
(4,229 posts)Wasn't it used in the DU Hack?
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,330 posts)Last edited Wed Jan 11, 2017, 05:13 PM - Edit history (1)
Duh. It's in the op. So much for posting on phone