Trump at his core is completely corrupt.
42
I'm not so certain that it came to Russia first. Dear Ronnie was doing this 35 years ago...Instead of offering a coherent vision for the future, you peddle in nostalgia.
20
Russia remains the greatest threat to World peace. The Putin regime has to be brought down as soon as possible.
13
The current administration is running the country under the "bizarro" rules of making outlandish lies that only fools believe, they are not the problem. The problem is that the common man is buying it.
35
My question is: why is Trump still allowed to use Twitter?
22
And they are not finished pulling. Putin's puppet is emulating his master and will destroy the American democracy if he is not stopped.
Only kings and dictators behave as though they are above existing law and then seek to normalize their conduct.
33
Russia has state owned news media which spins the messages of the Kremlin leadership.
The beauty of American propaganda, both Republican and Democrat, is that private business runs the messaging via Fox News and MSNBC, which is then broadcast everywhere via free social media online. It is all but impossible to ignore Western propaganda.
4
Giuliani should be under arrest for violating our sovereignty. He has no security clearance and never should. He cannot be trusted. Trump is just as bad. If he were not president he would never qualify for any security clearance! That must really bother the people that put their lives on the line to protect us.
50
Of course, this requires accepting the author’s own conspiracy theory about Putin’s popularity in Russia.
2
Very sad and depressing. We must get trump impeached and out.
17
I think it is also shameless to exploit these countries, who fell threatened by the Russians, for things that at the end of the day aren't really that important. America has never been the morale powerhouse of the world, but you are sinking to new lows and under this Administration!
13
I’m just wondering... when the impeachment hammer comes down on Trump, will he find himself in an East European country, or in a Middle-Eastern country, where he can conveniently beg for asylum? My hunch is with Saudi Arabia, but I’m no PolySci major.
12
"Fake news" Trump said;I wondered if he needed to change his channel. He, his henchmen began to repeat that phrase "seeding doubt and confusion, evoking a world so full of endlessly intricate conspiracies that ..." many began to doubt their favorite newscasters, their newspapers. I double-checked my sources. Half-truths began to appear draped in a flag, religious symbols or vestiges of the Civil War AKA War Between the States. Many appeared to rely on Facebook news clips shared by users who were either your friends or some bot. Did that person who friended you really represent someone you recalled or opportunistic manipulation? While Facebook guarded against posts featuring a woman breastfeeding the most vitriolic hate-filled, spurious stories spread in days. Outrageously politically incorrect language and cartoons seeped into newsfeeds with wildly insidious tidbits claiming malicious bizarre conspiracies and friends you thought couldn't seriously believe this trope, or not understand that nationalism really isn't a synonym for patriotic vigor. Bigotry, assault on truth, advocation of violence, eroding of gains for religious freedom, destruction of what used to be a political party? What wins here isn't our country. Mind games rather than a search for truth. Politicians who are searching for solutions or scurrying for cover, afraid of the man who would be king. All the news that's fit to print? Come again? Please.
7
Blaming Russia for all of America's ills is a tried-and-true tradition to deflect from its own failures.
To claim that the reason Americans keep voting for ever more radical solutions is because the Russians told them to gives America's failing political class an undeserved easy out.
The media seem happy to maintain this fiction, feeding public fears of Russia, spreading the belief that Russian influence operations are ubiquitous and wildly successful.
Ignoring the failure of the American elites to strengthen the system of democracy itself to make it genuinely fair and transparent, pretending that the CIA and the CIA-infiltrated media had no role in getting us to this point, and absolving American citizens of their duty to have common knowledge of American democracy, is dishonest and a recipe for disaster.
“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false” -Former CIA Director Bill Casey.
They don’t just lie to us, they admit it and Obama's NDAA of 2012 made propaganda against the US public LEGAL, knowing that if they control the MSM they control the narrative. The Fairness Doctrine has been gone since Reagan. The internet hasn’t been brought under complete control yet, therefore both parties are trying to censor it.
For sure, Russian influence operations are real, but they're neither as Machiavellian nor as successful in changing people’s minds as the media makes them out.
Blaming just "the Russians" is ridiculous.
6
Seems like the U.S. won the Cold Battle, not the Cold War.
8
Liberal democracy is the hardest form of government there is. People must trust that others will sacrifice selfishness for the benefits of cooperative endeavors. Trump was raised to be selfish and to trust nobody. His zero sum views of life makes him distain trustworthiness and fidelity, both of which he perceives to be foolish.
Trump liked to repeat the tale of the snake and the trusting woman because he identified with the snake, and his supporters and the country are the trusting woman, now.
22
It looks like Putin has it all figured out and Trump is trying to catch up but incompetence keeps getting in his way.
10
so i wonder how many voters come from families who fled the soviet's in eastern europe? and i wonder how they feel about a president who appears to be up to his eyeballs in vladimir putin's reconstituted wish to resurrect the soviet empire? i wonder if they will vote?
10
I don't think this is how the Democrats saw this playing out. I must say, I find it EXTREMELY suspect that as soon as Trumps polling numbers begin to rise again.. BOOM ANOTHER WHISTLEBLOWER MATERIALIZES! I feel like I'm reading a poorly written SPY NOVEL when you can see right through the evil protagonist (dems) after the first 5 pages. After that it's just more cheating, lying and manipulating, but in the end the protagonist dies in a fiery crash and the hero lives on to save the Country another day.
2
`Four thousand two hundred and seven, that's the exact number,' the King said, referring to his book. `I couldn't send all the horses, you know, because two of them are wanted in the game. And I haven't sent the two Messengers, either. They're both gone to the town. Just look along the road, and tell me if you can see either of them.'
`I see nobody on the road,' said Alice.
`I only wish I had such eyes,' the King remarked in a fretful tone. `To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance, too! Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!'
Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll
6
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
republican representatives in congress and the cabinet are either doing nothing or maybe they’re just not good.
Their defense of trump’s reprehensible behavior is inexcusable. They are aiding and abetting the undermining of the constitution and the ruination of national security, all for the purpose of keeping their jobs.
Each is a sellout and undeserving of our respect or our votes. How was our democracy allowed to become an autocracy?
23
The result of trumpism is the total corruption of truth, replaced by only transactional nihilism and greed. Leadership is replaced by the cult of personality, who panders to the most base emotions and thoughts.
14
The preponderance of conspiracy thinking (no, not "conspiracy theories") in modern society comes out of an awakened awareness that "there is more to everything than meets the eye". It should be obvious to anyone whose head is above beach level that there are "hidden agendas" behind most things socio-economico-political... A true "conspiracy theorist" knows this. There IS a very clear dichotomy between "what you see and what you get", motives behind policies are political -- not pragmatic.. A conspiracy theorist -- if truly scientific in approach: 1) Observes properties of things. 2) Notes behaviors. 3) Formulates hypotheses. Of course, the unscientific immediately jump to the conclusion that the hypothesis IS the truth. This is Trump's domain, and many of that ilk. "I thought it, so it must be true!"
Of course, Hunter Biden traded on his father's name and stature. Was there a coordinated effort on the part of father and son? Probably not. Did Joe know about it? Probably. Should he have taken steps. Sure! Did he? No. Hypothesis: Hunter is an example of elites everywhere who leverage off their connections. And Joe is an example of super-elites everywhere who tolerate -- if not encourage -- such unethical behavior...
1
It should be no surprise that Trump is following the post-Soviet kleptocracy.
After his options for American-style incompetence, lying and stonewalling eventually caught up to him, Trump discovered money-laundering Russian money as a cash opportunity. In order to do business with oligarchs, Trump needed some connections to the Putin regime. Russian gangsters provided these (google "Ivanka Sater Putin Chair" for some details) by 2006. His Miss Universe Moscow pageant in 2013 furthered the already budding relationship and dependency of Trump on the oligarchy. Putin and company arranged periodic cash infusions like the purchase of a Palm Beach mansion Trump had purchased in 2004 for $41.35 million by Dmitry Rybolovlev in 2008 for 95 million (during the "great recession") for a house that was so infested with black mold it was unsafe to live in.
Trump's financial, emotional, and political dependency on Putin should be obvious, with at least 5 "off the books" conversations between Trump and his apparent financial and political master since the election.
The most likely reason "so much about the Trump administration seems pulled from the playbook of a post-Soviet kleptocracy" is because Trump is either a member or a "wanna-be" member of that Putin controlled kleptocracy.
11
Strength of conspiracies is ideologically driven rather than fact based. Most personal decisions are based on gut reactions not on historical facts, not on actual witnessed crimes, not on science. Christian morality holds that following one's conscience is the doorway to righteousness. There is never any indication of a responsibility to verify the truth of those conscientious decisions.
That being the fact. Trump is dismayed at the attacks from the left. If you *believe* in Trump and his fundamental support of white supremacy and suppression of people of color, then anything he does to further that cause is good. Any conspiracy theory that claims that the opposition is wrong must be correct. Because it supports one's conscience.
Trump, Giuliani, Pompeo, and Barr deeply believe that their administration is following the good and moral path. As such they must, as followers of their own consciences, do whatever is necessary to perpetuate Trumpism.
Trump's assertion of innocence at his quid pro quo Ukrainian phone call is genuine. He believes that perpetuation of his dictatorial regime is the moral path.
The whole crew of criminal thugs feel innocent and abused by suggestion of wrongdoing.
There is no acknowledgement of the rule of law or the Constitution that is utterly required to smooth interactions between people of different beliefs.
The conspirators need to removed from office first, and put in jail. "Lock them up" as the Trump rallies cry.
4
The President of our beloved country has decided that if Alex Jones can make up things out thin air and get a large portion of the country to buy into to his blatant lies he can too. And now Republican Senators and House members have decided to take the plunge into conspiracy theories and lies. Give this another couple of years and Pizzagate will be considered true history, Qanon will be taught at Liberty College, and Jacob Wohl will be attorney general.
10
It's reasonable to conclude that Trump simply admires Putin's power and his cadre of Kleptocrats. It's not necessary for Putin to have Trump in the bag through Kompromat, but simply that Putin demonstrates how to win. Putin has been in power this entire century and will likely remain there till his death. Trump loves that idea no matter what the cost to his name, his party, or the country.
The real issue is how millions rally to this model even in the face of disastrous destruction of the social and economic fabric we hold by the tattered hems. The consequence is the rich will continue to get richer no matter how left the Dems lurch or how ardently Trumpers believe someday their prince will come.
4
Trumpistas (Giuliani in particular) are attempting to upend the U.S. Constitution.
Don't let this non-sense go unchallenged and corrected.
9
Yes terrifying and all too true. The irony is staggering with the "America First" and MAGA rhetoric. Is Trump and his allies Rhetoric Regarding a "deep State" theory also Ironic? Why is he involving world leaders in our politic process? Are his allies outside of the US? And his Deep Stay theory a refection of his own nefarious Modus Operandi? The corrosion is from within and without it seems. Billionaire Oligarchs are taking democracy away from the people with misinformation campaigns, attacking the free press and profiteering through economic policies that actually thwart the free market in favor of the thing that make and keep them wealthy, Oil being #1.
4
Despite Reagan’s claim of winning the Cold War it looks like the Soviets won in the long run.
A KGB agent rules Russia. Ukraine and other interesting former parts of the Soviet are under Russian control.
We are in disarray and no different from them in many ways in terms of corruption.
Putin rules us through his puppet in the WH and through Moscow Mitch in the senate. Our allies don’t trust us anymore. Republicans, who used to be anti Russia, don’t say a word. What more could they ask for?
12
The post-truth era in America did not begin with Trump. During the Obama years, Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, when questioned about a blatantly false claim he had recently made, said that it was "not intended to be a factual statement." The modern Republican party has eagerly led the way down this rabbit hole. Many of them look to Russia as a model.
8
A wonderful and much needed analysis. But I ask the readers to please remember this was not done in a vacuum. Yes, the Democrats have blame as they left their populist mission, morphed into center right republicans and sought personal and group gains above all. But we cannot forget that the Republican party, once the ardent supporters of law, and decency, and honor, and financial sanity, and patriotism, have been shown to be exactly the opposite of supporters. Their long term steady radicalization of the numerous medias they own, the destruction of the Fairness Doctrine, the attacks on voting rights, their religious leaders, the appointment of extremely radical Judges and Justices, etc., have made all this attack on the truth possible. Yes, honesty lives at the New York Times. But it’s not enough. And it appears it may be too late.
10
Haven't read your book cited but read "Amusing ourselves to Death" by Postman, in 1985. It is apparent that Journalism is for sale today, meaning that we are split and journalists can pander to either side and still get a "scoop" or Pulitzer. Truth can be thwarted by disordered facts and agenda as well as lies, and once we get "Razzle Dazzled" (song in Chicago), we stay confused. Rachel Maddow, along with Hannity or Tucker Carlson are smart but have a focused viewpoint, and they get paid well. Their championship might be part of what separates us into clans. This division allows the administration to have its propagandists lie after lie, and all is accepted by the focus audience. Trump is a marketer/salesman/huckster and truth is not integral to that science. Perhaps it is more remarkable that we haven't had such huckstering in the past, just lucky, I suppose.
But the split is damaging, and without trust we can't have real democracy and we will then sooner reach the declination point that other lead nations have reached in the past.
2
Ah, the double-edged sword of "Free Speech."
