Comment by tzs

Yes. 150+ times is akin to Funding an individual, rather than seeking to add a unique perspective.

That’s not how foreign policy and international politics work. Every country would be enemies with every other country in that case.

All the pro-Palestinian anti-Israel country would be enemies of the US then, including Japan. You’d be supporting Trump’s tariffs and anti-China us or them stance then towards every country that has friendly business relations with China, which is everybody at this point. Heck, even Taiwan and China are friends more than Westerners would like to think. Meanwhile, America is friends with countries like Saudi Arabia and countries that keeps a blind eye to the funding of terrorism in America

There’s a reason the famous saying is “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” rather than “the friend of my enemy is my enemy”

Ex-CIA head Brennan famously remarked in an MSNBC interview [0] that when he says something is a Russian information operation that includes dumping accurate information.

So really it isn't enough to identify something as Russian propaganda - it is necessary to analyse whether it is propaganda of the accurate and informative variety, or the inaccurate variety.

Propaganda really just means someone is arguing a viewpoint. The BBC is classic propaganda, but nonetheless a pretty reliable source of information and a lot of the views are very agreeable.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8Shx2AR_E4

This applies to all state owned media. The US is unique that even privately held corporations push propaganda.

The most gratuitous example is NYT, as documented by Ashley Rindsberg in his book “The Gray Lady Winked.”

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( Larry King died in Jan 2021.)

approximately 1,000 over 7 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_King_Now

Here's two: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x61wly8 or https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xvxx8j

Chris Hedges had a show as well.

Yeah, like 10 seconds of google search. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x61wly8 and https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xvxx8j

It's pretty constant on hn. People paint everything from country X, holistically, with some broad and blunt moral brush.

It reads like a cartoon. Everything from China is loaded with secret spyware snooping on you for countless unspecified evils - everything out of Russia by anyone is part of some secret global propaganda network.

I point it out as absurd and reductive whenever I see it and people dogpile on me like I desecrated a sacred cow.

The world is incredibly complex and a simple label doesn't cut it. Wernher von Braun was a Nazi but that doesn't mean his work on rocketry was fictional lies.

You need to assess things based on the merits of the thing, not on any narratives of attributive associations you're choosing to assign.

Everybody votes in Australia (not sure how rich, but in top 20 for sure). If you don't you have to show cause or pay a AUD$50 fine. I know some think this is anti-freedom, but it does prevent farces like the current USA. Historically there have been problems in the past (30 years ago) but these days the Australian Electoral Commission (Independent from government) revise electoral boundaries to ensure no more gerrymanders.

> The participation rate has always been low in rich western countries.

The general election in 2022 had 84,2% of eligible voters in Sweden.

Plurality, not majority. It may be pedantic but it's an important difference.

We regularly have 92% - 93% participation in federal elections here in Australia. Having one next weekend, and already record numbers of pre-poll votes.

Under fifty percent for what it’s worth. And there was a lot of disenfranchisement

Not majority, under 50%

There’s also no evidence that increased turnout would have had the same result.

What seems to be overlooked in these conversations is the skill with which American voters have been disenfranchised by partisan forces.

It’s easy to blame people for not voting if you ignore the real difficulties in actually casting a vote for many Americans.

Arguments based on voter participation overlook that voting is a statistical sample of the population. The people who don’t vote broadly break down roughly the same way as the people who do vote. And even to the extent they don’t, it’s risky to make assumptions about how they would have voted.

If you can generalize about non-voters, it’s that they’re broadly more anti-institution than voters—which is what causes them to put less stock in the institutional practice of voting. In the U.S. in the Trump era, that has meant that non-voters or infrequent voters support Trump somewhat more strongly than regular voters.

> The participation rate has always been low in rich western countries.

Australia has entered the chat.

> The majority that did vote, voted for this

Nitpick: Trump got less than 50% of the votes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...)

More importantly, I think quite a few who voted for Trump didn’t vote for this extreme version of Trump.

The majority did not vote for Trump, and I question how many of the minority that did vote for him voted for this, specifically. Almost certainly not all of them, given his approval rating is now well below his popular vote share.

If the US wanted voting to be more popular, there would be a Federal Holiday to promote it. There is no incentive when there are known costs...at least since the wild inflation of the 80s when it got prohibitive to lose a shift and the slow dissolution of union jobs. This is the result of the tyranny of indifference. Those that benefit continue to promote and benefit, those that do not, are disenfranchised. It's a common theme in history.

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It’s basically impossible to engage in meaningful voter suppression in a country where election results can be cross-checked against high-quality polling.

“Gerrymandering” also has no effect on Presidential elections. And in 2024, Republicans won a larger share of the House popular vote than their share of House seats.

That poster is specifically arguing against democracy

You jest, but skin in the game is argument is not irrelevant. It is called a franchise for a reason after all. You want a slice of the pie, you should be able to prove that you know what you are doing. Owning land was a good enough proxy then. We can argue what would be a good proxy now.

Points B and C are believable. Constant headlines about screw ups like the signal chats and sloppy handling of data from doge

Also consider the circumstantial evidence of Musk illegally promising to pay people (via lottery) to vote, and then using the defense that the lottery was actually rigged.

If nothing else, that establishes a willingness to tamper with elections.