 Why do Putin and the Republican Party sound so much alike? They're trying to cancel our people. Cancel culture. Canceled in the USA. Streaming now. Simple. Their culture wars have similar agendas. Both are trying to distract attention from the economic looting by their respective oligarchies. Vladimir Putin has been blasting so-called cancel culture. They're not trying to cancel our country. This was his third cancel culture rant in recent months. It's the same imaginary crisis that Trump and the GOP have been ratting about for several years. The goal of cancel culture is to make decent Americans live in fear of being fired, expelled, shamed. Tucker Carlson, one of Fox News' most infamous personalities, accuses liberals of trying to cancel all sorts of things. Because if it could happen to Dr. Seuss, it might happen to you. Dr. Seuss went from being a beloved childhood author to worse than Hitler in just a matter of days. Last fall, Putin argued that teaching children about different gender identities was quote, on the verge of a crime against humanity. Putin's fixation on LGBTQ people is also echoed on the American right. Republican state legislators are attacking trans people and restricting discussion of gender and sexual orientation in schools. And in Texas? Major outrage in Texas today after the state attorney general Ken Paxton likened kids getting gender-referring medical care to child abuse. While Putin's MO has been to fuel Russian ethnic pride in nationalism, America's right wing has been fueling white nationalism. To conclude from all of this that authoritarians think alike misses a deeper truth. Putin, Trump, Carlson and America's right wing have been promoting the same narrative for the same reason. Manufacturing fears of the other to distract from where all the wealth and power have gone. All the way to the top. Remember, Putin was put into power by a Russian oligarchy made fabulously rich by siphoning off and privatizing the wealth of the former Soviet Union. Likewise, Trump and the radical right in America have been bankrolled by an American oligarchy. Rupert Murdoch, Charles Koch, Rebecca Mercer, Peter Thiel and other billionaires. Sewing racism, homophobia and transphobia creates life or death dangers for many people in our society. For both Putin and the American right it serves to divert attention from the economic plunder by the ultra-rich.