It was easy to beat the patriotic drum of speech being free in the USA... pre-Internet. The channels were well regulated, edited, and proctored by professionals in the news industry. But now? The power of Free Speech has enabled people who previously had no voice, the ability to erect social media might, such that the fringe elements can now sway public opinion.
The article by Andrew Marantz is timely. "Free Speech Is Killing Us," is true. Nobody seems to have come up with a way to manage it. Our republic, thanks to Trump's leadership, is slipping into the Russian model. Time is running out. Plenty of people have shouted out about the dangers of "fake news," unfounded conspiracies. But more people need to take this very, very seriously... or we'll be in worse trouble than we are now.
10
Americans are willingly choosing tyranny. Mankind has lived in tyranny for most of its existence.
I think tyranny is the natural state of man.
People feel that their existence is threatened and will run to the arms of their protector.
There just aren’t enough good people in the world.
2
Regardless of philosophy, the problem in any nation always boils down to corruption. When too much power is in the hands of too few, they become corrupt. With the Citizens United Supreme Court decision and the confirmed ability of the wealthy to buy elections, we created an environment of nearly complete corruption in Washington, which paved the way for Trump.
If you tell a Republican about something truly awful that a Republican has done, they always say, "That's just Washington." I rarely hear that from Democrats. Republicans simply say the whole system is corrupt, rather than acknowledging that their side is perhaps more corrupt than others. It allows them to excuse almost anything.
This is why it is critical that the Democrats throw out their old playbook and run a candidate who promises real reform -- Warren, Sanders, even Yang. People need someone who genuinely seems ready to fight corruption. Trump has zeroed in on the Pocahontas label for Warren because it seems like a tiny moment in Warren's career when she was calculating in representing herself, and Trump will try to suggest that she's just as corrupt as he is -- which is of course laughable, but watch him double-down on it.
I truly believe America can find its way out of this. But to do so, the oligarchs are going to have to give up power. And they won't go down easy as they feed at the trough of inherited wealth and taxpayer-funded corporate welfare. They will fight. Our best bet is a fighter.
20
RVC. I could not agree more, however the oligarchs will not give up power. It must be stripped from them. Think Hong Kong style disruption. If that doesn’t happen this will get far worse
11
This is my greatest fear for the US and one that must be a major point in the 2020 election: the death of truth.
Unless we leave behind the Trump twitterverse, Fox tales and the addiction to 'breaking news,' we will have lost our way. There will be no possibility of addressing any of our critical problems: global warming and the pernicious feedback loop of inequality on political discourse, i.e. money in politics.
We are down the path to become the largest banana republic on earth.
18
Unfortunately many became blinded by the hate forged by media. Basically there is no coverage of the positive things are being done by the Trump’s administration. His very smart approach to bring jobs back to the US by fixing the trade imbalances have been efficiently omitted. Recently his administration worked out the deal with the 350 US companies that committed to train new workers and potentially give jobs to 12 millions of Americans. The Democrats have been busy working hard toward the only goal to remove the President who stood up to dangerous and sneaky China. We used to live under communistic regime and we had spent a year in West Germany before immigrated to the US. While in Germany being treated as mascots we got invited by the German intellectuals to lunch. During this lunch they threw on us a statement that they were under American occupation. We experienced a shock as West Germany looked to us like a paradise in comparison to our poor devastated country. Actually Germany had looked much better than Boston which was our first destination. I do not believe that the Europeans have ever appreciated the US taxpayers paying for their defense long before Trump got elected. I also recommend that every progressive Democrat should visit Scandinavia before he wants to convert our country according to their model. These countries are run by the bureaucrats where the average citizen has not much say not mentioning their taxes and their prices twice higher than in the US.
1
Your comment is filled with “facts” not in evidence.
Bringing manufacturing jobs back to America? Where, exactly, has that happened? Please, name the state and city.
China? Yes I agree that Mr. Trump HAS started a confrontation. So far the trade war has only cost Americans money in the form of tariffs and lost agricultural products markets.
I could go on but I think that you get the point.
8
I fully understand what Mr. Pomerantsev is saying here and the mechanics of it all.
But what is the impetus for the Putins and Trumps of the world? Is it the desire for money to acquire power or the desire for power to acquire money? What drives the political equivalent of a bush-hogger to mow down civilized societies, keep them down, steal their agency to live free of oppression and under rules determined by the whole to protect those freedoms?
6
Early on in the revelations that Trump's campaign was likely in cahoots with Russia to influence the presidential election, I saw a photo of two Trump supporters wearing T-shirts that read "I'd rather be a Russian than a Democrat." Be careful what you wish for, people.
27
This is a remarkable article. What then, is the panacea for this? Someone suggests more education in humanities. I am keen to hear what the author thinks we should do to avoid or atleast delay our descent into a Putinesque future? Or is it too late and we must move to Canada?
10
The key issue that the author has missed is that what the Democrats are/have accusing/accused the Republicans of doing, the Democrats had actually done.
The alleged influence peddling of the Bidens would likely not have emerged (for all to see) had a second Clinton Administration been in office.
2
@dmanuta Unfounded accusations are a dime a dozen.
4
This essay presents a truly important political recognition--we are facing an epistemological uncertainty principle.
9
Big Brother is watching you. Orwell’s ‘1984’ describes a totalitarian society where everyone is under surveillance – and Big Brother is the dictator. We are moving closer to dystopia, literally a “bad place”. In 2019, media manipulation is rampant. Under Trump, Washington is swampier than ever. When visitors to the US cross the border, customs officials have the right to search their cell phones for texts and laptops/phones for emails and can require travelers to provide their laptop passwords or unlock their mobile phones when they are entering or leaving the United States. While U.S. citizens cannot be denied entry to the United States for refusing to provide passwords or unlocking devices, foreign visitors and non-US citizens can. In 2014 the Supreme Court ruled that the US Constitution requires a warrant to search smartphones. The ACLU argued that the same safeguards should also apply to international travelers entering the US. Unfortunately, the government does not agree and the law on the matter is not settled. Americans who do not travel outside the US may be unaware of this. This is light years from the Utopian ideal envisaged by the idealistic principles of the American founders of Carolina, Pennsylvania and Georgia – which were an early step toward the republic imagined by Thomas Jefferson.
7
If you feel uncomfortable about this, try googling the term “project echelon”.
International eves dropping of all communication going into or out of the USA.
Twitter is the fast-food of knowledge. It is cheap, ubiquitous, and a constant fallback when actual nutrition becomes even slightly hard to get. I know reasonable people who will believe things that arrive on Twitter without bothering to check their accuracy. My son said today that everyone is now a "content provider" and we are just consumers of "content."
McDonald's is required to post the contents and nutritional value of its food; it would be wonderful if Twitter came with a fact-checking app.
12
I seem to recall after the collapse of the USSR the US was jubilant but claimed it was broke when asked for help. A genuine excuse or not, the massive defense spending under Reagan, which some claim accelerated the collapse, turned out to be a double-edged sword at best
5
We became a kleptocracy under G.W.Bush who passed tax cuts favoring the rich.
Obama did little to stop it and passed on holding accountable the culprits behind the Great Recession and housing collapse.
Trump has the kleptocracy in full swing with not only more tax cuts for the wealthy but rolling back scores of regulations with the net effect that greed is plundering our resources and despoiling our environment.
Kleptocracy 'R Us.
18
Mr. Pomerantsev has correctly picked up a certain aspect of the present-day reality - that both ideology and pragmatism have "collapsed" [somewhat], but he exaggerates the significance of this point claiming that it represents the entire Reality. No - Reality still remains to be a "unity and struggle of contradictions". But - true, the role of Reason & Evidence in the political discourse has diminished worldwide. And in our country of laws not people in particular. But - and here's an important but: it would be enough for the 2020 elections to repeat the landslide pattern of 2018 midterm elections for the belief in Reason & Evidence to be restore.
7
Russian interference into our election has actually helped to reveal a truth in America that we have a hard time acknowledging, which is that white identity reigns supreme; not only in the hearts and minds of a majority of white America, but also in the structure of our election process that gives a disproportionate amount of votes to smaller predominately white parts of the country. In this regard, our democratic ideals have always been half truths.
Wealth in America was kick started through slavery and continued with other divisive laws and politics that pit groups of people against each other in the effort to sure up the wealth, power and influence of a well positioned minority. This points to the heart of the Trump phenomenon. It's not so much that truth is being newly undermined, but that suppressed lies are coming to the surface.
72
@Al - - While the collectivist hate-training against the United States (as founded three centuries ago more or less) has marred the current generation, America remains Thomas Jefferson's Empire of Liberty.
The Southern Democrat plantation wealth - which you were taught to blame for hundreds of wrongs - was only agricultural, even by the Civil War, the North was so fantastically wealthier than Dixie that there really was and remains NO comparison.
If you think the great concentrations of wealth in America is in real estate like trump's, and not technology, you might have left college a bit early. jus' sayin'
4
@L osservatore It is true that technology is the source of much wealth. It is also true that the face of tech industries is overwhelmingly white and male.
8
@L osservatore
Trust me, ethnic minority Americans, particularly seniors and baby boomers, are not nearly as shocked as our Caucasian counterparts, watching political events unfold. There is more wisdom in AI's words than I think you realize.
10
Ebola was developed by the CDC to study the spreading of contagious diseases in third world settings. The CDC is part of the deep state swamp that Moscow Mitch and trump are diligently draining to help save the real Americans.
As the article suggests, I will assume that you are showing us an example of how anyone can disseminate misinformation to blur the lines between truth and lies. Nicely done!
4
Rudy Giuliani is hardly a private diplomat, more like an enforcer, a heavy, a fixer, a plumber, a puppet, a pirate, a poet, a pawn for the King but that's life. I will never question again how people in the Soviet Union acquiesced to living under a fake political system. Turns out all you need is a shameless liar, a willing media partner and a political system already packed to the hilt with cowards. We're not exceptional at all, we're just another country caught unawares by the banality of evil.
25
So nobody thinks it is strange that Joe Biden's son was the director of some Ukraine energy company. If it is Ivanka selling shoes the sky falls in but being the a director in some corrupt Ukraine company is fine. Weren't there any companies in America that would have him? Highly suspicious. Don't let your hatred for Trump cloud your judgement of others.
2
@ST He was not “the director”. He was on the board of directors. Oh, no difference. Yes, difference.
3
@ST Uh, many think its strange and know it is wrong. I for one have been railing against explicitly allowed and implicitly permitted USA corruption since I stared advising and working in corrupt developing countries in the mid-80’s.... However, to suggest that there is something unusual or atypical about the son or daughter of a highly placed elite politico getting sleazy money for doing nothing is to 1) ignore the fact Mafia Don has raised this to a whole new level by having his own family members run their business empire out of the West Wing, 2) ignore the sleaze of self dealers that Trump has placed in his cabinet (known big-time grifter Wilbur Ross, family-dealing Elaine Chao, punish the student borrowers and benefit the for-profit school industry Betsy DeVoss, just to name a few), and 3) to focus on the importance of that still tangential narrative (Biden is not even the Dem candidate yet.... no explicit quid pro quo has been established). Yes, it is highly suspicious, but it is not the real story. Don the Con and Rudy Ghouliani have successfully thrown you off track.
3
@ST
Bad optics, but he sat on a board. Everybody and their grandmother sits on a board if they have access to influential people. Paul Ryan is sitting on the board of Fox News making big bucks now that he's not a government employee. Do you think they want him because he's a media genius? Seriously?
All ex-politicians and their progeny, neighbors and friends enrich themselves because others think they have access to people who are perceived as powerful. Besides the Ivanka/Jared dynamic duo, how about Amarosa...I mean, seriously, Amarosa?
I will point out to you that Jared/Ivanka work for the U. S. Government. They're not supposed to be enriching themselves by using their position as government employees.
As for Biden Hunter, there's some 'there' there. Do I think Hunter Biden may have gotten that gig because of who his daddy is? Of course. But, that's because I'm a Democrat and not afraid to think critically.
But, there was zero evidence of corruption. Our own intelligence agencies have dismissed this witch hunt against the Bidens as a bogus nothing burger. It's a four year old nothing burger. The Republicans just keep dredging it up and turning it into something it simply is not.
Read this:
https://theintercept.com/2019/09/25/i-wrote-about-the-bidens-and-ukraine-years-ago-then-the-right-wing-spin-machine-turned-the-story-upside-down/
It's just as despicable as the absurd 'birther movement.'
2
“When truth dissolves anything is possible“ That may be so, but the Left is equally culpable.
Eleven million-plus illegal aliens in this country, with millions more lined up behind them, and liberals want to abolish ICE?
Who is in denial of the truth in that instance?
The Left limits debate via political correctness mandates that are an affront to free speech, then calls all conservatives who disagree with such tactics “fascists.” Really?
2
We know why exiled Ukrainian oligarch Zlochevsky the former Minister of Ecology and owner of Burisma Holdings and Brociti Investments hired Hunter Biden. It is one Ukrainian word “roof” that protects you.
Protects you from charges of graft, tax evasion, and self-dealings...corruption. Trump and Rudy have every right but a duty to expose it.
1
@Charlie You learned a new word: “roof”. Expose what? What influence did Hunter exert?
