Turns out half of the country just desperately wants to be on the wrong side of every issue

You know: when I was a much younger man, I heard of the concept of the 5th column. For those who don't know, the 5th column is a clandestine group of people, financed by a particular country's adversary, who is dedicated to destroying that country from the inside. Think the human version of the Trojan Horse.
I'd always pictured this to be a relatively small movement, like a terror cell. A very insular group operating on foreign financing who leveraged an advanced guerilla war skillset to undermine the security apparatus of the country. To my embarrassment, I only realized recently (maybe 5 years ago) that that is not always the case. In America's case, for example, the 5th column comprises some 70+ million people who are fed on a diet of Russian propaganda and home-grown racist rhetoric. Most of these people have no skillset to speak of, but all of them are willing participants in the utter destruction of a country based on the rule of law and constitutional government.
It seems very odd to me that 1 out of every 5 Americans is a full-on traitor. But, we do live in odd times. 20% of our country seems giddy to return to a monarchy, complete with the whole Louis XIV Sun King "Appointed By God" thing. And what's strangest of all is that the guy they picked to be their holy sovereign... is a fucking moron. A complete god damned imbecile of the highest order.
If this is a simulation, I'd very much like it to stop.
Edit: I would like to hear from the people who downvoted this; what about what I said is disagreeable to you?
- You don't have to immediately look for a conspiracy to exonerate the guilty. Many Americans truly, honestly believed (and still do) that Hitler's policies were the correct way forward. Black slavery didn't just materialize out of thin air either, after all.
  
  Oh I'm not looking to exonerate ANY of these motherfuckers. If I had my druthers, they'd all fucking hang. Whether they're home-grown, or Russian sponsored, every single one of them is a fucking traitor.
  Edit: honestly, the current situation in America gives me a whole new appreciation for why the French decided they needed to industrialize murder during their revolution, and invented the guillotine to do so.
  Edit 2 (Treasonous Boogaloo): I truly mean ALL. Your sweet aunt, who voted for Trump because she was concerned about Fox's reporting about the migrant caravans at the border? Fucking traitor. I sincerely hope she dies. Your uncle, who's a bit of a conspiracy nut, who is an avid Alex Jones listener? I pray he gets trapped in a raging inferno. Your parents, who you cut out of your life because they kept ranting about immigrants taking American jobs at every social event? I pray they find themselves trapped in a Cybertruck that's in the middle of a battery-overload event. Everybody who voted for Trump, regardless of how many times they voted for him, deserves a traitor's death. 100% of them, zero exceptions, no backsies.
  
  You're wrong.
  Or more accurately you have the causality reversed.
  "Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law" by James Q Whitman cites the nazis using Jim Crow as their model for Germany.
  Nazi legal theorists saw the U.S. as a “pioneer” in racist legislation.
- I remember protesting the Afghanistan war in 2001 when the war was incredibly popular... with the Democrats. With the right wing, it was a fucking Jihad.
  Everyone, including Democratic party members called the people against the war fifth columnists.
  It doesn't matter how many words you write, calling people with positions you don't agree with traitors
  <EDIT>
  on a foreign payroll
  </EDIT>
  is the most boringly unimaginative way to describe people you don't like to those you think you do.
  You know why right wingers support Trump?
  they're financially hurting and don't understand economics
  things changed socially too fast for them and they're scared.
  they're hurting, and do understand economics and are happy to burn if it also burns those they blame for their current status.
  they're assholes.
  etc...
  There may be fifth columnists, but it would be somewhere less then a thousand people, but honestly I think that number is closer to zero. Why buy the cow when the milk is free.
  Meanwhile, the feckless DNC doesn't have to fire it's consultants, or purge the slotkins in their corner, because people are blaming Russia for American actions.
  It makes listening to your enemy impossible, too. Why bother trying to win them over, or figure out what drives them so you can stop it, they're just literal traitors.
  I downvoted your post because, as with all accusations of fifth columnists, it is more a post of your failure of imagination and othering Americans with political views you don't like.
  The othering isn't wrong, innately, but if your answer to the question 'why are Americans becoming Nazis?' is Russia, then you'll never be able to fix the real reasons and stop the flow of fucking Nazis.
  EDIT: none of the reasons above are good. But if you don't know what they are, you can't do anything about them.
  This is like Germany trying to blame some other country for the Nazi Party.
  
