“Russia! Russia! Russia!” is all we’ve heard from much of the American media since November 9th, 2016, the day after the presidential election. According to the losing presidential candidate, the winning presidential candidate colluded with Russia in order to win. Russia was suddenly our greatest enemy, our most urgent threat, and any attempt by President Trump to undertake normal diplomacy with Russia was proof that he was a Russian agent.
The Russia collusion narrative was never likely—despite being taken seriously by the Washington D.C. uni-party, the media, and the permanent bureaucracy—and after an exhaustive, uniquely thorough two-year investigation, the Special Counsel, former FBI director Robert Mueller, found that no one colluded with Russia. Not President Trump, nor anyone in his campaign or administration, nor any other American citizen. No one colluded with Russia to deny Hillary Clinton what, in her mind, was rightfully hers.
Is Russia a real threat to the United States? In a word, no. The previous president, Barack Obama, called Russia a “regional power” and ridiculed his 2012 challenger’s concern about Russia by quipping: “the 1980s are calling to ask for their foreign policy back.” Russia’s population, 145 million, is less than half that of the U.S. (327 million) and its economy is less than one tenth the size of America’s (a $1.3 trillion GDP vs. $19 trillion). In fact, Russia’s GDP is smaller than Texas’ GDP of $1.7 trillion, despite having a population more than four times as large. Russia spends a higher percentage of its GDP on its military than the U.S., but that still amounts to only about 10% of U.S. military spending. Russia is no threat to the United States. (President Obama also scoffed at the idea that any foreign power could successfully change the outcome of an American election, and he was right about that, too.)
China is a far more serious global challenger to the United States. Its population of 1.386 billion is more than quadruple the U.S. population, and its GDP of $12.3 trillion is about 65% of the U.S. GDP. Virtually all of China’s GDP growth has come during the past 25 years, since it embraced private ownership of industry and became the supplier of Wal-Mart’s consumer goods inventory.
China’s extremely aggressive mercantilist trade policy has a lawless edge that includes mass theft of trade secrets and other intellectual property. Its rapidly growing domestic market lures Western companies, but they are required to form a joint venture with a Chinese partner, which typically involves the surrender of all trade secrets. China sends thousands of students to American universities, where most of them act as spies, and has established 90 “Confucius Institutes” on American campuses as intelligence-gathering platforms and propaganda outlets.
China’s military spending is still less than half that of the U.S. ($228 billion vs. $597 billion in 2017), but it is growing steadily: In 2000, the numbers were $41 billion vs. $420 billion. China is also rapidly building a real “blue water” navy, and has constructed artificial Islands in the South China Sea to serve as naval bases and impinge on international trade routes. In just the last couple of years, China has built two aircraft carriers, and a third carrier is under construction. It plans to build seven of these fighter-jet launching platforms to project its power. Except for the U.S., no other nation in the world has more than three aircraft carriers. The Chinese are not even shy about announcing the purpose of their new navy: to push the U.S. Navy out of the Western Pacific.
Against these facts, the claim that Russia is the “real threat” to the United States, whereas China is a benign, friendly power—the narrative we’ve been hearing for over two years and still hear from many—is absurdly false. What accounts for the widespread propagation and acceptance of such nonsense? First, China puts a lot of money in the right hands in Washington. Politicians and power brokers find that China provides profitable business opportunities for their family members.
Second—and this is an overlooked factor—Russia’s sexual values are out of step with the dominant ethos in the West. Russia is not big on LGBT rights, or other cultural degradation. Quite the contrary. We saw this in the case of a transgressive female punk rock band known as “P*ssy Riot.” The protest group was largely tolerated until they staged a “performance” inside Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior on February 21, 2012. Stalin had the cathedral destroyed, but it was re-built in the 1990s in the post-communist era, and is an important symbol of the Russian nation, about half of whom are of the Russian Orthodox faith. P*ssy Riot’s desecration of this high-profile church was not appreciated by the Russian people or their government. Three of the band members were arrested, charged, and convicted of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.” Each was sentenced to two years' imprisonment, but one of the three later had her conviction reversed on appeal.
Russians want to protect their hetero-normative society. They have taken the position that traditional family values require the protection of Russian law, not sodomy and other abnormal relations.
In 2013, Russia passed a federal law "for the Purpose of Protecting Children from Information Advocating for a Denial of Traditional Family Values." The bill was unanimously approved by the State Duma (the Russian legislature) and was signed into law by President Putin on June 30th, 2013.
The measure is known in English-language media as the "gay propaganda law” but could also be called the “Will & Grace” law, since it seeks to protect children from being exposed to content that depicts homosexuality as normal, and “Will & Grace” did more on that score in the U.S. than any other single television show. (Although many other shows pitched in, such that TV-watching Americans were polled as believing that almost one fourth the population is gay, when the real number is vastly smaller, around 3% to 4%.)
The statute makes the distribution of "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships" among minors, an offense punishable by fines. This definition includes material that "raises interest in" such relationships; cause minors to "form non-traditional sexual predispositions"; or "[presents] distorted ideas about the equal social value of traditional and non-traditional sexual relationships."
Businesses and organizations can also be forced to temporarily cease operations if convicted under the law, and foreigners may be arrested and detained for up to 15 days then deported, or fined up to 5,000 rubles and deported.
Naturally, the measure has been condemned by the usual enforcers of debauched norms, including the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch.
Russia has effectively become the foremost champion of traditional sexual and family values. This puts them at odds with trans-global elites, who ceaselessly and assiduously promote sexual perversion and cultural degradation. The only real “Russia threat” is that they won’t go along with the most bitter extremes of the Sexual Revolution.
Meanwhile, back in the West, the gender insanity continues apace. Canadian courts have a ruled that a father calling his 14-year-old daughter a girl is “family violence” within the meaning of the Family Law Act, and have stripped him of his parental rights.
Which raises the question, would we be better off if President Trump really were a Russian agent?