2
Before this administration America was different from Russia. The Trump administration is just gutter Russian trash. When our laws sweep them out of the white house along with the Gutter GOP we can go back to being America. We will over come racism, income issues, health care and we will restore our character in the world. The democrats are the party of character. The GOP is the party of corruption and racism.
We will survive trash and the Russians.
Rudi and Trump the GOP minions are now exposed for the trash that they are. Money doesnt buy dignity nor class.
11
Get Trump's tax returns. Expose his connections to Russia.
16
There is one way to know the truth in Russia. Look who gets arrested, or killed, for saying things.
10
Maybe Calvin Coolidge in signing the 1924 immigration reform act as a soothsayer.
The Republican Party is now a propaganda arm of Putin and the Kremlin. Wake up, US. Vote for Democrats in 2020 to regain some semblance of a United States with the values we all learned to celebrate in school.
18
Inoculate against propaganda by discrediting the accuser instead of engaging the debate. My post to yesterday's story about Joe Biden's lack of response to Trump's charge re: the Bidens and Ukraine:
“'He’s never gone negative,' said William M. Daley, the former White House chief of staff, who worked on Mr. Biden’s 1988 campaign. 'That’s not him, that’s the charm of Joe.'”
This comment encapsulates what's wrong with Joe Biden and most of the Democratic Party: They usually engage the debate, falsely believing that facts will rule the day, instead of the accuser. In fact, Biden's most conspicuous push-back to date is that he is not a crook, nor is his son.
Hey Dems, first rule of holes: stop digging. Instead, as a response try this on for size: "That's a bunch of pravda. Sounds like Trump got that in a secret meeting with his Sugar Vladdy." (Thanks, Jimmy Kimmel.)
Sure, some pundits will say, "But Biden didn't answer the question, to which Joe can respond, "That charge is as false as Trump's inaugural attendance numbers."
10
Trump is modeling his government after a post-Soviet kleptocracy? Really? And it took you almost 3 years to realize this? Tell me. What was your first clue?
4
@Michael Gallagher
When did the article say it took him three years to come to this conclusion? Quick little one-sentence indictments such as your first sentence are easy “toss offs”—even if obviously true. Providing analysis and description of the very mechanism, structural similarities, and style parallels, I found very well done.
5
“I can’t believe that!” said Alice.
“Can’t you?” the queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again, draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.”
“I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll
14
Biden is “suspected”.
Trump “extorted”.
Yes, it is all your perspective, isn’t it?
What if Biden DID and the POTUS said “enough”?
Still wrong?
1
@Stuart Trump had no reason to extort Ukraine. If there was any evidence , Trump wouldn’t be trolling foreign governments to dig it up.
1
Rudy is getting ripped off. While he is stuck in cold, dreary Ukraine, Trump's other conspiracy theorists get sweet duty stations. Barr and Durham are enjoying heaps of pasta and seeing the sights in Italy, while his private eyes in Hawaii looking into Obama's birth certificate are surfing all day and trying a different hotel's luau each night. Last heard from they were wrapping up after finding "many interesting things" and waiting for the monster wave that could reveal all.
2
Conspiracy theorist will believe that this article is all a conspiracy.
3
Where Putine is a deliberate propagantist, liar, muddier of waters, Trump is a natural.
And then of course there was slavery propelling a Southern economy.
He who is without sin cast the first stone.
Liberal journalists should look deep within themselves before criticizing Putin's Russia.
Crazy Rudy’s European Tours Company. We’ll make you a Vacation you can’t refuse.
Sad.
1
I was a former Romanian Air Force pilot in my youth and escaped communism in 1981; I lived in US since although I did/do spend time in Romania.
I am visiting Romania as we speak and what I hear in regard to Trump and Putin is telling and corroborates to the gist of this article. Old friends and acquaintances see Trump as an idiot who wrecks America while Putin is the strong man, respected in Russia! I hear that democracy doesn't really work, for why is US becoming a basket case and is so divided?, and why is UK coming apart and rejects EU while Putin runs his country with a strong hand? I hear that Look!, China is strong, did you see the military parade and their new weapons, how strong Xi is?... And so on.
I hear other stories too: that Soros and his cabal are running the world, that Jews and Rothschilds control the global money, that Orban is good and Frau Merkel is bad, that immigrants from Africa and Middle East are taking over Europe and so on...
I hear my compatriots complaining about corruption in Romania and yet they too bribe when they go to various offices because otherwise they won't get the permit or whatever the "office" provides..
Putin does deserve credit for his ability to keep himself and his band of oligarchs in power while deligitimizing democracy with the littlest investment. Disinformation works, spreading rumors goes a long way, propping misfits like Trump to usurp the US Presidency brings dividends.
The world is now confusion!
We Must Dump Trump!
14
If only my great-grandparents could see America now. From Eastern European pogroms, to a nation which claims that it's a national security matter to cage migrant children.
Same as it ever was.
8
"The Kremlin couldn’t have put together a better script."
Well, who says they didn't?
6
Trump and Putin are brothers.
3
And why on earth do we give a scintilla of space to such a quack as Giuliani? Please don't let the press succumb to being carnival barkers for the biggest mouths and emptiest heads.
2
where does the New York Times find a simpleton who actually believes that Russia in the nineties was subject to any kind of democracy. Yeltsin and the US stole elections and implemented policies no one wanted or understood. Now, those same kind of hijinks have boomeranged back to us.
1
The Right conveniently misrepresents that Russia heroically entered WW11 rather than joined with Hitler to partition Poland and was then invaded by Germany.
1
Sounds just like Fox News. Don’t repeat the truth, make up the truth. As you see fit.
3
In world where institutions and government are vilified- their role as a bulwark against wanton power and exploitation weakens. The weakest in society become a scapegoat for ills caused by their accusers and the masses turn on each other in a kind of fratricide leading to dissolution and ultimately death.
Corruption is the cancer that accelerates this path to ruin and truth is a victim of the Big Lie- the latter as real now as it was in the 1930s under Hitler.
Yet in the US we still have the semblance of a democracy. And while under attack by ideologues- we have a relatively corruption free court system. We have laws that protect the rights of all citizens. However, impunity- while always present by degree, is emerging more and more as a key modus operandi. And the leader of this movement towards lawlessness is none other than the President- a dangerous, feckless coward whose only goal is survival and self-aggrandizement.
So in this context, Presidential impeachment is core to the survival of this democracy and the reign of truth. Accountability must be restored at all levels of government. The Republican majority in the Senate must be electorally removed- as they have chosen to build a state based on fiction and lies. Voter rights must be restored. And new safeguards must be put in place to protect a democracy against those that mean it harm. The reign of the wealthy and powerful over the organs of power must end.
1
Why is President Trump speaking out so weirdly? There is what he said to two foreign governments, what his statements mean, his motive for making those highly unusual statements and what he might have to give back to the foreigners.
He has asked those governments to investigate the son of an American politician. Why would he rely on foreign governments? ‘He’ employs thousands of highly experienced individuals. That is the weird thing. He presumes, it seems, that crimes of the son will convict the father. Perhaps only in the one case he mentions; we may assume that he does not intend that such an idea should be applied to his household.
His motive is that he desperately wants to claim that Biden has influence peddled, and committed other election crimes that heretofore have not been uncovered. For his purposes, his claim does not have to be true. It only needs to sound plausible. In turn he will his unproven claim to rant mightily against bad, very bad, Biden and the tribal democrats.
In both cases, Trump is indicating to the foreign governments that he will hand over the quod of a military or commercial trade deal for the quid of an investigation. In other words, Trump imagines that he can use a crude negotiating tactic to gain influence in an American election. So, the more we see of Trump, the more we see him again. He lacks a certain inventiveness.
3
Can we all please just be Americans again and have each other's back?
127
@Mixilplix
If we all got along and played by the Golden Rule, the world would be a much better place, for us. But then the politicians who use race and gender to divide us all wouldn't have a job, would they?
11
@Mixilplix
Again?
I remember when Mosques had to hire private security after 9/11 because of the incredible amount of hatred directed their way.
I remember being a kid in the 1990s seeing the flames of LA on fire on the morning news. And then again in Ferguson when I was older because racism is still the first language that millions of Americans learn to speak.
I remember watching as the Standing Rock Sioux were doused with fire hoses in sub-freezing temperatures while the state and the federal government allowed a corporation to invade the land of people who had been there for thousands of years, and plant a pipeline that carries poison.
We’ve gotta get rid of the idea that the United States was ever anything other than an empire built on the backs of oppressed people, a legacy that continues to this day.
28
@Mixilplix Yes, that sounds OK, and simple enough to understand. But it's that word "again" that many of us find repugnant. It guarantees that a significant number of Americans will be forever at the bottom of the pile... and not just in Alabama.
10
The Russians call this "disinformation," which is a strategy developed into an art form by the predecessor of Putin's FSB, Federal Security Branch, the KGB where Putin himself learned the trade craft that brought him to power and has kept him there. Unlike Russia and the Soviet Union before it free speech has yet to be suppressed here despite Trump's relentless attacks on the media as "enemies of the people" and "fake news." Disinformation needs time to work so it has to be stealthily planted something Trump and his co-conspirator, Rudy "The Mouth" Giuliani, have proven to be abject failures at doing. Immediate disproof is fatal to disinformation. Fortunately, the media has been full of reports from Trump appointees like Tom Bossert and Kurt Volker immediately calling out the attempted disinformation about a conspiracy by former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, to engage in corruption in Ukraine. So as long as the BIG LIE of the anti-Biden disinformation campaign continues to meet an immediate equally forceful BIG REJECTION, the campaign will ultimately fail, especially as more whistle-blowers and others come forward both to corroborate existing facts and also to add more to the scope of conspiracy keeping the focus where it should on the massive conspiracy by Trump, Giuliani, William Barr, Mike Pompeo, and Mike Pence and others as yet unnamed.
1
Kleptocracy is what human leaders default to when possible.
It is almost always possible.
Any nation that proudly holds on to a culture in which belief triumphs over reason, and thinks it fashionable to remain disengaged and apathetic as citizens only invites a kleptocracy as do we.
We Americans have done nothing in the previous 50 years to avoid the strangulating power of lobbyists, private and profiteering interests (see Dick Cheney); instead regarded the pillars of corruption and moral turpitude as heroes (Reagan, Bush I and II, and now Trump). We have gleefully worsened the situation.
A Tip O'Neill - who after a lifetime of public service, and as speaker of the house in a country this rich, this powerful - and dies with barely $100,000 in assets, is a rare thing in human history.
American leaders are looking like Russian and East European kleptocrats because the population is moving toward a Russian and E-Euro sensibility ("please, kill my neighbor's cow"). As them, our population is addicted to substances, filled with class envy and hatred, Xenophobia, and rich with paranoid narratives of grandeur, entitlement, and victimization.
In the coming national elections, half of those eligible will not vote, one too many will vote for third party spoilers, and most will vote for Trump not despite, but because of who he is, what he does, and promises to do to our neighbors.
We are rushing toward a kleptocracy regardless of Giuliani's invitation.
2
In Eastern European corrupt regimes, with Russia being the star, the first objective is to convince the people its inevitable; that corruption and being ruled by gangsters exists even in the west. Spreading paranoia and 'fake news' puts people to sleep. A little old fashioned cronyism and ballot stuffing, voila! they 're-elect' the crooks. Fortunately not everyone buys it, thus the demonstrations, a non-politician elected in Ukraine, Populists thrown out of Austria and Italy, and a large push back in Poland. Americans are only recently exposed to this new 'system', many are 'buying' it. This is the real danger of Trump and all his enablers. The bigger the lie, the more people accept it, especially if there is a small amount of truth inside. Trump, Putin, Bannon, Manafort, the Brexiters in UK, this is the new wave, a modern version of old propaganda. They get you to accept lies as truth, truth as lies, while stealing everything that made America great. Democratic processes have a hard time fighting this, but it can be done, please vote!
2
George Orwell's 1984 was prescient.
The date was just 35 years too early.
3
GDP (PPP) per capita growth since 1998: Russia 216%; UK 87% ; USA ? There are no Kleptocrats in the US/UK.
Guiliani is what happens when the high school drama club asks the attention-starved old principal to play Drakula and he takes it to the hilt. Go.Away.
3
I think a closer analogy is the Chicago political machine of the Democrats.
You're right, of course; but the United States has no cultural knowledge of Soviet whataboutism or its modern descendants. I'm half expecting to see political parties accuse one another of lynching black people, just to complete the cycle of Soviet propaganda reborn stateside. There was a time when the USA had proper fear of dezinformatsiya. Now, we love dezinformatsiya more than the truth.
2
Masha Gessen has been saying the same thing for years
3
Mr. Pomerantsev is one of NATO's favorite anti-Russian propagandists. His tactic is using one example to prove that someone is a liar. Then he takes a completely different subject and tells us that we would be fools to believe this liar.
As it is not hard to find something for every politician where it at least looked as if he was economical with the truth this helps Pomerantsev to turn the world into a hall of mirrors in which only people he supports can be trusted.
Ukraine Gave More Money To Clinton Foundation That Any Nation On Earth.
Obama told Biden not to run.
Do you think H. Clinton had a file on Biden and his son?
I didn't care in 2016 & I don't care now. Granted, H.Clinton is a much better political operator than Trump that's why I voted for.
