Bonus Sample: American Oligarchy and the Kremlin Wizard
What is an oligarchy, exactly? Is the US entering a period similar to post-Soviet Russia in the 1990s? What do Russian oligarchs have to do with proven interference in the 2016 US election?
Julian digs into Russian history to explore parallels with modern-day America. Meet Vladislav Surkov, the architect of both Putin’s 25-year rule over what Surkov has dubbed “sovereign democracy,” and the global propaganda strategies generating our post-truth ecosystem of disinformation and conspiracies. There’s a reason why politics feels like theater these days, why democracy seems like a pipe dream.
While MAGA has a fascism fetish, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine might be a better match for Hitler on the verge, with Trump and Co acting as macho-clown versions of Neville Chamberlain.
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Lately, a word that has long been associated with Russian politics is everywhere in the American media.
Oligarchs. Now, this term has been applied to other times and places as far back as ancient Greece, usually designating wealthy individuals with outsized political influence.
But when the USSR collapsed, 1990s Russia became emblematic of the rise of oligarchy.
And then, in the early 2000s, their new leader, Vladimir Putin, would bring the oligarchs to heel like a true mob boss.
For today's episode, we'll dig into the history of post-Soviet Russia to see if there are indeed significant parallels with America today, as well as to unpack how Russian influence underpins the polarization of post-truth America today.
Stay tuned to learn how Vladimir Putin's long-time right-hand man, There is much talk these days
about the dangers of MAGA as a potentially fascist movement.
But behind that very real threat may lie the darker and more immediate still European danger of an emboldened Putin, hungry to expand his glorious empire and make Russia great again, while the most powerful country in the world endorses and enables his lies by swallowing his propaganda.
I'm Julian Walker.
Welcome to Conspiratuality, where we investigate the intersections of conspiracy theories and spiritual influence to uncover cults, pseudoscience, and authoritarian extremism.
Now more than ever, we appreciate your support so much.
If you're not already a Patreon or Apple subscriber, please join us if you value independent media in these disorienting and repressive times.
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During the chaotic transition into Trump 2.0, Elon Musk has emerged as a key player, often portrayed as really being the one in charge with the president playing second fiddle.
But before this, footage from the inauguration showed America's three wealthiest men, Musk, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, and Alphabet Google CEO Sundar Pichai, sitting behind Trump alongside Mark Zuckerberg.
Meanwhile, TikTok CEO Shozy Chu was nearby, in the chair beside our new Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.
These images tell a thousand words about how in the run-up to the election, big business and especially big tech trended hard toward MAGA, with Mark Zuckerberg publicly announcing shifts away from content moderation and fact-checking.
And then paying Trump $25 million to settle a lawsuit over having suspended his accounts after the Capitol insurrection.
The TikTok CEO also pulled off a fawning PR coup by himself briefly suspending U.S. access to the app with a pop-up message that Trump would help them get reinstated and thanking him for that in advance.
Of course we know that under Elon's rule, Twitter welcomed back white supremacists and conspiracy theorists and aggressively supported Trump algorithmically, while Elon donated $288 million, likely paving the way for the reckless and disastrous meddling he's doing now in the name of Doge,
rooting out fraud, corruption, and abuse, while actually further positioning himself to benefit from the now profoundly porous wall between government regulation and his own ambitions.
Fellow billionaire, Musk's PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel was a bit of a professional mentor to J.D. Vance when he was in Silicon Valley and gave him $25 million for his original Senate campaign, the largest ever donation of its kind.
As far as we know, Thiel is not directly involved in Doge, but the three computer whiz kids you remember hearing about being given keys to the kingdom by Musk when he raided the Treasury Department?
They're part of the Thiel Fellowship.
A program that gives select students age 22 or younger $100,000 over two years to drop out of school and pursue other work in the startup or research fields.
Meanwhile, Thiel was one of the primary investors in Facebook and owns the scariest surveillance tech company on the planet, Palantir.
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