Anything goes when you need to smear a political opponent, right? At least, that's what Mad Dog PAC, a Maryland-based political action committee, must have thought when it designed its latest billboard.
The new billboard, set up in Indiana, is a huge red banner reading "GOP," but with "O" replaced with the Soviet Union's coat of arms, apparently a nod to the never-ending story about Russian meddling with the 2016 US elections, or, as the updated version goes, Russia owning US President Donald Trump entirely.
As seen on a billboard on an Interstate in Indiana pic.twitter.com/JpKf8IAvRR
— I luv being Teamster (@JimKilbane) 18 июля 2018 г.
The sight is so surreal that one might think the image has been photoshopped. But no, the PAC actually lists the billboard among its endeavors.
Since this is wrong on so many levels, we got really worried for Mad Dog's situational awareness and prepared a short list of memos for the next time it decides to make a political banner.
Russia is not the Soviet Union
Russia is not Communist
Russia dropped the communist ideology back in 1991 and adopted a democratic political system with a capitalist market economy. In fact, Russia even has more political parties than the US. And, actually, any state ideology is banned by the Russian constitution.
Republicans are not Communists either
Come on, Republicans have always hated communists! It was Joseph McCarthy, who switched from the Democratic to Republican Parties in 1944 and became a GOP Wisconsin senator in 1947, who introduced McCarthyism, an anti-communist mass-hysteria commonly called a "witch hunt" (yes, like the witch hunt President Trump constantly alludes to).
Some of the key GOP policies are restrictions on labor unions (a pillar of the Soviet Union's proletarian movement), traditional values with a Christian foundation (the communist party discouraged Christianity, which it considered a leftover from Tsarist Russia) and free market capitalism, the very idea that communist ideology opposes.
Russia does not own the GOP
Well, we don't know for sure. But there are some very strong reasons to believe Russia does not own the entirety of the GOP. One of the fiercest critics of Russia is Republican Sen. John McCain. Sen. Lindsey Graham, another vocal Russia demonizer, recently suggested Trump check the souvenir football he received from Russian President Vladimir Putin for bugs. As a matter of fact, The New York Times compiled a whole set of Republican criticisms of Russia following the recent Helsinki summit: you can find them here.