Didn't care about Clinton's sexcapades.
Don't care about Trump's phone calls with Ukraine.
Like most Americans, I very much care about the Economy.
Let's keep that monster running. Anyone that wants to throw a wrench into the Economy does not get my vote.
Get this show over with Now! Focus on your Candidates. Biden is done. Sanders is done. Focus on Warren or Buttiege. Or pull somebody off the bench but end the clown show.
5
It all makes sense, but why? I understand Trump is nakedly greedy and self-serving, but why would former American "heroes" like Guiliani and Barr (okay not in my book, but in the books of many), prostitute themselves this way? Is it only greed on their part? Where they radicalized by Fox news and the thought of a majority minority country? Is it relevance?
2
Eastern Europe .. Isn't that where the Vampires originate from?
4
Finally here is someone who understands how deeply diabolical people like Rudolph Giuliani and Donald Trump are. We are now looking at the lowest of the low – this is a new precedent for how odious and nefarious people in politics today can actually be .
The only antidote to this bunch of despicable liars is the truth - and the truth is coming, and they’re going to have to swallow it whether they like it or not.
1
Nihilism has taken over the republican party and their followers. Searching for the truth means little to people who have decided, in their bitterness, that life means nothing.
Religion is dead in the lives of most people. There are fascist religious, but that is really about nihilism--life is meaningless, heaven awaits.
Scientists like Dawkins and Sam Harris don't help either, claiming that religious belief (that life is beyond the material) is stupidity and that science has all the answers.
So God is dead and we make our own meaning. The republicans have given up. Of course so has Putin, who was probably always been an embittered thug wanting the world to burn.
But people want to care, they need to care. The Democrats have to give them something ennobling to care about and they will wash Putin, trump and republicans away.
1
Thank the Harvard and Chicago business schools!
1
One of Russia's most successful disinformation campaigns and one that coexisted with the Kremlin's plan to elect Donald Trump involved a U.S. military exercise called "Jade Helm 15."
The focal point was the Jade Helm 15 military training exercise that took place in multiple U.S. states in the summer of 2015, starting on July 15 and ending on September 15.
In response, right-wing media, in all likelihood fed by Russia's GRU and FSB, spun conspiracy theories about an Obama Administration plot to overthrow the government of Texas, using abandoned Wal-Mart warehouses and rail cars. The conspiracy theory was so successful that it caused hostile town hall meetings from citizens demanding "the truth" about the military exercise. This showed that Russia could convert Texas' rabidly pro-military mindset into anti-military paranoia. The plot, promoted by Alex Jones, Breitbart and Trump's future security chief, caused such a stir that Gov. Greg Abbott issued a press release stating that he was monitoring the exercises with an eye toward protecting Texas from a federal takeover.
Based on what we know now, this was clearly a Russian test case on how much power it could exert through social media. It appeared to be a total success, leading to the placement of Putin's Puppet in the White House.
8
This essay changes my world view. I had thought the mechanism at work was a retreading of the Big Lie. But now I see that we have moved beyond that. It is not an issue of saying things so outlandish and repeating them so often that they become taken as truth. It is saying so many things that are outlandish that it eliminates the concept of truth.
4
@Jan
Extremely well summarized. Thank you.
Several of my friends are drawn into conspiracy thinking bordering on paranoid psychosis, but they don't realize it. Once the faith in mainstream media and social mechanics is lost, any youtube or facebook channel becomes the reality. It may be religious, pseudo-political or anti-scientific. The basic pattern is similar. I know fewer people worth talking to with every passing day.
4
I remember many conservatives in the 1980s criticizing the rise of "moral relativism."
Where are they today? Now they embrace this. Whatever they say is true. Repeat it many times and it becomes even more true. The truth is socially constructed. Alternative facts.
3
What the author is describing is not just the failure of two competing systems of governance but the rise of totalitarianism in the midst of weakening economic and social norms. What he describes as “democratic capitalism” is the inevitable endpoint of an economics driven theology where the naive assumptions of a moral compass underlying human motives is shattered and replaced by despotism.
Conspiracy theories thrive in an environment rife with fear and insecurity. It takes a Machiavellian world view to exploit those weaknesses and we have it in Trump and his self appointed co-conspirators.
Like Pompeo and Pence, religious fanaticism and the disruption of and co-option of private norms, like freedom of religion, ones sexual preferences or the right to choose, encompasses the Totalitarian’s playbook, which makes America’s crisis even more alarming.
3
Sounds about right.
1
Excellent writing.
1
Let's see: Which came first?
Test Question #1: Did (a) Hunter Biden land (coming out of nowhere) a cushy job (prior to 2016) on a Ukrainian oil and gas company? OR (b) Did President Trump's looking into it (in 2019) come first?
Test Question #2: Did (a) the Clinton 2016 Campaign pay for the discredited Steele Dossier, assembled by a former British spy, sourcing misinformation from Moscow? OR (b) Did President Trump's looking into it (in 2019) come first?
Test Question #3: Did (a) the Obama Administration condone/accept/authorize the FISA applications in 2016 that led to domestic spying on Carter Page? OR (b) Did President Trump's looking into it (in 2019) come first?
Mr. Pomerantsev believes that the correct answer to all 3 questions is (a), justifying his description of the Trump Adminstration as a kleptocracy. There are many who would pick (b) as the correct assessment. It would be nice if the NY Times could publish (as an experiment in Balance) an opinion piece by someone who disagrees with Mr. Pomerantsev, based on (b) being the correct answer to each of the above-noted Test Questions.
@Maurice Gatien
If Mr. Trump is so interested in fighting corruption, why did he not look into the Bidens three years ago? Why do the only people he wants to investigate for corruption happen to be his political rivals? Why are Ivanka, Jared, and Don Jr. flying around the world at taxpayer expense to benefit their personal business interests?
6
@Maurice Gatien
I’m sorry—maybe I’m the only reader too dense to follow your logic. Wouldn’t those who think “B” came first actually agree with Mr. Pomerantsev, including with his indictment of the Trump regime as a “Kleptocracy”? Whereas those who choose “a” would be more prone to believe that Trump’s investigations of the Biden’s, the Steele Dossier, and government spying on Carter Page justify Trump’s conduct—indeed put such investigations in the arenas of transparency and anti-corruption?
2
This is one of the most important articles I have read in more than three years — in terms of explaining where we (denizens of the international political world) are, and how we got here.
“The media manipulation of the early Putin years didn’t try to convince you of a fabricated version of “truth.” Instead, it worked by seeding doubt and confusion, evoking a world so full of endlessly intricate conspiracies that you, THE LITTLE GUY, had no chance to work out or change. Instead of conspiracy theories being used to merely buttress an ideology as under Communist rule,
a conspiratorial worldview REPLACED ideology as a way to explain the world,
encouraging the public to trust nothing and yearn for a strong leader to guide it through the murk — a tactic that’s as common in Washington these days as in Moscow.”
Seeing everything you don’t like as being the result of a tangled web of conspiracies is much easier, too. It frees you from having to read The New York Times and Foreign Affairs as you attempt to apply critical thinking to the chore of understanding the chaos around us, known as life.
It explains a lot about the 2016 election. It’s the script Russian trolls followed on social media. Hillary Clinton tries to explain policy and programs. Trump shouts, “LOCK HER UP!!”
3
What the author is describing is not just the failure of two competing systems of governance but the rise of totalitarianism in the midst of weakening economic and social norms. What he describes as “democratic capitalism” is the inevitable endpoint of an economics driven theology where the naive assumptions of a moral compass underlying human motives is shattered and replaced by despotism.
Conspiracy theories thrive in an environment rife with fear and insecurity. It takes a Machiavellian world view to exploit those weaknesses and we have it in Trump and his self appointed co-conspirators.
Like Pompeo and Pence, religious fanaticism and the disruption of and co-option of private norms, like freedom of religion, ones sexual preferences or the right to choose, encompasses the Totalitarian’s playbook, which makes America’s crisis even more alarming.
1
Masha Gessen has been saying this for years.
Author could have referenced her, at very least
2
@Leonick, at the very least, you could have taken this opportunity to introduce Gessen and explain what she has been saying. Not everyone knows of her.
The existential reality of the Trump administration is that it is simply a schoolyard gang of bullies.
No one in the Senate classroom stands up to them.
Romney may be showing some backbone, but he has not gone far enough.
We need to get our collective act together and take these bullies down!
1
I am wondering why Barr is taking his deep state conspiracy theories and travels to other countries. Perhaps it’s a little more than hunting for dirt on his political rival. Hasn’t the president been known for getting his people to search for his own dirt and “killing” the stories with payoff before they become public. Humm … a strange idea for a strange time.
1
"To expect bad men not to do wrong is madness, for he who expects this desires an impossibility. But to allow men to behave so to others, and to expect them not to do you any wrong, is irrational and tyrannical."
- The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Welcome to the word of Donald Trump and his sycophants.
1
I wonder if Trump realizes that Putin’s blackmail campaign used to control him will eventually be made public. And that his place in history and that of his children and children’s children will be one of the first American president and fist family compromised by a hostile foreign power.
Try as he will to bury this, it will come out. Russian is a corrupt nation and so someone for money or power or fame, who has access to Putin’s files on Trump, will leak them. Perhaps even Putin himself.
It may take years, but it will happen. And The Trump name will go down in history as an unprecedented villain or fool or both.
2
The merchants of despair have robbed us of faith: faith that we can do better; faith that we can trust each other; faith that we can have government that serves the needs of its citizens and not just its office holders and their masters.
They don't have to be smarter or stronger than us - they just have to convince us to abandon hope. Monica Potts commentary in the NY Times "In the Land of Self-Defeat" shows us how it works in practice.
https://nyti.ms/2IpVNmd
1
There are people you know in your daily life who are always trying to “get over.” Putin and Trump are those type of guys, too. These guys’ consistent strategy, whether with their women or their constituents, is to always muddy the waters. If accused, they lie and deny. If you prove they did it, they accuse you of doing the same thing or something equally bad. They proudly call themselves players, and those who point out their lies are called haters.
2
Well said. Beautifully written!
1
In today's mass readings Jesus explains how truth is " hidden … from the wise and the learned … [and] … revealed … to the childlike." The passage was part of Jesus's response to his disciples’ expression of gratitude for their newfound ability to chase out demons. What does a childlike perspective have to do with demons, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Rudy Giuliani?
All three men are Christians accused of being demonic by their opposition. The wise and the learned are fooled but not the childlike, because children are not jaded by a false (political) narrative from the left or the right.
The Christian solution is to open minds and change people. There is hope for Trump, Putin and Giuliani (and the rest of us) because faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains and chase a few demons.
Partisans on both sides invent conspiracy theories because it is easy to see the fault of others. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/05/opinion/sunday/pompeo-trump.html#commentsContainer&permid=102932532:102932532 In truth, all sides are flawed.
Mr. Trump has learned in office and is a better man than he was in his playboy years. Mr. Putin has acted with much self-control and reason when compared with his predecessors and worse dictators in this world. Mr. Giuliani is a good attorney with political savvy that wouldn’t hurt a fly (that didn’t deserve it). Like it or not, a personal attorney for the president is not limited by the rules that restrict government employees.
1
Yes it’s brilliant and intriguing but comes up with a nonsequitur at the end. The US is not collapsed (nor the West) but fixing itself. Clearly the Trump vision is accurately reported but it sounds very much Putinist to say as the author does voila it’s all equal. Because clearly unless you are only watching right wing media you know the US system is kinda working.
Yes, Putin has won in terms of undermining trust in Western Democracies like ours. But how on earth did he accomplish this: the share of Republicans who view Russia as an ally has doubled since 2014 to 40 percent.
https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/397239-polling-editor-increased-support-for-russia-among-republicans
Our principled, conservative Republican friends are taking us all along for the ride.
So essentially what we see in America isn't embracing the draining of the swamp, it's building as many swamps as possible and telling the American public to pick one. I see your corruption and I raise you a special counsel investigation AND and an impeachment inquiry. Is there any turning back? Trump, in other words, is Putin 2.0. If that is the case, please, please don't try and have him ride a horse without a shirt. Oh, never mind, he will tell his base how fit and svelte he is. And they will believe that as well.
This is an excellent essay and has caused me to search out Mr. Pomerantsev's other works. His description of Putin is word for word a perfect description of Trump, except our Donnie isn't as smart as Vlad. Giuliani is simply a shrieking madman given credence by Fox News and thus in charge of what passes for brainwork in the current White House.
I can only wish that this article were wrong. But when I see so many voters snowed under by the silly conspiracy theories Trump is furthering, I realize the article is not exaggerating the threat. Yet I don't see how people can be foolish enough to be manipulated by the mongering of conspiracy theories. One does not have to be that well educated to see that Trump is spinning lies.
Guiliani needs to show us his taxes..........and those of his Law
Firm.......both of which should be investigated.
The republicans could do with some philosophical education. Maybe Chidi Anagonye is free?
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
Are we truly "all post-Soviet now?" If so we are also truly lost for the foreseeable future. Certainly we all seem to be hanging suspended is a miasma of persistent mendacity where belief and principle are nothing but quaint artifacts for the powerless rabble of suckers.
