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Comment by verdverm | Hacker News Reader

They are trying to replicate what happened in Hungary with Orban and to a lesser extent 1991 Russia. The Heritage Foundation is central to architecting and carrying out this vision.

They being the oligarchs, the goal being to privatize public services, consolidate control and power, own the information space, or make it such a mess no one knows the truth anymore, idea popularity trumps facts

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Sadly this always works. It has never failed.

Much of Eastern Europe has seen rapid improvements since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Moldova elected a pro-EU instead of sliding into alt-right territory. So to declare it (or anything) never fails is never going to be true. Looking to Russia as an example, what hasn't been failing? They went from being #2 to being a a pariah state

While I broadly agree with you, Russia is not a useful example for this point: the failures as a state to be a good place for normal people to live in are not the important failures, instead look specifically at the oligarchs within it and the power they wield, the money they've made.

Those oligarchs could have, and be, making a lot more money if they integrated with the global economy and participated as a good contributing member.

It's a failure of lost opportunity for the oligarchs too. Authoritarian regimes have a much lower upper-limit that holds everyone and everything back

I don't think so, they would be crushed and bought out by the bigger American Oligarchs. By liting their influence, their local monopoly remains unbeatable.

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