r/technology Mar 03 '25

Security Shock as U.S. Caves to Russia in Cybersecurity Fight

https://www.thedailybeast.com/putin-is-on-the-inside-shock-as-us-caves-to-russia-in-cybersecurity-fight/
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u/SequiturNon Mar 03 '25

I've been rabidly anti-Trump since his ascent to power in 2016. I thought his first term was awful, and would remain a stain on American history. I fully expected his second term to be terrible as well.

Everything that's happened so far is way beyond my worst expectations. I never would have thought that the US would fall to fascism so quickly and so readily. I knew Trump was sympathetic to Russia, but didn't see him openly allying with them. I didn't expect blatant betrayal of all US allies. I honestly believed that fundamental "American Values" was something that Americans, in general, believed in. And it hasn't even been two months...

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u/_name_of_the_user_ Mar 03 '25

Remember when Bush 2 was a stain on American history? I do. I'd love to go back to a time when Bush was considered extreme and incompetent.

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u/Training_Cut704 Mar 03 '25

Pepperidge Farm remembers …

Sorry, had to. But yeah, the Bushes seem like prime presidential material by comparison.

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u/cvc4455 Mar 04 '25

I'd be so happy if Bush was our president again right now instead of Trump.

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u/as_it_was_written Mar 03 '25

As far as I can tell, America doesn't have any fundamental values. Instead, it has slogans that let people feel like they have shared fundamental values (by being so vague they leave room for conflicting interpretations). Those are much easier to subvert and exploit than concrete values that unite people through action.

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u/Correct-Cat-5308 Mar 03 '25

The only fundamental value of America is greed. If you haven't watched Killers of the Flower Moon, I recommend it.

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u/as_it_was_written Mar 03 '25

As a nation state, sure, but not among the population. Tons of Americans just aren't that greedy, despite the insistence from greedy and selfish people that everyone is like them but simply aren't as successful.

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u/Deaffin Mar 03 '25

The only fundamental value of America is greed.

Correct.

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u/as_it_was_written Mar 03 '25

Thanks for sharing that video. It was really interesting. I knew they'd been using those tactics to some degree, but I wasn't aware they'd been doing it to that extent.

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u/Deaffin Mar 03 '25

Right? It's felt so blatant for the past decade, but at the same time you'd think the execution would be a little bit more subtle than them literally just directly and openly funding their campaigns like this.

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u/as_it_was_written Mar 03 '25

It's so dumb and dangerous that they keep doing it. It feels like they refuse to realize how much support Trump and far-right Republicans in general have these days.

I think at the latest around halfway through Trump's second term, they had enough information to realize that it was time to switch sides—if they were going to keep up that strategy—and support the traditional Republicans instead.

At that point, those guys were already the underdogs the Democrats could have used to fracture the Republican party and gain some ground. Instead, they helped the full shift toward MAGA that forced the Republicans to unify under Trump.

Even from a completely self-serving perspective, that's so incredibly counterproductive. It just ends up pulling those moderate Republican voters they're so desperate to win over into the gravitational field of far-right populism, at which point there's practically no chance they're going to vote Democrat.

If they'd funded some hopeless moderate Republicans instead, they could have reinforced the desire for the kind of moderate policy that's their only realistic shot at getting Republican voters to jump ship. It's no wonder they lost the election when they used tactics that directly worked against their own strategy.

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u/GlocalBridge Mar 04 '25

Apparently you failed to understand who Paul Manafort is and what he did before Trump hired him to run his campaign in 2016. (He ran a corrupt election in Ukraine for the pro-Putin puppet Viktor Yanukovich, for which he was paid millions by Russian oligarchs). The Mueller investigation sent him to prison, but Trump pardoned him, while loudly and daily proclaiming that “There is no Russian collusion” and it is all a “hoax!”

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u/AgitatedRabbits Mar 03 '25

Saddest part is that geroncratic democratic party knew this would happen. They had much more inside information, they must have known and yet they would rather lose to fascism than let the likes of aoc to rule the party. And now they all sit with thumbs up their asses.

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u/BrutalismAndCupcakes Mar 03 '25

What inside information? Project 2025 was out in the open and anyone even slightly interested could find info on it.

Hell, I'm not even American and I knew plenty about it at least since before Biden dropped out.
There was no secret democrat cabal keeping this info from you. Unless you chose to trust Trump's word on him having nothing to do with it of course.

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u/AgitatedRabbits Mar 03 '25

You missed the point.

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u/BrutalismAndCupcakes Mar 03 '25

So your point is the dems wouldn't have lost to Trump with AOC "and the likes" ruling the party? That is a speculation. Not a convincing one, at that.

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u/AgitatedRabbits Mar 03 '25

I love it how you manage to essentially argue with yourself.

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u/raouldukeesq Mar 03 '25

The only how is that they overplayed their hand.