Here, in the US and I daresay in Britain as well, politics on the right seem pursued only by progressiveness to be obstructed, hopes denied and vision so thoroughy blinkered as to be legally blind. "No" to healthcare; "No" to European cohesion; "No" mutual security; "No" to science, "No" even to constitutional tradition, but "Yes" to tribalism, division, rage and lies, all for no discernible purpose beyond pure personal greed.
Unfettered gun possession is deemed sacred in a culture of mass carnage while a woman's right to control the destination of her own body is discarded with hypocritical sanctimony.
Mr. Pomerantsov's op-ed enlightens as far as it goes, but what are the root causes of our post-Soviet dyspepsia? What must we do to prevent a full-circle return to the murderous muck of fascism?
1
Is this some kind of joke? Are we to take this claim of West's inherent and eternal commitment to truth seriously? Are we to believe that it was Trump who single-handedly and recently destroyed that iddilic realm of truthfulness with his exceptional mendacity? Are we to ignore all the crimes commited and the lies told by the West long before the Trump residency was even an idea? Of course, the Russians are right. The West is just as bad. It was always just as bad. It was much worse, in fact, exactly because its lies and violence were so much more shameless and self-serving. Mr. Pomerantsev is either a naive self-hating Russian immigrant or worse a seasoned propagandist, in which case this column is just another of the West's many shameless lies.
1984 arrived, 35 years later.
@C. Spearman
As I recall it 1984 officially arrived on January 20 1981
He had been using double speak and the rest of the tactics of authoritarians getting more sophisticated and better at it when he starter running for president since 1968.
1
but I am not worried. the fundamentals in western democracy is more resilient than Russia's - an economy smaller than New York state, manufactures nothing of economic value, declining demographics, increasing emigration, resource rich so commodity cursed economy, in short Putin and his cronies are running out of time no matter how much they interfere, distract, detract and misinform their own population, I predict a violent downfall for this puny nasty little man
There was a time when Britain and most of the world looked to bring hope to a troubled world threatened by
fascism. But who can we in America who are threatened by Trump's form of fascism now look to? Trump says look to the Kremlin, to the Chinese and even lowly struggling Ukraine for the truth and justice. Trump is not only a fascist, but a cowardly one who takes no responsibility for any thing he does. And with this he opens our country to chaos and the influence of foreign powers. Who will stand up to this cowardly bully? Someone must or we are tryuy lost.
2
Trump is no Putin, thankfully. Putin is a smart, well trained expert in what he does. Trump is an amateur in what he does and basically feeds on his base’s indifference to any facts that’s don’t align with their sordid world view. Thank the heavens Trump does not control the media, like Putin does, except perhaps the opinion wing of Fox.
Why did so many of us decide to support and Vote for the Worst President in American History ? Worse still..how can there still be any Trump support at all at this point? There is an entire Fox Nation of Deluded Americans enabling all this nonsense. The News cycles have been filled with all this since the Primaries. What a waste of time and taxpayer dollars. What has taken so long for public outrage to react to all this? Do Barr,the GOP,and Fox Nation really believe all this delusion...or do they just have an agenda? Barr and Fox managed to distort Mueller's findings so well that many think Mueller found nothing and it was a waste. Mueller had to come and testify disputing Barr's analysis..for whatever good that did to convince Fox Nation. For years now we have been absorbed with all this. It has weakened our Democracy and our standing in the world. Thankfully the Majority of American Voters as well as non Voters alike have been able to see through all this. If Shawn Spicer were an honest person he would now say...Worst President and Administration in American History...Period !!
"If you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything."
Trump supporters, take note.
1
It has only been 2400 years since Diogenes was born in the Ukraine and we are still looking for an honest man. Diogenes showed us the necessity of committing to living in a tub, eating table scraps, and being a dog as the prerequisite to truth.
There is a town in Poland called Chelm but the Chelm of Jewish Folklore is the very heart of the Pale of Settlement. I don't know how many times I have heard today's political behaviour referred to as beyond the Pale or how many time the word mishigas used in reference to today's Washington but before anything else faces impeachment let us make clear these things. Ukraine is not Beyond the Pale it is the heart and soul of the Pale. Chelm is in Poland our Jewish Chelm is everywhere it is in Jerusalem, New York, LA, Moscow, Beijing, London, Montreal, Washington and everywhere else. When we look around we see our Sages in charge. There is no English translation of mishegas but if we must know what it means; it means the wise men of Chelm are in charge.
Here in Canada we see ourselves as one of the remaining places we can still speak the truth. When we cross the border my wife begs me to keep my mouth shut. Here in Canada our leader is a 16 year old girl with autism from Sweden who speaks English from her heart and soul to our heart and soul. There is no United States of America, we are all one and in the words of Tom Lehrer; We will all go together when we go.
1
"The message of much of Kremlin propaganda is not to showcase Russia as a beacon of progress, but to prove that Western politics is just as rotten as President Vladimir Putin’s."
With the substitution of just a few words, this perfectly describes trump's modus operandi. The most corrupt individual that ever occupied his office now has the gall to claim that his only aim in the Ukraine is to root out corruption and that it only involves a Biden by coincidence.
21:05 EDT, 10/05
People keep saying how smart Mike Pompeo is - I guess Harvard Law School didn't put the Constitution on his required reading list.
2
This eerily spot-on analysis calls to mind Bill O’Reilly interviewing Trump, challenging the latter’s affection for Putin, a “killer”. Trump’s response was, “You think we’re so innocent? There are a lot of killers,” drawing an immoral equivalence between America and Russia, suggesting we are just as bad. This creepy remark, among countless other Trump expressions and behaviors, gives the lie to his “America first” malarkey, clearly demonstrating that our country’s interests are the last thing Trump ever had or has on his mind. In fact, as evidenced by Mr. Pomerantsev’s incisive essay, it’s one of many examples that show he is far less interested in looking out for our nation than he is in doing Putin’s Orwellian bidding. From Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts” to Howdy Rudy’s “truth is not truth,” we are, with this swamping-the-drain crew, truly through the gas-lighting looking glass.
That Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani are the current "face" of the United States is truly humiliating. Two peas in a (large) pod. No wonder the world is laughing at our "exceptionalism."
1
How do rid ourselves of Republicans; forever?
1
"The Kremlin couldn’t have put together a better script."
That sentence presumes that the Kremlin did not put together
this script.
As a long time student of Soviet and post-Soviet politics, I have hated Donald Trump since the cursed day he descended that golden staircase of deceit and skullduggery, slouching toward the White House, waiting to be born, to paraphrase Yeats. Precisely because he’s a mini-me, wannabe Putin, he must be impeached. We must collectively say back to both — no, you’re wrong, we actually live in a world that has always been filled with clear choices of right and wrong. Claiming otherwise does not make it so — that’s the ultimate fake news.
1
So much about the Trump administration seems pulled from the playbook of a post-Soviet kleptocracy.
But is the US all that different ? You do not have to read further, than today's New York Times
"Top Biden Donors Gather Amid Storm Clouds Over Campaign"
It is the Uber Rich that decide on Joe Biden's fate, not the American voter
Again , NOT the American voter.
This is alarming, if you believe in Democracy
In Russia they call the Uber Rich the oligarchs , in the NY Times they Russian Uber Rich the kleptocracy, but the bottom line is always the same
The very, very rich decide who can run for office
The philosophy of our Founders was based on the Enlightenment.
Sadly, we are descending into the new Dark Ages.
3
Every time I'm talking to a reasonable person that says something like "I don't know what to believe anymore," I worry that the conspiracy peddlers are clearly winning.
Every time I hear a journalist, or a comedian for that matter, treat Trump and Co.'s latest conspiratorial stance as mere idiocy, I worry that even those trying to defend reason and truth have fallen credulously into the trap.
Why was the batch of conspiracy theory clippings sent to Pompeo treated by the media, including the NYT, as a nothing-burger ("Impeachment Bombshell That Wasn’t" 10/2/19)? Clearly someone in the intelligence community saw it as much more grave. The permeation of Putin-style conspiracism into our government really should be treated with a great deal more gravity. Reason and truth don't always win by default.
3
Reminds me of a prediction made over 20 years ago by the philosopher Richard Rorty:
At that point, something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking for a strongman to vote for — someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots.
This is the environment within which despots and strongmen are cultivated. Those with power prey upon the people’s observation that they are being left behind or left out altogether. But hegemony helps construct an environment where the wrong things and people are to blame to distract from the reality that plutocracy, oligarchy, or tyranny is to blame.
2
One silver lining: Ukraine's President Zelensky seems to have come out ok, so far. Missile delivery has been resumed and it would be difficult/impossible for Trump to cut it off again.
My one question point is why Zelensky seconded Trump's denigration of our career ambassador. Was it because he figured she could take care of herself and he could do some good for his country by agreeing to Trump's nasty characterization of her.
Too bad Zelensky had to deal with US crazies. But we had the missiles and he needed them. He got them. He did a good job for his country, in my opinion.
DON’T BELIEVE YOUR LYING EYES: UKRAINE-GATE EDITION
While Trump is famously resistant to learning anything from anyone, it is astonishing to see what an excellent student of Putinism he has become. The scandal of the moment illustrates this well.
Clearly, the raison d’être of Trump’s White House political SWAT team is to insulate the President from the consequences of his actions and attack critics. Why, then, would they ever allow the partial transcript, which so nakedly revealed his shakedown of the Ukrainian leader, to be made public? Equally baffling is their continuing insistence that this document actually exonerates him, the same strategy employed following the release of the similarly incriminating Mueller report.
In my view, what this reflects is the regime’s confidence in its ability to rewrite reality, and by extension, its belief in the Republican base’s dependable credulity. Until now, White House confidence in post-truth pixie dust has been justified. Trump supporters have predictably followed the mandate of their leader to mistrust what they see and hear and to use the President’s everchanging and incoherent utterances as their compass through the world. It’s not clear if that will change. Our only hope is that Trump and his enablers have overplayed their hand, at least with those voters who may not yet be members of the reality-based community but who might be, at minimum, reality-curious.
4
I grew up in a home led by an alcoholic father. Life was often chaotic. Yet, I remember clearly thinking as a young boy that as long as I could find the truth and hold onto it there would be a way out of the lies, half truths, and confusion sowed by a mentally ill father medicating himself with alcohol.
The chances of Trump and his cult-like followers gaslighting me are next to nil. I fought too hard to find and embrace the truth to give it up to a narcissistic, mentally ill president. My concern lies with the millions who don't have the time or education to see through the massive social media blitz propagated so skillfully by the president, FOX News, and the zombie-like Republican Party.
Rudy Giuliani is the perfect poster boy to explain why Trumpian methods are so effective. Like my father, Mr. Giuliani is a complex mixture of goodness, lies, truthfulness, likeableness, repulsiveness, etc. Read C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters" and you will find that the most effective way to steer people away from the light is to distract with a mixture of truth and shiny objects. These methods are even more effective if the propagandist has convinced themselves that 'all' of what they are saying is true.
The 'answer' to Trump lies in embracing our own truths and a willingness to understand the truth of others. If we can do this our democracy can be preserved. If not, we can multiply the fruits of Eastern Europe that are already being reaped on our southern border.
1
This piece should be required reading for all GOP Members of Congress, Fox News & Facebook employees many of whom are too young to have experienced the Soviet and post-Soviet era. Trafficking in conspiracy theories has devastating consequences. They need to ask themselves whether their paychecks justify the destruction of oursemicracy.
2
This was enlightening and terrifying.
At 63, I'm beginning to think the worst about our country. I fear that the America of Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, et al, is coming to an end.
There's a constant 40% that thinks this president and his lies, and his supporters fawning (or looking at their shoes), is doing the right thing and whatever he does is A-Ok.
The Democrats are going to split themselves up again and allow Trump to be re-elected. Bernie could do the right thing and drop out after his heart attack, then support Warren; and she would rise to the top. But the Biden folks will stay home and...another 45 term which will bring an end to democracy as we know it.
I don't see a positive end to this.
One point that has been under appreciated in all this distracting Trump noise is that there is a way for the Democrats to win big. That would be for Mr. Biden to withdraw from consideration in the interest of party unity and a clean slate. His son's employment in Ukraine whether legal or not is so unseemly a stain on him that even he should be able to see the great service he can render his party and our once-great nation. Do the right thing Joe and help us take the party back from the feckless DNC!
4
Winter is coming and there's no end in sight. We're being buried in a blizzard of lies. Why is malicious misinformation so effective in these times? I keep coming back to a thought that really scares me: in this age of bottomless appetite for passive entertainment- the television civilization- what matters now is not whether something is true or false, but rather whether it is entertaining or boring. I fear that too many people have lost the capacity to do anything with their mental faculties but consume entertainment.
Remember, Donald Trump loves the poorly educated.
1
Citizens of the truth, unite — we have nothing to lose but our blinders!
At least since Kant, we’ve recognized that we can’t know “the thing in itself.” This however, does not mean we are incapable of coming close to it. In our daily lives most of us are clear about 90% of the things 90% of the time (give or take a percent).
This opinion piece is excellent, but we can reject a future where disinformation is the norm. We must do so to survive together.
Thank you, NYT, for pushing us toward the truth, at least what is mainly the truth.
