How The Damage Is Done
Shannon Van Sant travelled to Turkey at the height of the Syrian Civil War reporting on the White Helmets. He got there just as Russian propaganda was tearing the organization apart. Telling that story in Politico today, Van Sant has come to realize that the most powerful lies contain a bit of truth.
Since my work with Emma ended, I’ve had plenty of time to roll James’ story around in my mind. What I keep coming back to isn’t the good he and Emma did with the White Helmets but why it turned out to be so easy to undermine. As I looked into James’ life, I realized that Moscow’s disinformation-fueled influence campaign had succeeded and that part of the reason it did was that some of the material they used to destroy his reputation had enough truth in it to be plausible.
Emma had told me she had once worked for British intelligence. James had served in the British military, as an intelligence officer in Bosnia and Kosovo. The BBC later reported that years before working with the White Helmets, he had tried to join MI6 but had been rejected. Then there were their accounting troubles — and their lavish spending.
All this provided fodder for Russian propagandists to spin into a narrative — that James, his foundation, and Emma were exploitative profiteers working for Western security agencies running a “fraudulent humanitarian group.” For the Russians, the bar was low. They didn’t have to prove anything. They just needed to create enough doubt about James’ leadership to discourage donors from making their work possible.
A fun exercise follows. I will now rewrite those three paragraphs, swapping details and names as appropriate, twice, to demonstrate the parallax view that disinformation campaigns create for a target society. Bear in mind as you read the next paragraphs that I am not speaking for myself, but for a point of view.
What I keep coming back to isn’t the good Trump did with in the White House but why it turned out to be so easy to undermine. As I looked into Trump’s life, I realized that Moscow’s disinformation-fueled influence campaign had succeeded and that part of the reason it did was that some of the material they used to destroy his reputation had enough truth in it to be plausible.
Trump had visited Moscow in the 1980s and his rhetoric reflected Kremlin views. Paul Manafort had done business with Russian agents in Ukraine. Natalia Veselnitskaya, a lawyer close to the regime, met with Manafort and the Trump children at Trump Tower, though no agreement was finalized at the time. Then there were their accounting troubles — and their lavish spending.
All this provided fodder for Russian propagandists to spin into a narrative — that Trump, and his administration, were keenly interested in being friends with Vladimir Putin. For the Russians, the bar was low. They didn’t have to prove anything. They just needed to create enough doubt about Trump’s leadership to make Americans terrified of Russian disinformation agents hiding under their beds.
Since the Mueller investigation ended, I’ve had plenty of time to roll Trump’s story around in my mind. What I keep coming back to isn’t the damage he and the GOP did in the White House but why it turned out there was no “there” there. As I looked into MSNBC coverage, I realized that Rachel Maddow’s misinformation-fueled influence campaign had succeeded and that part of the reason it did was that some of the material she used to destroy his reputation had enough truth in it to be plausible.
Trump’s team had altered the RNC platform to remove support for Ukraine and his attacks on NATO reflected Kremlin priorities. His campaign manager Paul Manafort had done business with Russian agents in Ukraine. Russian Twitter bots and Facebook pages spread misinformation, though it is not clear that it had any effect on the vote in 2016. Trump did try to get Zelenskyy to dig up dirt on Joe Biden. Then there were the Trumps’ accounting troubles — and their lavish spending.
All this provided fodder for MSNBC propagandists to spin into a narrative — that Trump, his family, and his party were foreign agents working for the FSB running a “fraudulent administration.” For Rachel Maddow, the bar was low. She didn’t have to prove anything. She just needed to create enough doubt about Trump’s leadership to keep the #resistance grift going.
To repeat: these are not my views, though I agree with various statements in each revision of Van Sant’s paragraphs. I am of course leaving out a lot of things that happened and stories that flew about, half-baked or half-checked or half-cocked in a similar way, because none of that stuff matters.
Hopefully the reader is now focused on the damage, not the details. The whole point of Russian disinformation campaigns was to distract Americans into an endless maze of partial-truth details. Just provide the scare, and we can do the rest ourselves. We censor ourselves on social media with innovative quasi-government apparatuses. We allow censorship of news outlets to stifle stories about laptops, because democracy cannot be trusted to sniff out a nothingburger, so we must instead create an eternal what-if burger that festers uneaten in a dark corner of the mind.
Disempowerment is the point. Attacking free societies is a matter of making them feel unfree. Putin wanted Americans to turn on one another — check; he wanted Americans paranoid about his power — check; he wanted Americans to do most of the work themselves — mission accomplished.
Bellow is one, final revision of Van Sant, Mad Libs style. I could do any number of these. For example, we could revise it from the point of view of a person who remains convinced that Donald Trump was in fact the Manchurian Candidate and the pee tape definitely exists. Any number of discrete issues could alter the complexion of the result. Individual perspectives become a la carte realities in a polarized atmosphere. Partisan political heuristics become magnetic fields, polarizing Americans like metal filings. With doubt everywhere, hope dies and nihilism reigns.
Mission accomplished:
Since the beginning of the Biden administration, I’ve had plenty of time to roll Trump’s story around in my mind. What I keep coming back to isn’t the good he and Republicans did with the White House but why it turned out to be so easy to undermine. As I looked into Biden’s life, I realized that the liberal media’s disinformation-fueled influence campaign had succeeded and that part of the reason it did was that they suppressed material that damages his reputation and had enough truth in it to be plausible.
Hunter Biden got millions of dollars of Burisma money for doing nothing. Joe Biden has always been a war hawk and a corrupt tool of the globalists in Washington and Davos. My podcasters have reported that years before he stole an election to be in the White House, Biden was tied to the Maidan Revolution, which was faked by George Soros crisis actors. Then there is the war funding that is unaccountable — all that lavish taxpayer spending on Ukraine.
All this is evidence that the Ukraine war is fake and also that Russia is winning it — that Joe Biden, his family, and administration are exploitative profiteers working to destroy Russia by fighting a “fraudulent defensive war.” For the globalists, the bar is low. They don’t have to sacrifice anything. They just need to create enough doubt about Putin’s leadership to encourage a revolution in Russia that will put them in power there, too.
To repeat again, that is decidedly not my view. Nevertheless I live alongside it, my view being only one of 330,000,000 possible views in America. My view is parallax with this one, which — despite my disagreement — contains an insidious grain of truth.