As many as 1,500 “ideological immigrants,” including 127 Americans, have applied for temporary residence in Russia in the last year.

Two years ago, Derek and DeAnna Huffman were desperate to leave Humble, a suburb of Houston. Their three daughters, they believed, were being brainwashed by public school and mainstream media to support LGBTQ rights. American culture in general no longer offered white people the same opportunities as other races, they said.

The couple yearned to live in a place that shared their “Christian values” and where they “weren’t going to be discriminated against” as white, politically-conservative Christians.

So in March, the Huffmans became the first family to move to a community planned for fellow English-speakers some 30 miles west of Moscow, a project they had been following online run by long-term American expat and former Kremlin-sponsored RT host Tim Kirby. The family is among a small but growing number of Americans who have moved to Russia because the United States, in their opinion, has become too “woke."

  • Waldelfe@feddit.org
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    1 month ago

    Aren’t these the kind of people who’d get mad at immigrants in the US if they don’t speak English? Why don’t they learn proper Russian and integrate?

  • kescusay@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    For people who didn’t read the whole article, you really should. It touches on the fact that Derek Huffman ended up sent to the front lines in the war against Ukraine, and for a while there were rumors he’d died there.

    It also talks about another family that did the same thing and immediately got swindled out of everything, with Russia’s famously corrupt law enforcement doing nothing to help them against the swindler.

    • Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca
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      I feel horrible for the kids, they get forced to follow their parents mind-boggling stupidity.

      Derek and DeAnna on the other hand are adults who thought out, planned, and followed through with their idiocy.

      Politics aside; how could you possibly think moving your family to a country that’s actively at war with its immediate neighbor, and struggling to find bodies to throw on the front lines, is even remotely a good idea.

      It touches on the fact that Derek Huffman ended up sent to the front lines in the war against Ukraine, and for a while there were rumors he’d died there.

      I would genuinely be more surprised to hear they were left to live peacefully.

  • BaroqueInMind@fedia.io
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    1 month ago

    Good. Fuck them hope he dies in the meat grinder with the rest of the Russian military dipshits. Christian fascists dont deserve a peaceful life; they bring such persistent suffering to LGBTQ people for the past 2000 years, that I hope no religious group including these types of Christians never sees peace.

  • silentdon@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Derek Huffman said he joined the Russian army to expedite the family’s applications for Russian citizenship, as well as to show support for their new homeland.

    Service guarantees citizenship!

  • AquaTofana@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    The amount of idiocy demonstrated by the adults in that article is fucking mind-boggling.

    One family moved to Russia with only $50K to their name, for their family of 5, and didn’t research the public education requirements for their sons ahead of time.

    It tracks that people this fucking stupid would have this level of hate for “non-traditional” relationships.

    • FisicoDelirante@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      No way Russia is so uncivilized they don’t speak English, right?

      I guess that was their thought process, if there was any at all

  • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Sorry Ukraine - didn’t mean to let our trash blow into your yard.

    Please kill him swiftly before he has the chance to do any tangible damage to your nation. May his corpse nourish a few sunflowers.

  • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    Hey, straight up: good fucking riddance. We’ve got enough problems with malignantly idiotic conservatives and racists and fascists. I won’t shed a single tear if they want to move to a (more) authoritarian country.

  • Jerkface (any/all)@lemmy.ca
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    1 month ago

    So they moved to a redneck colony run by a notorious professional Russian propagandist in an autocratic nation. Yikes.

    • FerretyFever0@fedia.io
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      1 month ago

      Poor, poor white conservative Christians. Really sucks how every once in a while, they don’t get to have their balls sucked by everyone. Once in a while.

  • 1985MustangCobra@lemmy.ca
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    lmfao what is this. i want to know what harm LGBTQ people cause day to day that they were scared and had to leave.

    • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      I’m in the socialist hellhole Canada and my day is spent chasing away genderfluid canvassers trying to convert me and my kids to they/them and then when my kids get to school they’re forced to have group sex led by cross dressers!

      /s and really sad the state of the world I have to put that

        • T00l_shed@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          You got mandatory estrogen? Why for me the government (yes the entire government) came to castrate me because of forced genital mutilation! Wokeism strikes again

    • SloganLessons@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I saw a trans woman walking on the street the other day and it traumatized me. I have nightmares to this day and my psychiatrist says no drugs will ever help me get over it.

      Wokism ruined my life

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    It’s funny how often I see a headline like this, then think to myself “now, now, let’s be reasonable and give them the benefit of the doubt because crazy situations happen every day…”

    aside: You see, growing up in white conservative christian america, my brain has this old deep conditioning to see people who are different looking or who have different priorities in life than me and think of how stupid/worthless that makes them. I have those neural pathways pretty safely contained, but it’s important to do maintenance.

    Anyways, I often think to myself oh hey they aren’t just mind numbingly stupid and surely there’s something else going on. Then I read the details and it’s like every sentence pushes my face closer to my silly optimistic assumptions bellowing “search your feelings, you know it to be true” like some really heavy-handed metaphor about feeling the call of the dark side.

    Nah, I guess I do know how stupid they are. But their stupidity isn’t gonna frustrate me into being like them again.

    • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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      You see, growing up in white conservative christian america, my brain has this old deep conditioning to see people who are different looking or who have different priorities in life than me and think of how stupid/worthless that makes them.

      It’s so interesting to see how other people’s experiences of white conservative Christian America can be so different from mine. I have this deep conditioning to see people who are different looking or have different priorities and be curious about their choices and experiences, specifically because of my upbringing in a little country church.

      In fact, I remember being cautioned to pull back on the reins a bit when I was in my “angry conservative” stage in college—back during W’s first term, when I was super far right for the time but still had beliefs that would make me a “radical lib’rul” today. Some of the people I went to church with were like, “yeah, I can see that your heart is in the right place, but you’re kinda over the top about this and this.” Most of what brought me out of that phase was meeting people who were different from me, but another part was Christian people I trusted saying, “that’s too much.”

      That’s part of why I had so much cognitive dissonance when Christians started supporting Trump; it felt out of step with everything we had ever been taught as children, and even as young adults.

      I’ve come to terms with the fact that I (and my parents, more recently) just aren’t going to be welcomed back into that community again, because it has gone so deeply maga. But it wasn’t like that when I was a kid.

      their stupidity isn’t gonna frustrate me into being like them again.

      That’s a really great way to say it. I feel that way myself, though I couldn’t put it into words.

      • Zink@programming.dev
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        It’s so interesting to see how other people’s experiences of white conservative Christian America can be so different from mine.

        I agree. It’s interesting and enriching to hear about the different starting points in life that led us to similar places.

        my upbringing in a little country church.

        It looks like you had one of those pockets of “true” scotsman christians! /s

        My family was catholic. I was surrounded by miserable conservatives before it was cool! :D

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    1 month ago

    HAHAHAHAHA. That’s it, I have no more words to say about this peaceful and Christ-loving family that would kill people if they could.

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    “It was the promise of a country that would not promote the LGBT agenda. We liked the fact that LGBT is basically outlawed here in official ways,”

    Addition though subtraction.