The USSR ended twenty-five years ago, and the hammer and sickle flag was pulled down all over Russia. You can only see it now at World War II memorials, tourist attractions, and bizarrely websites set up by Hillary Clinton supporters, attempting to discredit opponent Donald Trump.
It looks like the Clinton team has long ago decided they needed a bogeyman for the 2016 election. With their previous bêtes noire like Saddam, Gaddafi and Bin Laden all dead, they reached for the Russian comfort blanket, which sustained many an American “project fear” back in “the good old days.” Thus, in four years, we have gone from Barack Obama mocking Mitt Romney for trying to invoke a Russian threat to his successor as the Democratic Party nominee milking it until the cows come home.
Sometimes it is downright stunning to witness American election campaigners creating, and promoting, websites like “PutinTrump.org.” Paid for by the pro-Clinton “Progress for USA Political Action Committee” it collates media stories which connect the Republican candidate and the Russian president. That could be dismissed as merely slightly odd behavior, until you see the logo, which is … drumroll…a hammer and sickle!
Yes, that eternally recognizable communist symbol.
Reds in the Bed
In case Team Clinton is reading this: it looks like it might be time for a bit of a world history refresher. Any person even moderately informed about Russian affairs can tell you that Putin’s government is far from communist. Hell, most decently educated school children can tell you the same. The Russian government has promoted a pro-business agenda for well over a decade and has long maintained a flat income tax rate of 13 percent.
Indeed, only this year, the Russian president has denounced socialist hero Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik government for their brutal repression and accused him of having placed a “time bomb” under the state. He also admonished the Bolsheviks for making Russia suffer defeat at the hands of Germany in the First World War. “We lost to the losing party, a unique case in history,” the President said. Furthermore, Putin is no big fan of Stalin either. While recognizing his contribution to defeating the Nazis, he also described him as a “tyrant.”
It’s just as doubtful that Trump – a man who just boasted about not paying any federal taxes! – is a fan of Karl Marx’s theories. The idea of distributing wealth to labor, from financiers, is surely alien to a man who has essentially admitted to not paying people he has hired because he wasn’t happy with their work.
Put plainly, these commie associations are absurd. But of course, Team Clinton knows this. That’s the big reveal. The idea is to conflate the fading memory of the ‘Red Menace’ of Soviet communism with modern Russia. The purpose of this is pretty obvious too: to instill fear of the ‘Big Bad’ Putin in vulnerable American hearts and minds.
The Green Logo Menace
You need to go no further for proof than Clinton campaign’s official messaging. Take a look at this video, where Hillary’s team flings Russia slanders like they going out of fashion.
Cue the foreboding music - you could ask why they didn’t just license the tunes from ‘Jaws’ and have done with it – multiple RT logos and, no joke, Russian mafia references. You know the clichés that Bond films have dropped for being too crude.
The arguments presented are as light-weight as the production is heavy-handed. The Clinton side claims that Trump made millions selling Russian rights for Miss Universe. That may be true, but Trump owned the organization for 19 years and sold entitlements in dozens of other countries, holding the actual event in Russia only once during that time.
The video also implies that Trump is bad because he produced a “Russian language promotional video (which) attracted people to buy Condos in Florida.” Hold on here, what is so unusual about that? During the oil boom of the mid-to late 00’s, Russians were well known for buying property all over the world. Indeed, if you walk around hot spots like London, Nice or Dubai, you will still see Russian language signs outside many high-end estate offices. Probably all homes for the sleeper agents, huh.
Then Mike Morrell appears and declares that someone who doesn’t want to pursue an aggressive military policy toward Russia is an “unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.” And at this point, we probably reach peak preposterous. Essentially the message is that if you don’t want to saber rattle with Moscow, you are working for it.
Did Joseph McCarthy even go this far?
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.