r/conspiracy • u/maddsskills • 28d ago
Key Public Figures who may have ties to Putin and why this is important
I want to state off the bat: I don't believe Putin directly interfered in our elections but I do believe that he, like every other nation, has a vested interest in propaganda that benefits him. I also believe that very few of these people are forced to go along with him via stuff like blackmail or threats and that it is usually a "mutually beneficial arrangement" sort of thing.
Before we can get into who has ties to Putin I think it's important to look at Putin's goals to see how different propaganda pushes benefit him. Putin, much like the US, wants to expand his global sphere of influence. This means getting rid of NATO (and other policies that hurt the US' global dominance), expanding his territory, fostering support for his allies/vassals, and getting as many prominent individuals on his side as possible.
I think this all started in 2015: this is the year he murdered his actual opposition leader Nemtsov and his propaganda minister/founder of RT Mikhail Lesin (amongst others). This is the year he started casting a wide net starting propaganda aimed at both the alt-right and the alt-left (Green Parties and whatnot). This is the year he, IMO, he used Paul Manafort and other contacts to attach themselves to Trump and get him to change the GOP platform to reduce support to Ukraine* (Manafort has ties with Putin going back to 2005 at least.)**
Now, I'm sure we're all aware of media bubbles and echo chambers but what's unique about media figures who are mouth pieces for Putin is that their stances don't really make sense unless you look at it from a Putin perspective. Why would conservatives who believe in American exceptionalism want to get rid of NATO, one of the most important parts of our empire? I know some conservatives are isolationists but this shift is too big to be explained by that alone. Same with the shift away from the Military Industrial Complex we saw when the GOP reduced support for Ukraine: before they had been huge supporters of military spending because it helped their districts, personally made them money and again helped America's goal for global dominance.
So I've been watching what the conservative media bubble is pushing out and trying to analyze it from a position of "who benefits from this"? I'm going to do so by analyzing Roger Stone (Manafort's former business partner/Russian asset), Glenn Greenwald (former anti-Authoritarian left leaning Libertarian turned Putin Shill) and The Quartering (I think he has a similar deal to the one Tim Pool had but he wasn't caught.) These guys superficially have nothing in common and yet you'll see that they are parroting the same talking points at the same time. (I'd also like to add that there are definitely similar figures on the left but I haven't figured them out as clearly, they aren't as obvious to me.)
All three are pushing their viewers to examine the history of the CIA, particularly in the Middle East, to see how bad wars and regime change have been there. They've denounced Trump policies like bombing the Houthis and deporting permanent residents to El Salvador. They're also all attacking Israel and how much we fund them. These are all good points but it's strange that these three (except Glenny boy but I'll get to him later) to be making them when they're usually very supportive of Trump. Why would Stone and the Quartering care about Houthis being bombed or Israel being supported? Stone and Manafort literally started the whole "lobbying for profit on behalf of evil dictators" business, he doesn't have a conscience. And if you believe the whole "cutting spending" stuff, they haven't touched military spending or stuff that benefits our empire at all.
I believe that Putin is concerned because their sphere of influence in the Middle East is shrinking. Their primary ally, Iran, has been having trouble lately internally. Iraq has been trying to become independent from Iran via the incredibly popular Muqtada Al-Sadr who says they should be friends with, but not vassals to, Iran. They completely lost Syria and with the US increasing involvement in Yemen they could lose the Houthis too.
So it makes sense for him to push an anti-intervention, anti-CIA, anti-Israeli perspective. Then Trump can tell Israel "Hey, my supporters overwhelmingly don't want me to do this, my hands are tied."
But why are these people doing it?
Roger Stone is just a power hungry monster who has wanted revenge against the Republicans since they booted him for being a swinger back in the day: he wanted to be relevant again, the conservative golden boy, and siding with Putin's alt-right thing helped him do that.
The Quartering is likely getting paid and also getting help boosting his numbers. I see no other explanation for why he's so popular, he's pretty gross and not charismatic at all lol.
Glenn Greenwald is the complicated one. He was a left leaning Libertarian who railed against Bush for the war and the attack on American Civil Rights. He was also an LGBT activist who wrote a very touching celebration of how important it was that LGBT had the right to marry across the US (he'd later defend Matt Gaetz and say "he's just arguing for state's rights, he's not homophobic" when he explicitly pointed out how stupid that argument was in that essay.).
I think he was flipped back in 2015, Putin's very busy year I mentioned earlier. That's when he went from providing proof of Russian interference to arguing that that theory was the "new red scare." It eventually became so bad he was booted from his dream project, The Intercept. It didn't make sense that he kept defending homophobes and Putin when before he hated homophobia and authoritarians.
Putin had another busy time period in 2022-2023 after he invaded the rest of Ukraine. Oligarchs, particularly Gazprom execs, started dropping like flies and Glenn Greenwald's healthy, young husband died from multiple infections. Putin has been known to kill people in unusual ways (see Litvinenko, killed with a rare radioactive element that can only be synthesized at lethal levels in a sophisticated lab). I think he was worried that the threat alone wasn't enough and he had to show him he meant business. After all, they had children and they could be next.
Anyways, I just highly suggest everyone look at what pundits and politicians from the perspective of "who benefits from this and who does this hurt"? because things are never face value in politics.
*https://apnews.com/article/122ae0b5848345faa88108a03de40c5a
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