In 2013, Putin, looking to secure support from a decisive orthodox majority in Russia, began a campaign to frame the 2SLGBTQQIA community as “groomers.” He began this bigoted, authoritarian campaign by passing sweeping federal anti-LGBT “propaganda” laws. A strategy that not only worked but created or, at the very least, escalated a culture of seething fear, violence, and immunity for those that would assault or kill anyone in the Russian LGBTQ community.

“Violence experienced by LGBT people in Russia is unmistakably motivated by homophobia, but the authorities deliberately ignore that these are hate crimes and fail to protect victims,” said Tanya Cooper, Russia researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch

This is the playbook the GOP has seen, admired, and now is entirely adopting as their own.

The laws passed in Russia ten years ago, and now the anti-trans bills in the U.S. have effectively, and by design, legalized discrimination against transgender individuals and cast them as second-class citizens.

As always, the GOP reads from the same despotic playbook and mimics any/all authoritarian initiatives from wherever they can, regardless of political ideology, so long as it buys them power, access to power, or ultimately access to the wealth of the collective treasury. Knowing that their base is mindless, hateful lemmings, the Grand Old Party will use this fear, ignorance, and blind adherence to ancient Judeo-Christian fanaticism to get their pro-business ambitions legislated.

Human Rights Watch documented the stigma, harassment, and violence LGBT people in Russia face daily. Most of those interviewed said that these problems have intensified since 2013. In some cases, they were attacked by the anti-LGBT vigilante groups that appeared in dozens of Russian cities and towns in late 2012. These radical nationalists lure gay men and teenage boys on the pretext of a fake date, hold them against their will, and humiliate and expose them by videotaping the encounter. Hundreds of such videos depicting abuse have been posted online. “I felt blood in my mouth, but only later learned that the attackers had broken my jaw in two places,” said one victim of a vigilante group.

Human Rights Watch

By slowing or outright stopping the prosecution of anti-LGBT vigilante groups, Putin has decriminalized the assault and murder of anyone gay or trans. Naturally, as one would expect, Russia has quickly devolved into a lawless, hateful barren wasteland. A frozen moor of malice and cruelty, precisely what the GOP hopes will happen to the U.S.

LGBT activists face physical violence and harassment at public events supporting LGBT equality. Most LGBT activists interviewed had been attacked at least once during public pro-LGBT events since 2012, describing attacks in several cities. Although anti-LGBT counter-protesters routinely harass and attack them, the police consistently fail to take adequate measures to prevent the attacks and protect them from violence.

Human Rights Watch

The “defenders of free speech” and the “last line of defence against the ‘woke cancel culture’” is goose-stepping their way down the path of censorship by cancelling (any) author that is not a particular orientation, religion, or skin tone and passing hundreds of laws that will directly and assuredly lead to the death of thousands of people across their hateful nation.

With many republican governors (and neo-con extremist state legislatures) passing anti-trans bills targeting doctors and insurance companies providing gender-affirming care for adults establish that this was never about “the children” and was always about establishing some hate-based theocratic kingdom.

As always, the party of “liberty” and “small government” once again proves to be the party of hypocrisy and hate.

Feature Image compliments of Jonathan Ernst. Additional reporting by Human Rights Watch (click here)