@laurel @Grandtheftautism @MisterRogersSnapped @fba @sysrq

> W-which ones?

NazBol, unironic "Stalin good". I'm speculating, I don't know if everything I have read about him is a lie or not, or how these things were received locally, or if he's just a mouthpiece for some kind of FSB glowop of what. For example, wikkypeeja says he invented invading Ukraine, and I don't think he invented that. It's a common trope in the media (spit, spit) to paint a guy as reckless and stupid and then, when people can't rationalize the "evil master plan" with "short-sighted idiot", you solve that by insinuating that someone else is pulling the stings. (I think it's safe to say that, given his career trajectory, if Putin were reckless or stupid, he would have been dead 20 years before he made it into the newspaper.)

> Ayan Rand was a nutjob from beginning to end.

She seemed like her main idea was "That was terrible...I want exactly the opposite of it." I can understand it on a personal level but I don't think it makes a coherent philosophy.

I think she was sort of propped up over here because the Cold War loved defectors and often misrepresented because the lefties hated anything that could be construed as anti-Soviet.

> It's the completely deranged Western politics of the past decades that make Dugin seem somewhat radical.

I think anyone saying "Stalin was *basically* correct, you just need a couple of tweaks" is radical even outside loopy US/EU politics. Not to sling mud at Dugin, who I can't say I understand outside being able to get the joke sysrq made, but I don't think it's a stretch to say he sounds pretty radical.