Trump has always been corrupt - this is not a surprise. What's astounding is the apparent intimacy between Trump's minions and the Russian oligarchs. It is not an encounter between two contrasting ideologies - democracy and liberalism on one hand versus an authoritarian police state on the other, but a meeting between like-minded crooks. The ease with which Trump's allies in Congress and the administration betrayed the cornerstone values the US shows they were never committed to these values, and that their swear of allegiance to the constitution was insincere. Once this nightmare ends, everyone who has facilitates Trump, all the way from the Senate to the Department of Justice, including those in jail, should be banned from all positions of power. If that sounds like a purge, you got the message!
It seems that Putin planted the seeds, and Trump tended the garden of deceit, doubt, and corruption - invasive species that threaten our democracy. That the majority of Republicans embrace this "president", who proved even before the electoral college placed him in the White House that he was a stranger to the truth and unafraid to lie to defend himself (or for no reason at all) makes the GOP complicit in Putin's plot to divide and conquer America. Well done, Mr. Putin. Shame on the GOP. And wake up, America, and weed out the blight in the White House before it's too late.
1
Giuliani is the Trumpian version of the Superman comics' Mr. Mxyzptlk who lives in a fifth dimension and disrupts all that is normal and right. His primary role is to create maximum diversion and confusion among the electorate, to deflect what's rotten in this regime. So far, it's working too well.
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And he practically admitted as much in a FoxNews interview I forced myself to watch in the past couple of days. He basically said he’s here to create chaos.
15
This is an excellent essay but it is chilling to read as an American. Yes, we are in an epistemological crisis and the idea is to kill truth. The Republican Party has the perfect propaganda tools: Twitter, radio, hate jocks and Fox News. David Frum was correct: before abandoning Conservatism, which is a hollow shell of what it used to represent, they will abandon Democracy. Lie, obfuscate, spin, double down. These are dark days but I fear, the worst is yet to come.
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@Mary Jane Timmerman
And have you seen the donald's ads? On CBS this morning was a doozy.
11
@Mary Jane Timmerman - As it typically happens with new technology, government is the last to realize the scope and ramifications. In the case of social media, they were woefully unprepared for what is now happening. They really needed to recognize that "fake news" and conspiracies could be come a very serious problem and provide legal governance on major social media platforms to effectively police it. It's also a double-edged sword--while a "Truth Police" can be a sensible tool to keep media outlets like Fox News spreading lies, it can also dangerously hamper free speech. We need the best & brightest to come up with a solution, but that will only happen with the right administration. In Trump's world, it would NEVER happen.
12
@Mary Jane Timmerman
David Frum was correct: before abandoning Conservatism, which is a hollow shell of what it used to represent, they will abandon Democracy
That has already happened in states like Wisconsin and N Carolina where they haven't accept the results of a democrat governor winning the election. Elections have consequences only if they win.
20
Mr. Pomerantsev is the Tocqueville of the early twenty-first century. It is helpful to have a look from the outside to see the pathology that most Americans are unable to recognize for what it is.
484
For the record. I recognize the pathology and I was born and raised here. That said, I hear you on the Tocqueville comparison.
11
Experts on the Russian experience, like this author, certainly can provide very useful perspectives on what the Trumpists are doing and why they are so effective. (Possibly that is because
they are explicitly following Russian instructions, but that is not known.) However we should not go to them for suggested cures. 'Ideology' as the term is usually used, refers to a set of rigid political beliefs usually imposed in an authoritarian manner. What we need are clearly articulated social goals and a vigorous, data based and democratically resolved debate about how to achieve them. The results will be better if the citizenry is better informed, and part of our current dilema arises because the education system has been allowed to become corrupted and weakened by
a maldistribution of resources and attacks from both the left and right. Nevertheless, as several commenters have noted, there are some hopeful signs, including the 2018 congressional elections and the rising candidacy of Elizabeth Warren.
2
This is one of the best essays about our current political situation that I've ever read. Thank you, Mr. Pomerantsev.
To add to his already eloquent essay, if you believe something that is not falsifiable (any evidence presented against your belief is either not enough proof or is fake), or a lack of evidence is further proof of what you believe (it's a cover-up), you believe a conspiracy theory, whether you're on the left or right. This is exactly the situation with Vice President Biden and his son.
We are living in an epistemological crisis, where people don't know how to ascertain facts and truth. It's one reason why we need to study subjects like philosophy, rhetoric, and history, and why those in power don't want people to study them.
633
"We need to study subjects like philosophy, rhetoric, and history." Don't think so. I think that's what got us into this mess.
@jrinsc I would say the main thing that needs to be studied from an early age is the scientific method and critical thinking. But I agree also that philosophy, rhetoric and history are very important.
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@Marshall J. Gruskin
Au contraire, mon ami. A study of philosophy can help us understand the moral dilemmas that confront us, and provide us with options to help deal with them. Likewise, a study of rhetoric can give us an understanding of words and the meanings behind them. As for history, Santayana pretty much summed it up.
41
Excellent insights and analysis Peter. A welcome set of insights on politicians motivated solely by self interest and cynicism and the accumulation of power and wealth. Sad but true and I do wonder and worry if any of the values of the enlightenment that seemingly led the US and the West for so long are gone. Quaint concepts pursued by naifs and fools living in a world of grifters large and small.
3
I have a different concern about the Internet.
Shutting down the Internet has now become a common practice in countries facing upsurges demanding freedom, justice, an end to corruption and an end to the government that perpetuates it.
Does anyone doubt, in this historical context, that Trump would claim some kind of national emergency as he gets cornered by more & more whistleblowers, and shut down the Internet? This is not hyperbole or paranoia.
Does anyone doubt that he is capable of doing that?
1
Peter Pomerantsev (grandson of the famous author V. Pomerantsev who wrote the Soviet anti-Stalinist essay "On Sincerity in Literature" in the early 1950s?) is the best analyst so far of this remarkable and lethal phenomenon in media manipulation. I just taught his earlier book "Nothing is true and everything is possible" in my college history class "Technology, propaganda and culture in Russian history." Well worth a read; my students were blown away and it has helped them immensely to understand the same emerging phenomenon in our own media, especially as fostered by Rupert Murdoch.
6
Capitalism has not collapsed, per se, but it's certainly going in that direction unless we do a major course correction soon that rebuilds the American middle class. The election of authoritarians like Trump is just the start, the canary in the coal mine.
11
@JS Unfortunately, I believe we've segued from capitalism to kleptocracy.
What the author describes is an ancillary consequence of climate change. Humans are "heating up" and adding significantly to the amount of hot air hovering over our planet.
3
I think we are getting closer to realizing the great dilemmas the corruption and crimes of Trump pose.
The right does not trust the intelligence agencies and the Democratic congressmen to investigate Trump. So, with the election close to one year away, Republicans say, let the voters determine Trump's fate. Do not preempt Trump and his electorate to three years (like McConnell essentially did to Obama by impeding Obamba's SCOTUS pick, and subsequently giving cover to "principled" Republicans to vote for Trump).
And the left, seeing how the information environment can be so easily manipulated and propagandized, with "truth" determined by who is telling it, is leery of defaulting, entirely, to the electoral college, with ineffective guards on the rigging. And with the strongly justified threat, after three years of Trump, that the country would not endure four more years of the sickness of Trump's winning.
9
Thank you for this excellent analysis.
I will add that the internet is an essential tool in how this misinformation and the seeds of doubt are propagated. There are countless positive impacts of the internet, but this essay points out its dark side.
Today, anyone can say anything, and that information can be copied nearly for free and spread around the world at the speed of light. Prior to the internet, it was expensive to publish and spread information (through books, physical newspapers, television, and so forth). As such, most information was carefully curated and edited before distribution to the public.
Even my comment here is an example of this. 25 years ago, I would have had to write this as a letter to the editor and physically mail it to the NY Times, where it likely would not have been chosen for publication.
14
The author confuses the US "vision of capitalism " with that in Canada and the EU, and presents us with a false dichotomy between the ideology of the former Soviet Union and the the troubled current US system.
There are other models and other systems, and the people living under them rate their happiness and quality of life higher than the rest of the world's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report#2018_report).
9
The current state of affairs, where false is true and no one cares anyway, is the result of our throwing out the concepts of honesty and values and honor, exchanging them for greed. We are suffering now because our greed blinded us to the better aspects of our national character.
17
Compare Netanyahu doing an end around Obama and addressing congress and the American electorate prior to an election... to Trump moving the embassy to Jerusalem or promising a USA Israel joint defense agreement(depending on the election results)immediately prior to an Israeli election. Same behavior. Now compare these actions to Russia's intervention in our 2016 elections or Trumps invitations to Ukraine and China to play the same dirty game. Same Same Same.
11
There’s no need to compare with Netanyu who is personally objectionable but politically has been saving his country from terrorism and war. You omitted comparisons with despots such as NK, Chinese, Venezuela leaders. I can only think of one reason for this double standard.
1
The old Soviet propaganda machine produced a monolithic version of the state's idea of truth, which was then policed to ensure strict adherence. The new Russian model, orchestrated by Putin deputy Vladislav Surkov (a former theatre director), overwhelms resistance by constantly producing multiple, often contradictory, versions of reality. The sheer volume of disinformation confuses and disorients the citizenry.
Does any of this sound familiar?
13
So much cleaner than flying airliners into tall buildings.
With more devastating effect.
I want my country back.
25
“But without an ideology that looks toward the future, there are no goals of progress. Instead of offering a coherent vision for the future, you peddle in nostalgia; you explain the world not through ideas but conspiracies.”
Indeed. And that is why “big structural change” as a rallying cry is working for me and many other emerging Elizabeth Warren supporters.
17
So as we watch, the Trump administration systematically dismantles the very foundations of democracy: the free press, our judicial system, public education, the right to vote & the three branches of government. He is as unaccountable now as he has been his entire life because he doesn’t understand any other way to be. The only consistent aspect of this presidency is chaos that eventually wears down our resistance until we’re no longer able to tell up from down. Mission accomplished.
10
No, sir, we are not all “post-Soviet” now. The battle raging in America today is whether to accept the post-Soviet, Putinesque machinations of Trump or to reclaim the presidency (and thereby the country) for honesty, decency and a government of laws and not men. We are all post-Soviet now? No, sir. Not by a long shot.
13
It seems we have arrived at this stage in the history of this world not with greater understanding, or actually any understanding at all, but we begin to see ourselves somewhat like we view those animals that eat their young.
We are becoming so insular that we are believing anybody that proceeds with and heralds bombast. We are "shouting" everyday. We don't talk to each other and we only listen to the loudest voices. Our next step is to become uncivilized. Once we hit that bottom people won't even go to football games to watch the game, but only to see who can yell louder than the other guy. Let's acknowledge we have lost the race - the human race - and collectively and collaboratively start rebuilding civilization for the ignored children of the world and those yet unborn
3
@Tom osterman the ruling class has failed to fulfill its obligations.
I woke up this morning with an old nursery rhyme in my head:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the King's Horses and all
the King's Men couldn't put
Humpty Dumpty together again.
4
Yes, Trump was voted into power by disparate groups who lost out in the newly globalized world and alarmed by the hordes of immigrants invading their way of life.
Nothing has changed in this regard since that election and no manner of argument will hold sway over these people who are voting their self interest.
6
@Linus or actually against their self interest because of their abject ignorance.
The same people pitching the Trump conspiracies and denying his malfeasance are the same ones that condemned Obama for:
1. Getting rid of Churchill’s bust this alienating our allies;
2. Wearing a tan suit;
3. Using a selfies stick.
But Trump is just fine.
6
@Andy Makar
Dijon mustard....don't forget the Dijon mustard. What kind of 'Merican uses Dijon mustard?
1
We are not all Soviet now as the author mention, they’ re are still peoples for whom legally responsible politics is the right way of doing things. If you decide to follow the path of corruption it will get back at you, it’s a question of time, the crooks will be judged and sentenced because in the end no one wants to live in fear.
2
This is actually a fairly serious point. There is a tendency to copy one's enemies. Once upon a time we wanted to be social democrats. Are we now becoming czarist autocrats? It isn't as crazy as it seems.
1
Very needed article for the American voters to digest. Why was it so easy for many to see through the Trump's rhetoric during his campaign while others were so taken in with his pomposity.
Putin is reveling in his joy at not only interfering with our 2016 election and the advantage it gave to Trump, but perhaps even more so, the divisiveness, the chaos, and the losses we, as a country, have already lost with trump at the helm. Our place in the world has diminished; we are no longer the leader of the free world. Just pause for minute and see what Trump has done on the world stage.
Trump's presence in our day to day lives has caused much turmoil. Our sense of who we are as Americans as we see desperate people at our southern borders suffering and even dying because of a policy that is so un-American. He is destroying the essence of who we are as a nation. He is unfit, unqualified, and really is a danger to our democracy.
11
All nations are corrupt. It's simply a matter of which ones have the most solid checks and balances. Unfortunately, moneyed lobbies have overpowered those checks and balances in the U.S., by legalising influence-peddling, gerrymandering, politicisation of the Supreme Court and weakening virtually every other instrument of fairness and justice.
I used to say that an honest judge in Iran is worth a thousand times more than an honest judge in the U.S.. I'm beginning to have my doubts.
6
@Hamid Varzi the US no longer has checks and balances.
1
“The Kremlin couldn’t have put together a better script.” With Trump and his minions trashing the Bidens, Putin wants to debunk the myth that Western democracy is built on moral principles and values.
