Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders have applauded the US for passing a vital €89 billion aid bill which has been struggling to make it through the House of Representatives for months.
The House swiftly approved roughly €89 billion in foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and other US allies in a rare Saturday session as Democrats and Republicans banded together after months of hard-right resistance over renewed American support for repelling Russia’s invasion.
With an overwhelming vote, €57 billion in aid for Ukraine passed in a matter of minutes, a strong showing as American lawmakers race to deliver a fresh round of US support to the war-torn ally. Many Democrats cheered on the House floor and waved blue-and-yellow flags of Ukraine.
I agree that there’s a lot of direct trolling online, but I wouldn’t discount the number of “useful idiots”.
Remember Q-anon? The core of that entire “movement” was a handful of people on an obscure website steering discourse and pumping out conspiracy theories to a few hundred dedicated direct followers. That audience served as both a testbed for ideas and a free “localization service” – they’d take an unpolished core idea and through discourse transform it into something marketable for wider consumption. Said followers obscure the source of the messaging, amplify it, spread it to traditional social media / the real world, “fight” dissidents, etc.
Those “useful idiots” are a fundamental part of an efficient, cost effective, and successful disinformation campaign.