  I'm Canadian. I volunteered at the rubble at the WTC for a month as a rescue paramedic. Every time we "foreigners" brought up any resistance to the frothing and war mongering that was going on, we were told to "fuck off and go home", "you couldn't possibly understand what is happening here".
  I gave a month of my life away from my family, my work and my home for the benefit of Americans. To give their families some closure, to help heal your country and all I got in return was vitriol and hatred. I stayed. I pushed through as did the rest of my crew.
  I haven't been to the state's since. I could give a fuck if they self destruct due to their own hatred of others. Fuck em. They all deserve it. They come across the border and I'll be there waiting.
  
  calling people with positions you don’t agree with traitors is the most boringly unimaginative way to describe people you don’t like to those you think you do.
  I'm not calling them traitors because I disagree with them. I'm calling them traitors because they're god damned traitors. Do you not remember when Trump encouraged a bunch of his idiot followers to attempt to overthrow the sitting government on Jan 6th, 2021? It wasn't that long ago. That's treason. He is a traitor. Anybody who voted for a traitor is aiding and abetting the enemy, and is therefore also a traitor. The fact that we didn't string him up immediately following that stunt is straight up appalling. The fact that we then allowed him the ability to run for president again is unconscionable.
  The othering isn’t wrong, innately, but if your answer to the question ‘why are Americans becoming Nazis?’ is Russia, then you’ll never be able to fix the real reasons and stop the flow of fucking Nazis.
  I think if you re-read what I wrote, you'll see that I'm not just blaming Russia. I specifically mentioned home-grown racism as one of the driving factors. The nazis didn't create American racism; American racism created the nazis. Hitler took great inspiration from our treatment of our indigenous population, our blatant antisemitism, and our oppression of black citizens. He modeled a lot of his policies on our behavior.
  That being said, Russia is definitely to blame for quite a lot of the disinformation sphere in this country. It is a very well documented, and well financed operation designed to destabilize the country, and it has been wildly successful. I mean, hell, it's partially responsible for 70+ million Americans becoming full-on traitors.
- I bet genestealer cultist were based on this
- I didn’t downvote you, but it’s probably because you said you wanted 70 million people to hang. A lot of people are going to find that pretty distasteful
  
  Probably. Fuck 'em. Plenty of space on the galley.
  
  I mean, I'm sure you don't have to hang all of them.
  Even as incredibly dim as they are, you'd imagine some people would start to get the message after the first few million or so.
- Ever since I learnt of the 5th column (thank you video games) it became incredibly obvious that that is precisely what the MAGA movement is.
  But that black and white image is all anyone needs to know about America. Fascism has long been the end game for the Underrepresented Slaves of Autocrats (USA).
- 1 in 5 is unprecedented. Like legit so. Even in the 1930s Americans did not have that much support for Hitler and his regime. Even the racists of the time found the Nazis to be too much (case in point: After WW2, when WW2 veterans were in the KKK, they would get into fights and disputes with younger non-WW2 generation Klansmen because of their Nazi sympathies). This is because while to modern American racists, the old-school Nazis believed in the same 'whiteness' as American racists did, they did not. The German Nazis heavily divided European people into their own sub-races. The French were treated better than the Poles and allowed some degree of autonomy (such as Vichy France) and would not be subject to the same genocide as East Europeans. This was because they put people like the French, Dutch, and Danes above them. But a German was still superior and would be afford more privileges than others Europeans.
  The Americans were viewed as mongrels by the Nazis due to the melting-pot nature of the US. You had people from all over Europe (all over the world even back then, but just not as many as today due to racist immigration policies), and what counted as 'white' was highly subjective. For example if I (an ethic Lebanese person) were to go to Alabama in 1940, we would not need to ride in the back of the bus and we could drink from the whites only fountain and stay at a whites only accommodation. Arab-Americans were legally and even socially considered whites until the 1970s when the Iranian revolution and increasing anti-Arabism by Zionist media started to portray Arabs far more aggressively as savages bereft of all civilization.
  I left this comment cooking for hours and I almost forgot about it, so I'll stop here.
- You'd be surprised at the amount of 5th column groups USA has helped one way or another around the globe
  
