полезные идиоты, Useful Idiots

Vladimir Lenin coined a term while he was alive, called the "Useful Idiot" (полезные идиот).  To Lenin, a "Useful Idiot" was a Westerner who agreed with the Soviet view on the world, who idealized the Socialist system, and who willfully over-looked the downfalls of collectivization - downfalls like disincentive to work, disincentive to become an expert on anything, disincentive to be productive (since whether you work or not, you're not going to get ahead... sit back, and let others do the hard work).  A "Useful Idiot" could be manipulated by the Soviet Union to spy, gather information, be counted on as a sleeper cell that the Kremlin could activate when needed... to be useful.

полезные идиоты (Useful idiots)

Now, I don't speak Russian as Roy Moore of Alabama does, to be able to pronounce the phrase correctly.  Roy is apparently very good at speaking to teenage girls, at the mall, at their high school, at the movies, and in his car parked in the darkness behind the restaurant where the girl worked as a waitress.  Roy was also romanticizing about how AWESOME the United States was before the Civil War, when slavery was still legal in the South, families were stronger, and homosexuality "did not exist"... sure Roy, keep convincing yourself of that, in English, or Russian, whichever you prefer.  Had you won your recent Senate race, you'd have been a very полезные идиот.

I've not travelled to Russia, met with their operatives, or colluded with any foreign power to influence the course of a national or local election in the United States as many in the White House staff have done in 2015, 2016, and 2017.  For a very small investment, Vladimir Putin's dictatorship has gleaned a remarkable windfall of apologists, sycophants, Manchurian candidates, "but what abouts...", and shrill voices on Faux News, at all levels.  Impressive R.O.I. for Russia - they probably never thought that So Many Americans would willingly become полезные идиоты for them to leverage.

If you voted for Drumpf, and now you feel remorse or regret for doing so, after the childish buffoon in chief has shown repeatedly how easily baited he is, how his attention span is shorter than most 2 year olds' (even the best behaved ones), how he's going to trash the US economy the say way he ran his own businesses into the ground 4 times, shorting his contractors and declaring bankruptcy 4 times, how know-nothing he is about everything that is not Drumpf-centric, how truth-challenged he is on 99% of everything he says, tweets, expresses and rants about.... if you regret casting your vote for this remarkably unqualified puppet, I can unstained how you're feeling.  I once threw my vote away on Ross Perot, and helped to enable the governor of a rural chicken producing state to become Commander in Chief where he indulged his libido, cozied up to the despicable Newt Gingrich and his "Contract on America", and presided over the dot com bubble that grew the world economy strongly despite Congress's and the Federal Reserve's best efforts to spoil that success.

But if you voted for Drumpf, and you're doubling down on your support, embracing all the lies and vitriol that Faux News spouts out on a daily basis... if you have no regrets whatsoever, and still cling to the unjustified belief that Drumpf will make everything better, then I have only pity for you, and I encourage you to learn Russian as many of the other полезные идиоты have done.  This way, you can better understand what your Russian masters have in store for you, AND, if you learn all the colloquialisms, you'll understand when they are mocking you, snickering, and laughing about how easily manipulated you are as their полезные идиот.