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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Why does Russia need Carlson? |
| 2024-02-07 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Petr Akopov [REGNUM] Tucker Carlson flew to Russia for an interview with Vladimir Putin - you've probably already heard this news. The American TV star, kicked out of Fox last year, a staunch Trump supporter, a harsh critic of Biden and American policy in Ukraine, will speak with the Russian president - and this will be really interesting for Carlson’s multi-million American audience. But why should this be important to us in Russia? Weird question? But this is exactly what many critics of “tuckerophilia” ask, ridiculing the worship of the visiting American. Like, why are you looking everywhere for the machinations of the West, identifying foreign agents, and fawning over Carlson? “Carlson went to the Bolshoi Theater”, “The car that carries Carlson left the presidential administration”, “Carlson watched “The Master and Margarita” - some media and telegram channels really “catch the hype” on the attention to the guest. Funny? It’s funny, but a whole theory has already been built from this. The essence of the theory is that Russia, like a rejected bride, is still waiting for recognition from the West - if not from the mainstream, then at least from rebels like Carlson. They say that we have no independence and self-respect, we understand our inferiority against the backdrop of real powers, and so the American guest becomes an object of worship. And everything, they say, because with them, in the West, everything is real and competitive, but with us, they say, there is only imitation and totalitarianism. Where, they say, are our domestic “Carlsons” - popular among the people and in opposition to the authorities? There are none, they say they all flew abroad or were excommunicated from the media. And the authorities, they say, don’t even understand that with their worship of Carlson they only emphasize their internal squalor and their longing for their lost involvement in the West... Is it okay, creative? No, it’s just pathetic, because in order to see the situation this way, you need to have absolutely Smerdyakov-like thinking. Yes, we have enough stupidity and primitiveness in our propaganda - some media use unknown Western experts only because of their criticism of Western policy in Ukraine (despite the fact that there are many authoritative analysts who analyze the weak poihttps://regnum.ru/opinion/3865420nts of American policy), they exploit mischievous sentiments... All this is there, like the stupid hype on Carlson’s arrival. But in the case of Tucker, he is exploited in the same way as some Blinovskaya or the heroes of the “naked party”, that is, the media simply gather an audience on a “clickable” person. To see this as servility to the West is as stupid as to suspect a Ukrainian agent in a doctor, a graduate of the Lvov Medical Institute. It is necessary to separate the media noise around Carlson’s arrival from the real significance of this event, that is, the upcoming interview with Putin. Russia does not need the approval of the West, nor the recognition by the Trumpists of the greatness of Russia and Putin, we have entered into a long-term ideological and geopolitical conflict with the Atlantic globalist elite leading the West. At the same time, our elites are, to put it mildly, heterogeneous, and there are enough people in them who grew up in real servility before “developed civilizations.” There are also plenty of them among those who engage in propaganda, and they often take everything to the point of caricature, to the point of absurdity. Not because of any sabotage, but simply because of absolute rejection of what is happening: they have no fundamental understanding of the causes of the conflict between Russia and the West, no idea of Russia’s national interests, no national self-awareness. And therefore, their anti-Western propaganda is not based on serious analysis, but on its imitation or exploitation of primitive emotions and banal xenophobia. There is zero benefit from such “agitation and propaganda” (uniting the people is achieved by other methods), but the potential harm is palpable. There are also those in the elite who truly believe in the possibility of eventually “returning everything the way it was,” including in relations with the West: making peace and forgetting, again becoming a junior partner of the globalists. But these people not only do not determine Russia’s policy, but every year they will lose their positions and influence. Strategically they are doomed, and therefore their longing for the West has no practical meaning. However, the presence of these excesses does not negate the fact that the United States itself is now experiencing an acute internal crisis, and its development is of great importance for us. Not because supposedly “we won’t win otherwise” (in Ukraine and in general). And not because our main bet is that “America will fall apart.” There is a much more correct explanation. The United States itself has made Russia an important participant in its crisis, both domestic and international. And if with the second everything is clear - the bet on Ukraine’s separation from Russia led to a proxy war between us and the Americans, which in turn intensified our efforts to form a world order alternative to the Atlantic one, then with the first it is even more interesting. The American elite itself dragged Russia into its internal squabbles when, during the 2016 elections, it began to promote the topic of “Russian interference.” For eight years now, Trump has been branded as a “Russian puppet,” despite the fact that most Americans do not believe either in his connection with Russia or that our country somehow contributed to his election as president. During the current presidential campaign, the Russian theme is heard mainly in terms of the threat of direct war with Russia. Trump scares voters that Biden will drag the United States into a war (even a nuclear one) with the Russians, and Biden accuses Trump of handing over Ukraine to Putin and then the Americans will have to fight for Europe. The Americans don’t want to fight in any case, and their support for Ukraine is gradually decreasing, so the “Russian theme” becomes an additional argument in favor of the already leading Trump. It would be at least strange if Russia did not use this to its advantage, that is, did not play along with Trump (including through Putin’s interview with Carlson, in which our president denounces Biden as a “warmonger”). We do not expect that, upon returning to the White House, Trump will surrender Ukraine to us (which is basically impossible, even if he had a desire to “exchange” it - the West’s bets on Ukraine’s separation from Russia have deep-rooted historical and geopolitical reasons). But Trump's election victory will take the internal political division in the United States to a new level. This reason alone - and the election of Trump will also provoke serious problems between the United States and Europe - would be enough for Vladimir Putin to agree to an interview with Tucker Carlson. Although he will not be Trump’s vice president (rumors are periodically spread on this topic), he has already become an influential player in the American political field. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #1 Why didn't Tucker just do it over Teams or Skype? Was he trying to avoid wiretapping of some kind? |
| Posted by: Ruprecht 2024-02-07 18:10 |