Giuliani has learnt how to delve into the Soviet playbook for disinformation and denial. Russia has a century-old experience of denying any wrongdoing, fabricating and disseminating rumours, confusing people and destroying trust and tenets.
What's worrying is that Russia has been able to figure out what’s wrong with the American society and understand the Americans better than most Americans do about themselves.
The Kremlin has taken advantage of its knowledge and exploited social and racial tensions in America, abused people’s emotions and sowed chaos. They succeeded in 2016. Now they have a stooge at their beck and call to carry on their mission.
8
I think all Trump and his friends, including Rudy, care about is money. This is a group that continually live above their means. So if the Russians shovel out the money, that's the direction to go. No ideology involved, except that they like authoritarianism because it means more money. The best that could happen to these people is to go cold stone broke, like Manafort, before they go to jail.
10
I have a Facebook friend who turns to Fox for truth like religion. If I demonstrate with facts that the Fox information is hogwash, for him citing facts is itself suspect. I’ve come to think he’ll only believe in the truth when the consequences of the hogwash, like the end of democracy and clean nature, come to be. Then it will be too late and the truth won’t matter much to him anyways. He’ll be busy turning me over to the police.
7
@Elliot Silberberg time to defriend
The premise of the first paragraph is one large reason why Donald Trump’s presidency should not continue into a second term. We need to show that our form of Western democracy is able to repair itself. That our constitution’s checks and balances are able to be exercised, and that we are a nation that eventually recognizes and rejects demagogues.
“The message of much of Kremlin propaganda is not to showcase Russia as a beacon of progress, but to prove that Western politics is just as rotten as President Vladimir Putin’s. We may have corruption, the argument goes, but so does the West; our democracy is rigged, but so is theirs.
9
"The media manipulation of the early Putin years didn’t try to convince you of a fabricated version of “truth.” Instead, it worked by seeding doubt and confusion, evoking a world so full of endlessly intricate conspiracies that you, the little guy, had no chance to work out or change. Instead of conspiracy theories being used to merely buttress an ideology as under Communist rule, a conspiratorial worldview replaced ideology as a way to explain the world, encouraging the public to trust nothing and yearn for a strong leader to guide it through the murk..."
Yes. Brilliant. At the end of the cycle a decadent society cynically turns to conspiracy as a complete alternative reality. For elites and their apologists the collapse of the old order is too painful accept in an undiluted form. Conspiracy and denial go hand in hand.
Denial of the existence of painful realities degrades the rule of truth. We subliminally understand that we have chosen comfortable myth over harsh truth, and this cowardly compromise has corrosive epistemological consequences.
A wall has been breached. It is the Original Sin signalling descent into falsehood and corruption. Once the initial decision has been made to compromise the commitment to truth, the momentum becomes unstoppable. To escape fear we have willingly embraced a world of illusion.
Pomerantsev provides greater insight into the official pervasive moral sickness of our age than all other impeachment pundits combined. More, please.
6
Unchecked power, which is what the Founders sought to avoid in framing a system of checks and balances, will erode any system of government. Trump is following Putin's lead in fashioning a state that serves his ravenous individual thirst for more. Unchecked, he is even able to allow private citizen Giuliani to engage in the designation and execution of foreign policy. By confusing the masses with misinformation and overt, unrelenting lies, he increases his stranglehold.
The successful war on truth has delivered us a GOP that falls into the web. How can any righteous legislator read, for example, the obviously distilled "transcript" (it's nowhere near an actual transcription of a conversation) that nevertheless reveals troubling extortionist language to the President of Ukraine, and simply say, "There's nothing there." November 2020 looms immense and critical.
6
@Mike7 the future of the US is at stake and it doesn’t look good.
Maybe the one silver lining in all of this is that corrupt players in politics (Paul Manafort for example) and politicians will think twice about behaving badly now that whistleblowers and foreign governments who wish to embarrass us may become more emboldened to speak out.
Drain the swamp starting with Trump!
6
Right wing radio and tv has a large segment of the voting population entranced with conspiracy theories. So we have a large
segment of the population who half believe these falsehoods. They hang their beliefs on the ever ending opionated news from all corners. Since the news has become a mashup of opinions as to who did what, when, and why (especially the why), the Age of Conspirarcy has arrived and with a broken heart my opinion is democracy is slipping into the history books and Kings and Queens ( called dictators now ) are on their way back, just in a more subtle form.
7
I’m so sick of hearing about Trump, impeachment is a requirement! I’m tired of grown seasoned men in the GOP putting party, teamwork and re-election ahead of what’s good for the country. Each day all I hear is What Makes America Fail. Their can be no pride in being an American given the current climate, only shame. The on rule of law is simply a chant, a punctuation point in some one’s narrative. Yes we’ve got those who would bring down america right where they want us.
6
Hypernormalization
A term coined in Soviet Era about the prevalence of propaganda and how everyone became used to it.
Watch the BBC film of the same name which came out in 2016.
It too predicted a lot of this.
3
Frightening and sad.
I don't know when average Americans will wake up.
5
@Jonathan try never or after it’s too late.
There is one difference - liberal democracy contains its own self-corrective mechanisms when things go wrong, whereas authoritarianism has to resort to even more of the same.
That is why populists like Trump hate democracy - when they fail to deliver on their promises, they get thrown out.
3
@RAD61 not if it’s no longer a democracy which is where the US is headed.
1
Human nature doesn't vary much over borders or through time.
Those in power tend to hold onto and abuse it.
A lot more people are followers than leaders.
The path of least resistance is well-trod.
Tribalism allows us to believe the worst about those with whom we don't identify.
Cynical figures like Putin and Trump will come and go, but ultimately others will emerge in their mold. Names change but people don't.
2
You have good versus evil. Most of the time evil is getting over on good, which is what we see today, with Republicans versus Democrats.
For those of us who believe in God, the Truth is utterly refreshing. We bask in it. It is our refuge from temporal affairs. Especially when falsehood and innuendo are so widespread, rampant and accepted by lesser minds.
Therefore I am refreshed to understand that Putin has been baiting Republicans this whole time with the theory that ‘there’s something in Hillary’s emails that will vindicate both Trump and the Republicans,’
This is the rabbit hole. Now maybe there is substance there, I don’t know. But I strongly doubt.
I am not surprised that this rabbit hole has reached Italy. But I am comforted to know that Mr. Mifsud works for Putin and is spreading innuendo. Since Mr. Comey believes Mifsud is a Russian agent, that’s good enough for me.
Probably what I find more astonishing is the fact that evil is always surprised that good is truly good. Evil is always looking to tarnish good, to bring good down to its own level, but it never works.
This is because good is always good for those who believe in God. And absolute Truth will always lead the Good towards its Source. Unfailingly.
And evil will fight amongst itself, delude itself, fracture itself, self implode, and wither away.
3
Communism and capitalism have been replaced wholly by a corrupt oligarchy that celebrates its ability to control the masses through carefully orchestrated chaos. And the oligarchy cares not one bit when its brethren commits genocide, murders journalists, poisons our air, land, and water, and exacerbates the threat of pandemic disease. For this group of comrades - loyal only to power and money - it's all in a day's work.
3
There is truth. Insist upon it. The Republican Party is infected and Trump is the embodiment and proof of that infection. A person like Trump should have never even been a presidential candidate of a major political party in the United States.
4
It didn't take too long after Putin took over, for him to move from a chance for true democracy, to imprisoning or murdering his opponents, and taking the spoils which should have belonged to the Russian people, for himself and his co-criminals, making him possibly the richest man in the world. The President of the United States, Donald Trump, admires and approves of this. The Republican Congress and 40% of the electorate seem to do the same.
3
An excellent opinion piece but it is still a mystery to me why a portion of the American public, including some people I know personally, go along with the charade.
4
The Soviet Union was once described as the nation ' where things that just don't happen happen.'
Controlling the present and the future meant defining the past. History was always being remade to serve current partisan political interests by propaganda. People woiuld disappear from photographs, history books, newspapers and radio.
George Orwell caught the essence of the system in ' 1984' and ' Animal Farm'.
But the need for strong central brutal leadership predates the Soviet Union. The largest landmass nation with external and internal ethnic sectarian diversity was a tempting target for Vikings, Mongols, France, Japan and Germany.
Donald Trump fights by tweeting and speaking nicknames and slurs while watching Fox News and playing golf while snarling and snarky. So does Rudy Giuliani. Donald Trump is overtly doing what would be innately corrupt, criminal and craven if done covertly.
Vladimir Putin sends his foes to hospitals, mental institutions,prisons,urns and coffins with a smile and smirk.
The absurdity and cynicism is embodied in a Cold War Soviet Union era joke. The Soviets were looking for another space race win. And they decided to be the first to land men on the Sun. When a scientist objected noting that they would be incinerated he was silenced when a commissar told them that they would be landing at night.
What does Vladimir Putin have on Donald Trump?
4
That Biden and his son may have some ethical baggage is not an issue. Politicians by definition are willing to do things your average American would not attempt. Who knows if Biden will ultimately be the candidate?
The issue is trump going to foreign governments to get negative information about an opponent.
Doing so creates a risk to national security - something the other government can threaten exposing to get what they want in the future.
Withholding congressionally-approved aid as a lever to get that information is extortion. Plain and simple.
Criminal behavior.
And involving Giuliani - the clown prince of the legal profession - creates something on television that is neither news nor entertainment . It’s a sickening display of incoherent gobbledygook. It’s more confusing than anything else.
It is anything but reality.
Aren’t broadcasters supposed to adhere to some standards? I’m trying to picture Giuliani with sparkles and wings - a devious pixie more suited to fantasy than anything else.
1
We (all of us) are living in a darkened America surrounded by imaginary fears bathed in a tsunami of lies. Both countries endured revolutions. Keep the faith. The commoner is stronger than the monarchy.
We will rise again. Good "trumps" evil. "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
1
Putin has been wildly successful in undermining Democracy in the US and Europe. By supporting the genocidal Assad in Syria and flooding Europe with Syrian refugees he has given rise to nationalistic autocrats. By swinging the US election to Trump he has a proxy who is doing everything possible to assure the erosion of the American voter's confidence in voting and decimating America's trust and influence in the world.
3
I believe, we the people, should open an investigation into both parties and their involvement with the Eastern block. The so called leaders of both parties have made millions dealing with them.
So, who, is going to represent the people of this country???
Right now, I do not see either party as innocent,
American media is not helping us to focus on the sleight of hand. There are conflicts of interest when there are stockholders.
What is truth, it depends?
This is one of the most interesting and helpful articles I've read in a long time. It explains the political uses of conspiracy theorizing in a way I hadn't thought of before.
1
"Kremlin propaganda is not to showcase Russia as a beacon of progress, but to prove that Western politics is just as rotten as President Vladimir Putin’s." Clearly this is why Putin so loves and assists Trump.
Americans following 2016 are coming to "appreciate" another truth, one that Russian President Boris Yeltsin used to say quite publicly - all Russians know that their news media are propaganda arms of the Kremlin whereas Americans mistakenly believe that their media are free and so Americans often follow it blindly even as those media are controlled by corporate interests with their own agendas - profits.
In Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin can exploit both. Trump's criminality (despoiling Democracy) and big corporate media (misleading the gullible).
2
This article sums up all I have witnessed since Trump uttered his now famous ‘Russia, if you’re listening....” I see this same disease of attacking truth in all liberal democracies across the globe. Being a world traveler with family and friends living around the world, I see it first-hand. When I see the disease that is Trump and Brexit and see their common pathologies and symptoms, even the same talking points and code words among infected people of different nations with nothing more in common than me, I look for a common source of the pathogen. That source is Putin. This destruction of democracy around the globe is not random; it is the way countries with less capable militaries are waging war on the most powerful military, country and alliances in the world. The medium for passing the infection is the internet, social media, and political punditry. Putin is settling a score with the USA for the humiliation of his country during the Reagan era. Lying is his warfare. Trump is his revenge.
My clueless fellow Americans are busy attacking me, professional journalists, Democrats, democracy, our Constitution, truth, and facts instead of driving out the foreign invader that has taken over their thoughts, beliefs, and their President. Putin and his ilk are laughing as I cry and a large number of my fellow Americans are laughing with him.
1
This excellent article should be required reading . Trump, Giuliani and Fox News opinion commentators have done more to undermine democracy than any group in modern history.
They’re supporting Putin’s goal of GASSLIGHTIMG AMERICAN DEMOCRACY AND WESTERN VALUES.
This underscores the importance for the NYTimes to be meticulous in factchecking it’s sources and not falling prey to ‘alternative facts.’ It’s a burden worth bearing.
2
Why does Trump enjoy Putin's company and why does he give Putin a free hand to mess up American democracy and the world at large? Why is Trump able to enlist the dregs of society---like the maniacal Giuliani and the jailed Manafort or the jailed Cohen to do his corrupt bidding? Why does the Senate allow Trump to destroy our country's institutions and mores?
It is difficult to understand why such evil succeeds without more people joining in protest. The whole world should rise up, but we see too many supporting the charlatans .
“Western politics is just as rotten as President Vladimir Putin’s. We may have corruption, the argument goes, but so does the West; our democracy is rigged, but so is theirs.”
