I watched both videos and I don't see anything too shilly in there (he flat out says Russia are wrong to invade Ukraine), but just leaning enough in that direction to appeal to a certain viewer. "Putin’s currently slaughtering innocent humans" is not the best shill really is it?
You might think it's meaningless to discuss the hypocrisy of the west at this time (and I tend to agree), but like I said earlier, he's just playing to his audience. He's found a way to get millions more subscribers by espousing his particular brand of anti-establishment/anti-elites rhetoric. This probably happened around the time he had Peterson and Shapiro on his podcast and he noticed the impact on his followers. The topics and titles (vaccines, lockdowns, Trump etc..) of his videos draw in that particular crowd, but the content is not at all like typical right-wing shills, it's much more balanced.
He has to say ‘the invasion is wrong’, he can’t say anything else, thing is, his take is ‘the invasion is wrong - but Biden, but Rice, but USA’ - and, as with all his other ‘global politics’ videos he somehow very rarely mentions Putin let alone criticises him (flick through them and have a check) - something which in the current situation is incredibly odd and requires such mental gymnastics one would have to wonder why that were so.
Brand is supposedly a champion of the people - why isn’t he applauding the brave Russians who protest this war!?
Brand is supposedly someone who despises repressive regime - why is he ragging on Biden (!?) AS PUTIN IS SLAUGHTERING INNOCENT CIVILIANS IN A DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY!?
Brand is supposedly a champion of community protest - why isn’t he encouraging peaceful protest over here!?
Brand is supposedly a ‘humanitarian’ - why isn’t he at least using his platform to talk about ways to help Ukrainian victims of Putin’s war?
Really weird that a so called ‘revolutionary’ should manage to achieve all the above in a time like this.
You can say, ‘he’s playing to the crowd’, but this a new situation - he is forming and instilling the narrative here, rather than following it. He isn’t gonna lose followers if he says, ‘this is too far from Putin, we all need to Unite, and push however we can for regime change in Russia’.
He isn’t just some random YouTuber playing for clicks, he’s a well established, highly influential player within the game.
We know that Farage / Brexit was meddled with, that Trump was in pocket etc, it’s important to remember that many of the ‘anti democrat’, alt-right mouthpieces that have dragged our culture down into this current divided state will very likely also be in pocket.
In Brand’s case, he was a few years ago holding exclusive interviews with the leader of UK opposition during a major general election, he now just literally sits in front of a camera spouting rhetoric against Putin enemies day after day…
Who writes these videos? Him? But he’s a professional comedian who has to prepare tours, he’s an actor that has to work and practice his craft. Who edits them?
Who decides the very sensitive subject matter? How does he manage to talk so much about global politics without ever mentioning Putin when he does so?
He’s a shill, and a conman, as is the case with many others of the ‘anti democrat’ foghorn personas. I just really hope that more people start realising this and stop giving them legitimacy.