Rob, if your invocation of China and their influencer network had been to reinforce the actions of Russia as bad, that would have been one thing. ("China is paying people on tictock as well. We have a serious problem with foreign influence operations in our social media.") Instead you mentioned China and then started casting the original concern with "anti-Trump" or "anti-Russia" reflexive political stances. In that form it certainly looks like you are making excuse for one bad actor by claiming the posters criticizing the actions of one group (Russia and their North American pets) are ignoring the "plank in their eye". (which ironically, is exactly what you are inferring about Dems with your claim)
My critique is that people are using retro-fitting reverse logic rather than looking at it objectively.
Meaning, instead of identifying what's "bad", and then delving into figure out who's doing it.
They're identifying the target, and then looking at that kind of things they're doing to determine what should be labelled as "bad" to "make the puzzle pieces fit"
The recent liberal ire against Russia is absolutely reflexive based on the perceptions about some sort of "Kremlin/MAGA alliance". Evidenced by the fact that Crimea was annexed during Obama's tenure, and not only was nothing of substance done about it, Obama went as far as having this conversation, Per PolitiFact:
The snippet of dialogue between Obama and Medvedev occurred when they met in South Korea on March 26, 2012. The leaders met to discuss the contentious issue of a missile defense program intended to protect Europe but vehemently opposed by the Russians who believed it is aimed at them. The two leaders leaned into each other to speak, suggesting they thought it was a private chat. (Part of their exchange can be heard in this video.)
Here’s a transcript from ABC News:
Obama: "On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it's important for him to give me space."
Medvedev: "Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…"
Obama: "This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility."
Medvedev: "I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir."
I don't recall too many Democrats being terribly concerned with it.
The didn't seem to recall much of the Russia pearl clutching, nor the Ukraine cheerleading, in progressive circles until after the perception was widely established that "Russia is buddies with Trump, the guy you hate"
I'd go as far as saying that in an alternate timeline, had Hillary won, the Russian invasion of Ukraine would've been met with the same sort of apathy that's existed with all of the other instances of "country A invaded country B" that didn't have a noteworthy direct impact on any of our interests
Now, if we're going to say that any country deliberately trying to create domestic conflict in other countries and leverage influencers is a bad thing, then we'll need to collectively agree upon a few things
a) How the heck is it even enforceable in the internet age where everyone has access to everything?
b) What recourse is there when two countries don't see eye to eye on it?
c) What's the limiting principle?
I mentioned before, every country with the resources to do so engages in "strategic messaging".
So, here in westernized countries.
We'd see things like...
the US and Brits providing material support to the Korean "Balloon War" (where balloons carrying outside information were sent into the North so that they can get unfiltered critical information about the DPRK...even though the South Korean government said they didn't want that because they didn't want increase tensions that they'd get the blowback for)
...a net good. By our standards, if the people in North Korea got to live like the people in South Korea do, their lives would be greatly improved and we'd have one less adversary on the list.
Sending leaflets into the North saying "your leader is a fat little man with a bad bowl cut who's oppressing you, he doesn't have near the power he's told you he does, and here's how much better your life could be if you got him out of there and could live like the South Koreans, and here's the list of countries that would most certainly have your back if you were to collectively uprise against him" would certainly be seen as "propaganda" by the DPRK, would it not?
So who gets to win in deciding whether or not these types efforts are "strategic messaging that's necessary for the greater global good" vs. "meddling in someone else's business"?
That's why it needs a bigger conversation than simply trying to keep exclusive focus on "who's the entity aligned with my rival who's done it most recently"
