When I wrote my first post in this Substack on this day one year ago, I expected that the main focus of this Substack would be primarily on debunking Kremlin propaganda, highlighting pro-Russian propagandists who live in the West, keeping an eye on the US election since Vladimir Putin's biggest ally, Donald Trump, was running for president again, and keeping most of the emphasis on helping Ukraine.
But then, just weeks later, Hamas committed their terrorist atrocities on Israelis who attended a music festival and learning that Hamas is allied with Iran, which, in turn, is allied with Russia and I said, “Oh, shit!” And it led to Benjamin Netanyahu bombing the hell out of Gaza and the US gets dragged into this mess while pro-Palestinian protesters suddenly sprung up all over the world.
In time there were rumblings coming from Venezuela (another Putin ally) and threats towards Moldova (Putin wants to conquer Moldova once it's done with Ukraine) and I realized that it's no longer about just Russia and Ukraine. I had a crash course about Multipolarism and how it could affect the US and the world.
If all that weren’t enough, Donald Trump is threatening to rule as a dictator, withdraw the US from NATO, stop aiding Ukraine, and deport all immigrants while banning abortion and birth control. And that's not to mention Project 2025.
There have been so much stuff coming out, especially from Donald Trump, that I've been working more on this Substack than I originally anticipated. (I thought debunking Kremlin propaganda was going to be something I would end up doing once or twice a week.) I'm hoping that things will slow down after the US presidential election in November but given Donald Trump's volatility and too many people letting him get away with things that would land an ordinary person in jail, I fear that even if he loses he'll crow about the voting being rigged for weeks or even months. He did it when he lost in 2020 and in 2016 he told reporters that he would only accept the election result if he won—and he did. A recent poll has shown that two-thirds of Americans think that Trump won't accept the outcome of this year's election.
I fear that Donald Trump will use his loss in November to encourage more violence. He previously did that with the riot at the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021. (I'm still livid that he hasn't even been prosecuted for his role in that and he's still allowed to run for president by a Republican Party that refuses to stand up to him like it previously stood up to Richard Nixon for his role in Watergate.) There's nothing Trump would like better than to have people conduct terrorist attacks across the US in his name.
I'm hoping that he gets thrown in jail or simply dies or he actually acts on what he told Elon Musk not too long ago and flees to Venezuela. I don't even care which one it is—I just don't want to hear from him ever again.
The only positive thing about writing about Donald Trump in this Substack is that, as of this writing, my top two most read and liked posts dealt with Trump. Number one is Why New Yorkers Don't Vote For Donald Trump. I was inspired to write that one based on both my memories of how my in-laws who lived in New York City really felt about Trump and this scan I've seen a few times of a Village Voice article from 1980 that was about Donald Trump evicting an elderly woman from her apartment of over 30 years who was recovering from a stroke at the time. That scanned article gets passed around on Twitter/X every few months by those who want to show what a horrible human Trump has been for decades.
Coming in at a close second is Donald Trump Even Financially Stiffs Children. One day I was looking at a thread on Twitter/X about Trump’s long history of stiffing contractors and cities where he has held his rallies. The most surprising thing I saw was from someone who posted a link about a group of kids, known as the USA Freedom Kids, who performed at a 2016 Trump rally but they were never paid for their performance. I remember the USA Freedom Kids because a video of their performance at that rally had gone viral. They had praised both Donald Trump and the USA in their performance and they were ultimately rewarded with nothing. (And that's not to mention that being in a video that suddenly goes viral doesn't exactly lead to being able to afford rent or putting food on the table.)
I think I had hit a nerve when I wrote both posts because I still get notices that someone had liked one or the other. While I'm flattered by the attention, I'm looking forward to the day when I won't feel the need to write anything else about Donald Trump because I find his antics to be completely exhausting. I'm willing to take the decreased readership of this Substack if I never write anything else about Trump ever again. I've been aware of this guy ever since the 1980s when he published his first book, The Art of the Deal, and I thought he was a blowhard back then. At least he was easier to ignore as a celebrity. Shoot, had someone told me back then that Donald Trump would become the biggest threat to American democracy that this country has ever known, I would have laughed because it would've sounded crazy at the time. But here we are.
When I first started this Substack I didn't get many views at first. I tried promoting it on Substack Notes and other social media sites but I wasn't able to increase the views. When Thanksgiving Day came two months later, I had the idea of promoting one old post on social media once an hour. I figured that with more people being home I would get more views. I got a modest increase in numbers but it still wasn't anything earth-shatteting.
When the Lent season came in the spring, I came up with the idea of promoting one old post per day on social media during the 40 days of Lent. By that point I had written enough posts to cover the entire season so each day I would promote one old post. If I wrote a new post, I would promote it along with promoting an older post. That seemed to do the trick because I gradually increased readers all the way through Easter Sunday. And I'm still getting readers who read, like, and restack my posts all of the time, which is cool.
I’m trying to pace myself better regarding writing on this platform because I have other things going on in my real life that I need attending to, which I really can't get into here. I also want to prevent burnout because I'm the only person who's working on this and I don't want to stop working on something that's basically a labor of love because I got burned out. Over the years I've seen my favorite blogs and websites disappear because the person who was working on it had gotten so burned out that the person had shut that blog/website down.
The good thing about this Substack is that, at long last, I’m finally using the education I received when I majored in Journalism and minored in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland all those years ago. I’m only sad that neither of my parents have lived to see it. I don't know how much they would have agreed with what I've wrote other than the anti-Russian stuff (and that's because they both came of age when the Cold War began and they learned to equate Russia and the Soviet Union with communism and communism is bad) but I'd like to believe that they would've been impressed with my work.
The other good thing is that I'm getting new readers and new subscribers. Whether you're a free or paid subscriber, I appreciate each and everyone of you. I also appreciate everyone who likes and restacks my writings. All of my readers makes it worthwhile for me to continue creating new content.
As to what is the end game for Deconstructing Kremlin Propaganda, originally I had thought that I would continue to work on it until the following happens:
Donald Trump loses the election and he either goes to prison, suddenly drops dead, or flees to another country with no extradition treaty with the US.
A complete and total crush of Trump's Make America Great Again movement. Hopefully more people will see the light and leave MAGA until it becomes a very fringe movement consisting of less than 1% of the US population. Without Donald Trump leading the way it's very likely that MAGA will go the way of the Know Nothings.
Ukraine defeats Russia and manages to get most of its territories returned that was illegally seized by Russia in 2014.
Vladimir Putin is removed from office in Russia and the entire corrupt kleptomatic system of government that Putin has helped to build is replaced with a democratic government that actually respects the rule of law.
But not too long ago I was doing some searches on YouTube where I found some vintage old propaganda and TV clips from the Soviet Union. Some of the stuff is so heavy-handed that it's considered laughable by today's standards while others had a bit of artistry to them where the propaganda was way more subtle. Many of the Soviet animations had that kind of artistic quality to them and much of it could easily rival Disney. I think it would be cool to take a look at some of this stuff and I could write a short weekly post about what I've found. One example is this performance that aired on Soviet TV in 1976 featuring Eduard Khil singing this unique song that most Westerners call The Trololo Song because he sings “trololololololo.”
There's an interesting story about Khil and how his song found new popularity, which led to his entertainment career being revitalized after the Soviet Union fell.
There are a whole bunch of other clips in a similar kitsch vein on YouTube that would be fun to highlight here on a weekly basis once all of this other horrible stuff ends for good.
In the meantime I'm going to continue to expose Kremlin propaganda and hope that Donald Trump and his MAGA movement fall after the November election.
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