  I doubt that. I don't know the exact number, but it's a lot. Like a lot a lot. Hell, we even couped Australia, for fuck's sake. I'm not sure how many governments in the world the US has fucked with, but I'd reckon it's probably in the triple digits.
- To be specific, I think only those sources spreading the (mis/dis)information to those people would be considered the fifth column. The ones they're manipulating would be useful targets to spread it further, but I think, by definition, they wouldn't be called members of the fifth column. This is only semantics though and it doesn't really change anything about what you said.

Americans largely did not see WW2 as 'their' war. They were content with sitting on the sideline and profiting off of it immensely until instigated.
Profiting off of WW2 is what allowed for US ascension to its position today. Its part of why profiting off of a military industrial complex is so deeply entrenched into its cultural ethos. Selling weapons and promoting conflict is how the US got to where it is, so why would it stop now?
- My ranked teammate's reading comprehension
- Not really. Most Americans were quite sympathetic to the allied side before the US's entry into the war. Only very few Americans legit believed that the US should arm the Axis powers and even fewer (around 2%) believed the US should join the war on the Axis side. I got that source from back in 2004, I would swear it was from Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, but I cannot be sure.
  Most of the people at least believed that the US should only be supplying the Allied side at least.
  
  Oh no doubt the US was on the allied side but there's something to be said about sitting out and selling weapons to your allies while their infrastructure get pummelled (hording wealth from the sales) and then joining only once instigated. That, to me, says that Americans largely did not see it as their war until they were forced to participate.
  
  Wow didn't know medal of honor: pacific assault was a citable historical source

Turns out half of the country
What a coincidence.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_conquer
- Also, and relevant for the current situation: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics
  
  That's too easy to assume that it's all Russian influence.
  Why would American billionaires with more resources available and to lose, let that plan succeed, especially if it is out in the open?
  For sure you know https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard
  Why is it always only the Russian book that is referenced? Both are published 1997. It's almost as if they were written together.
  What is the winning strategy of the American billionaires in this game? Right now they look like they will become the big losers. I cannot accept any explanation that doesn't have a strong strategy for them.

Back in the day, Reagan called Russia 'the Evil Empire' and people would tell you that the KGB was worse than the Gestapo.
Putin was trained by the KGB and many Americans think he's a swell guy.

The “arm Britain and prolong the war” sign reads to me like the person holding it is campaigning to prolong the war for as long as possible, and the best way they think that we can go about it is by arming Britain.

Oh that's easy. Those people are all racist and want brown people to die.
- It would seem they want Ukrainians to die as well.

- i attempted to read it but the lack of line breaks made me give up

- It's making fun of modern attitudes on the Russo-Ukraine War using pics of WW2 protesters.
  
  Yeah I should really just save posts and come back to them when I'm not really awake

Another classic example. FDR's New Deal was failing during late 1930's and early 40's and he needed to boost the US economy, get rid of the critics and send the unemployed off to war. Lt. Cmdr. Arthur McCollum’s created an eight-point memorandum and each one of them was designed to produce an attack from Japan.
As Krasnov continues to destroy the US economy, he will create a fucking situation to revive it and attempt to unify the USA. Iran is on the menu. When, not if, this occurs, the fuckers sucking down the Orange Kool-Aid, mixed with Russian vodka, should volunteer their worthless asses for the US infantry. All wars start with a lie.
- The New Deal is what turned America into a middle-class nation where even cashiers could afford a decent standard of living. FDR wasn't the only new dealer, it continued well into Johnson's administration. If FDR had survived his New Bill of Rights (an economic Bill of Rights) would likely have been passed given how overwhelmingly popular he was. Sadly he died early in his fourth term and while Truman won reelection, Dewey, his republican opponent, screwed him over in that regard.