This morning I read through some curious stories.

U.S. citizens, answering anti-buy-lobby call, protest as shops open

NEW YORK – Citizens protested against rampant consumerism by forming large lines just as shops opened – answering calls by Back-To-Nature to buy less, and undercutting preliminary reports of record sales.

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Holiday travelers, answering leaders call, protest as check-ins open

WASHINGTON – On the day before Thanksgiving travelers protested air planes' emissions, by forming long lines as flight check-ins were opening – answering a call by the late deaf Thomas, and undercutting preliminary congestion reports.

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You, dear reader, will have immediately noticed that the above items are nonsense and fake. Protesting shopping by rushing stores and protesting plane emissions by booking flights does not make any sense.

Neither does protesting against an election by going to vote. Still, this is what U.S. propaganda tries to insinuate.

Russian voters, answering Navalny’s call, protest as Putin extends his rule

MOSCOW — On the final day of a presidential election with only one possible result, Russians protested Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian hold on power by forming long lines to vote against him at noon Sunday — answering the call of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and undercutting preliminary results Sunday night that led Putin to claim a landslide victory.
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The “Noon Against Putin” protest, with voters forming queues at polling stations in major cities such as Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Tomsk and Novosibirsk, was a striking — if futile — display of solidarity and dissent and challenged the Kremlin’s main message: that Putin is a legitimate president who commands massive support.
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The Noon Against Putin protest was particularly striking at Russian embassies in nations with significant numbers of Russians who fled after the invasion of Ukraine. They included those in Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Germany, China, Portugal, Britain and others.
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Here is a reality based report from one of those embassies:

Today, Sunday, is the third and final day of balloting at Russian polling stations around the world and at 9.30 am I arrived at the Russian embassy in Brussels to accompany a friend to vote.
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Russians are late risers, especially on Sundays, and we were well rewarded for our early arrival at the embassy, because the line inside to register and then vote was only 20 minutes long. As we left, the throngs began to arrive.

Gilbert Doctorow, who wrote the above, has lived in Russia for many years. He knows Russian habits. It was obvious, not only to him, that  Sunday noon in Russia would see the longest lines of voters.

To preemptively declare these predictable lines a sign of protest may be be seen as smart propaganda but it will have little effect on anyone living outside of the propagandists' bubble.

But somehow, from inside that bubble, such idiotic claims are seen as sane:

Thousands of Russians in big cities attempted to make their displeasure known at both the nature of Putin’s regime and the ongoing war in Ukraine by going to vote at noon Sunday — a symbolic act of solidarity with the late pro-democracy activist Alexei Navalny, who had long called for fairer and freer elections in Russia before dying in captivity.

Do such folks believe in this most primitive form of their propaganda?