Whenever someone brings up Russian Gulags, I like to point out that US has been the world leader in imprisoned population since before I was born



This is the pot calling the kettle black.  The US has done as many bad things or worse than Russia.  You simply choose to focus on one and ignore the other

This is no different than right-wingers throwing shade at "socialism" because Venezuela is a shit-hole.  They simply ignore Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Austria, etc., and focus on the 1/100 socialist countries that fails for a multitude of reasons having nothing to do with socialism