Bit of a non-sequitur but I recently had success in pulling a “conservative” friend back from the edge by pointing out Naomi Kleins mirror world logic oligarchs and their fascist enablers use and letting him draw his own conclusions.

For example, Qanon’s obsession with “child trafficking” is a mirror-world version of the real crises of child poverty, child labor, border family separations and kids in cages. Anti-vax is the mirror-world version of the true story of the Sacklers and their fellow opioid barons making billions on Oxy and fent, with the collusion of corrupt FDA officials and a pliant bankruptcy court system.

You’re right painting opposition to their weird gaslighting politics as foreign and in a racial light seems on brand for them.

This article is itself just a diversion. The owner is a local oligarch who for example invited musk to his birthday party. This is anything to not talk about the massive multi year Russian sabotage campaign in the real world Der Spiegel recently uncovered.( archive ) This campaign often masqueraded as a green party/progressively motivated sabotage to further damage the image of the only party who is all-in on heat pumps, wind turbines and solar, a cause doepfner and his oligarch allies despise. So they talk about inconsequential shit like this in their rags.