Technology

Weak attempt at obfuscation. Nobody thinks “critical thinkers” are russian trolls; quite the opposite.

Oh, some (very few, IMHO) people will definitely call others "Russian Troll" or equivalent if they point out that Russian interference has far less power than the very much local ultra-rich, politicians and News-media owners when it comes to the current state of most Western nations and that it's more likely that loudly raging about "foreign interference" is a political propaganda tool of mainstream politicians - a scapegoat for the consequences of the pillaging of the West by ultra-wealthy Westerns (paralleling how "immigrants" are similarly used as scapegoats by other mainstream politicians - they're both very much "blame foreigners") that said politicians very much supported and still support.

Also, don't get me started on how the interference of other nations is much larger and more open - for example both main parties in the US and UK openly have groups amongst their "parliamentarians" who are "Friends of Israel".

Russia almost certainly interfered or tried to, because it makes sense for them to do so and it's very much how they've always operated, it's just that it stretches belief to blame them for most of what's going on, especially in light of the explosion in inequality, crash in social mobility, collapse in job security (mostly in Europe, the US was always so) and so on in the last couple of decades of Neoliberal political dominance that are for more likely to explain growing discontent and the News-media owned by billionaires very openly pushing far-right ideations 24/7.

In bigger countries foreigners generally don't have the kind of influence that locals do, especially the wealthy and well-connected ones.

As I see it, there are definitely multiple manipulation machines in operation out there nowadays and multiple muppets whose brains are only big enough for simple explanations and who have have fallen for the slop some of them feed and will gladly spout their simplemindedness here.

That said a person who writes "The Russian government might not even need bot farms at this stage, because the West keeps undermining their own credibility" (amongst other such "jewels") like the previous poster did clearly doesn't fall into the "critical thinker" category.