Selling Russia as the city on a hill to much of American public both on the right and on the left was tremendously successful info op.

50 years ago the USSR had to get support from the left for ideological reasons, but now there is no limitation on who they support -- and they've been incredibly effective at influencing the US Right Wing. There was a time when the American left supported Moscow -- when they were the USSR, and represented a real communist alternative to a US government that still openly sanctioned segregation and union busting.

Now their leftwing roots are mostly tankies and they have no real presence in US politics. The 20-something 'woke' crowd ain't listening to talking points from Chomsky.

Meanwhile we have pictures of small redheaded Russian ladies talking to the NRA and making sure that the NRA gets money to give to... guess who? There are members of Congress who openly support Q-anon, which is almost certainly a foreign intelligence operation.

Ever seen the belligerents list in the first Gulf War? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War

It was basically the entire world against Iraq. Even countries like Afghanistan and Sierra Leone contributed to the coalition forces against Iraq, because invading your neighbors to steal resources is frowned upon by essentially everyone.

The only reason this hasn't happened again with Russia is because Russia has nukes to threaten the world with, and cheap oil and gas to sell. And even then, mutually assured destruction greatly diminishes that nuclear threat.

We are talking about different things. The political/military support for the invasion in Irak from various governments was so limited, and also criticized domestically, that it became a meme ("You forgot Poland").

Now, as for the people themselves, there were huge protests against the war in Iraq in Europe and even greater against the war in Afghanistan, with literally millions marching in some European cities - it was clear to most people in the West how pointless it is.

You're talking the second Iraq war in 2003, not the response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990

The 1990 invasion was condemned by the US and Soviet Union

Exactly. They are not the same wars and there's very important differences between them.

You have the nostalgists on the left who remember Mother Russia as they imagined it. You have some on the right who favor Russia for some mix of liking the traditional values thing that Putin puts out, resenting implications that Trump was in his pocket, disliking the Ukraine for its connection with the first impeachment, and I don't know what all.

Ironically the false idea that Russia had so much control over US politics is itself pro-Russian propaganda that presents Russia as much more powerful than it actually is. The truth is Russia is a failing country with a crummy military whose main real power stems from being able to threaten the world with nuclear weapons. If not for that, the West probably would have sent troops to Ukraine in 2014 and the Russian invasion would have been quickly defeated.

The recent effect Russia had on US politics was an ability to tip a crucial few (relatively speaking) on the fence to either support Trump or sit out entirely in 2016. The existence of a significant Russian propaganda troll operation around that time is well-documented by independent sources.

This doesn't require a highly sophisticated operation, merely an understanding of some talking points that can plant doubt into the minds of Americans—things like "if Bernie loses the primary, we should vote Trump/sit out in the general", or, more insidiously, "voting is meaningless; the two parties are the same".

It's certainly true that it's dangerous to believe Russia has some kind of remote control that can make American politics do whatever they want, but it's also dangerous to believe that they have no effective propaganda arm.

Edit to add: To be clear, I'm not trying to claim that Russian propaganda was the deciding factor in the 2016 election—merely that it was a factor, and discounting it is unhelpful.

I wonder where were those moralists when Putin's oligarchs were pouring billions of GBP stolen from Russian citizens into London property.

That’s what their media is telling them.

The Guardian and the Sun don't tend to agree on very much but they both support the help the UK is giving to Ukraine.

I’m referring to US. The people you find sympathetic to Russia are the people whose media is telling them to be sympathetic to Russia. Russia is the real victim, etc.

And is your media not telling you this?

Is there any entity that actually knows what's going on in the minds of those who aren't onboard with the default? Of course not, how could they? And yet, what do we read every day online?