Maybe this is a blessing in disguise in that politicians will think twice before breaking the law knowing that emboldened whistleblowers from here and abroad may expose them.
Thanks Russia and Ukraine for helping to drain the swamp - starting with Trump!
Ah, I finally get where Rudy Giuliani fits in. He's the equivalent of Nixon's Bebe Rebozo. Assuming, of course, that Trump actually gets along with him, which may nix (?) my attempted comparison. Trump may literally have no friends.
Competently executed crime pays. It pays very well. But it's not the crime that gets you caught. It's the incompetence... and the inevitable betrayals.
This op-ed is both true and depressing. Having dipped our toe in the waters of authoritarianism, we mostly sit in our homes fearing the next assault whether from Mother Nature or our broken government.
Our shadow SecState, Rudy Giuliani, is less a diplomat than a reincarnation of Lewis Carroll's white rabbit guiding us into another realm.
For all his clarity and rhetorical skill, our president might be helped by putting Jabberwocky on his teleprompter.
Covfefe.
2
Trump's base is made up of people who are the types that love pro wrestling not because they know it is just a show. Wrestling fans like my brother, father, friends, will seriously argue that wrestling is not fake. Here's the real problem. How can we reason with people who simply wont accept basic, common sense facts, like pro wrestling and lucha-libre are fake and merely a spectacle? You can't. You move on and leave them in their tiny universe and accept they are like the moms who believe wars are good for the economy and Nixon was the greatest president ever.
I grew up thinking of my parents as, if not intellectual, at least reasonably sane and rational. Their ability to think has been undermined by the conspiracy mindset at FOX, which gathered its own tactics from fringe radio hosts. Trump channels them all with great effect.
Please, Pomerantsev and those like you: tell us how to get out of this death-wish thinking. I am tired of having the dire straits merely described and anatomized.
1
Why do Americans rejoice in murder and mayhem, especially if they are foreigners in a distant land? If they don't openly rejoice they certainly ignore and put out of their minds the existence of any such unpleasantness. There is no doubt, none whatsoever, that Putin's seizure of Crimea, legitimized with a public referendum voted on by the residents of that peninsula, prevented the spread of the civil war in eastern Ukraine. But that is meaningless to Americans. They couldn't care less about the residents of Crimea. Their ideology is more important.
Countries like Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden seem to be a successful alternative to Capitalism and Communism.
1
Back in the day Rudy Giuliani seemed a warrior for truth and justice as he prosecuted the war against corruption and organized crime in New York City. Credited with cleaning up the streets of the city he went on to become the famed "America's mayor " after 9/11. How can one fall as far and as fast as Rudy ? How has this mythic figure become such a low life ?
Welcome to the post truth era, friends. Now it's all about wild conspiracy theories, propaganda and confusion. We have a President who is peddling the entire package. Bad times, these.
1
I expected this scenario from trump, he's always been without moral or ethical character. But, Giuliani used to be a functioning ;person of the law, a federal prosecutor, etc. My guess is that the type of slimy, fact-less antics he's involved in now could get him disbarred.. he gives lawyering a bad name.
The Republican Party has always been the representative of business/capitalism. And, they have conscientiously removed obstacles that, in their minds, restricted business, i.e., labor unions and government regulations. I think this was done disingenuously by claiming that "the marketplace" would be sufficient control over predictable greed. Wrong.
So, we now have unsustainable wealth inequality, and folks believing rightly that there is no such thing as a "level playing field," i.e., that the system is rigged. Which it is.
What's next?
Such an insightful and illuminating essay. The GOP of law and order, the self-proclaimed bastion of objective truth against the alleged corrupting scourge of cultural relativism, has died a Nietzschean death. The new party is both nihilistic (both Barr and Giuliani have said "who cares about posterity, we'll be dead") and ruthlessly, shamelessly machiavellian. The ethical has not merely been teleologically suspended; it has been banished. Heads I win, tails you lose--the tautological guiding principle of the authoritarian. The guardians (DOJ, FBI) have been co-opted. I pray that it's not too late for our Republic. Winter is coming.
185
After reading this piece, full of cogent and interesting views though it is, I come away wondering why intelligent people don't just use their common sense backed up by our ability to check the truth of anything on the internet, to debunk all these theories, conspiratorial or otherwise.
Why don't we search out the facts, weigh them up and come to a balanced, well informed opinion of what is true and what is false. We do not need to be hostage to the manipulating lies of greedy people. We do not need to be weakened by belief in false prophets and snake oil salesmen who have already brought our world to the brink of disaster.
86
@RHR To check the truth of anything on the internet requires finding it amid dozens of competing, algorithmically better performing stories that say just the opposite. I have friends who never read. They get all their news online, Facebook feeding YouTube. And online, little lies beget bigger lies. Once you have stumbled onto Alex Jones, the internet will keep feeding you lies, slipping them under the door of your locked echo chamber. And from there it's only a short hop onto Fox News and into the Oval Office.
28
@RHR Why? Because the majority of the U.S. population is uneducated and even those with higher education haven't been taught to think critically.
31
@RHR
Because real life is dull. Just as it is much more dramatic to say that god is dead rather than that he doesn’t exist, it is better to live a lie than have to face the truth.
11
It is about time to enforce the Logan Act in regard to Mr. Rudi and his nefarious activities. IF he has been authorized to spread unsubstantiated theories by the executive branch, then that raises many questions inherent in the impeachment inquiries.
However, the meat of this piece is much richer than
le comedien Rudi. The strategy of obfuscating truth by a thousand cuts is a welcome explanation of the unfathomable morass of alternative falsehoods (Not Truths) swallowed whole by Donald's loyal base. Thank you...it helps a little to understand the dynamics at play.
11
Interesting piece. But one must also include the weaponization of the internet/social media as a major source of fuel for the fire that is consuming the truth. DARPA created the internet for command and control in the event of a nuclear war. Now it has been handed over to civilians. Not much different than permitting ownership of military assault like weapons by the ordinary joe.
5
Excellent article. "1984" cannot be far behind. I sometimes find myself questioning my concept of what is real - even though I know for sure that trump lives in a world of his own, now peopled with republicans who have bought into his world of disinformation and alternative facts.
16
@mariamsaunders You might enjoy this Orwell quote: "Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right."
1
@Ernest Montague
Scary isn't it - that this seems to be in the works right now?
Unlike Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani and most Americans, I lived in a Soviet-controlled Europe before the Wall came down and I never thought I'd see the same thing happening here when it comes to Communist-style information spin and mind control.
And it's frightening.
But even more so because it is all emanating from the President of the United States in his attempt to hold onto control at the expense of Democracy and the Constitution.
There's never been any doubt about Mr. Trump's fascination with strongmen and dictators which explains in large part his attraction to Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un and even Mohammad bin Salman -- all of whom keep a tight grip on the media and have shown a lethal willingness to prevent any form of dissent.
This kind of manipulation of truth and facts by branding things as "false" and "fake" if they somehow contradict the approved narrative is the first step in dismantling a free and democratic society.
And we are treading dangerously close to the point where the first Amendment will be a thing of the past and we are left as a People with no voice in an America that will never be great again.
This is more than just a problem of capitalism, communism or corruption.
It is an existential threat.
91
A very cunning way to keep reality at bay. Somewhat like the children's game, "I know you are, but what am I?" The West is rotting itself out with the same techniques that are tried and tested in previous imperial systems. In the fog of the post-truth era, the suspense is in whether we can we'll get that "beacon of hope" or just be subjected to more and more noise.
7
This is a much-needed and sobering analysis. Americans love to rely on simplistic explanations e.g. our current political malaise is caused by a few bad apples like Trump, Pompeo, and McConnell.
To suggest to the average American that "democratic capitalism had collapsed" would likely trigger a hand-wave of dismissal. But the proof lies in the forces that propelled Donald Trump into the Oval Office: the vast economic inequality produced by American style, share-holder maximized capitalism, the ascension of alternative truth, the hypocrisy of religion, and the hijacking of our election system.
We are drifting in dark waters without a rudder.
47
@Michael News flash: "democratic capitalism" WAS that alternative truth.
To quote a post-Soviet Russian quip: "Everything they told us about Communism was a lie. Everything they told us about Capitalism was the truth." Folks like Putin got a jump on the West in figuring out what our system is really about, and how to manipulate it.
1
Great essay. The "dark joy" of Trumpism is something that exasperated Democrats really need to reckon with. I'm curious though if the emergence of that joy has anything to do with the dis-reality of Trump's performance of President, like how it's easier to cheer on the violence in pro wrestling because you know that ultimately it's just a show) And in that same sense, whether his support will finally collapse when the reality barrier breaks and people suffer real and factual harm. Or whether it's just darkness all the way down.
28
True, the US under Trump more and more recalls the most absurd aspects of Russian politics, you can’t argue with that, but the notion that the current “war on reality” is an altogether Russian invention that’s seeping into the West needs to be taken with a massive grain of salt. Case in point: the handiest model Putin had for his behavior in Ukraine in 2014 was the naked cynicism of the Bush-Cheney administration in the run-up to the war in Iraq. This isn’t meant to absolve the Russian government for what it’s done in Ukraine, quite the contrary. But the US radically betrayed its own values 15 years ago—and you can draw a straighter line between Trump and that betrayal than you can between Trump and Putin.
32
@Mary
Great point!
An authoritarian regime will use similar tactics whether they are in the "west" or the "east." And that is the story of 1984, the bending of truth into a non-truth, all for the purpose of controlling a story so the regime can control the people.
Though many Americans will say they do not trust the government, nor trust the media, there is a general willingness to accept what is reported to them on face value.
To live in the midst of a "propaganda" campaign (as we do today) requires a mental vigilance, a rational review of story and information, an appreciation of human motivation and ambition, and an ability to find truth through the correspondence of seemingly unrelated facts.
Americans have been lied to numerous times over the course of our history, the most glaring being the Warren Commission regarding the JFK assassination, other 1960s assassinations, most recently the 9/11 Commission report, and subsequent claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that you cite.
The U.S. government's refusal to honor laws that call for full disclosure of documents concerning the JFK business, has conditioned the American people to accept an official explanation without question.
When we are willing to live without knowing for sure what happened in the past, then we become vulnerable to further feeding of false news, and like the prisoners in Plato's Cave, we see shadows and believe them real.
1
There is a fundamental difference between Putin and Trump and that the US has a quarter Millenium history of checks and balances built into the system of Government. That Trump and Putin play the same game is one thing, that Republicans in Congress become complicit in this gangsterism is quite another.
66
I've always felt that rogue capitalism would collapse just as Soviet communism did. Perhaps we are at that point now given the overwhelming support for Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. It's time to take the best of both communism and capitalism and put an end to the wild conspiracy theories that have dogged us through time. Perhaps we might build a special "hotel" in Siberia for Putin, Trump, Giuliani, etc. etc.
20
Best article I’ve read making sense of what’s going on. Concepts of Russian disinformation and kompromat thoroughly remaking American democracy. In a thousand years I’d never ever give it a chance but here’s where we are. Using capitalism’s tech titans and products and our party of business to boot as full fledged partners. Astonishing brilliance or the inevitable entropy and aftermath of capitalism itself. Breathtaking and unimaginable. Not sure it can get any worse but it’s only the first day of the week.
33
The relentless deceptions are to mask and avoid consequences for past an ongoing criminality, both in post-Soviet Russia and in the post-Cold War US. The world is presented with a massive domestic and international law enforcement project. Law enforcement is in the interest of the masses, and can be made into a popular platform. The most potent dissident movement in Russia is a genuine anti-corruption campaign led by a new generation. The same can become true in the US. Young(er) people here and there own the future and are capable of understanding what they are up against and reversing course and undoing (a lot of) the damage.
4
Not a student of history, I kept wondering why this administration was not interested in working to govern the country- working to improve lives of the citizens and building strong mutually beneficial alliances. Why were they just interested in spinning elaborate conspiracy theories about past events? (Theories that my inability to follow had me questioning my cognitive health.) Thank you for helping me understand the motive. Basically it is all an effort to destroy our American way of government . So much for making America great.
39
Excellent portrayal of one side of the fight. The other side is still alive and strong in many places. In Russia there is still an opposition and the next election will be telling. In England Parliament is rebelling against Boris Johnson. The EU has not collapsed and actually is fighting well against the internal and external onslaughts. Japan, Canada, Australia and many other countries are quite stable and on the watch for encroachment of false truth. In US the congress has started impeachment proceedings. So yes, clearly there is a post Soviet faction trying to gain control. However, the vision of Democratic socialism as a form of government is working in the EU and will come to the fore in the US. The same tools that allow fake news also permit billions to receive true news. Just look at the protests in Hong Kong. No amount of CCP propaganda is stopping the brave citizens from their aspirations for Democratic government.
20
As the corporate takeover of the US and indeed the world) has proceeded apace, it's quite clear that democracy is an inconvenient impediment to business. What's required is cheap labor, no pesky regulations and a strong military/police presence to keep the serfs in line. As Vonnegut used to say, "And so it goes."
30
Payback is sweet. What the Americans have done for decades, helping rig elections and arranging assassinations in other countries for decades, they're now doing unto themselves. Well, almost ... Hopefully Trump is not yet privately asking foreign leaders to commit the ultimate act against his political opponents. But there's plenty of room at the bottom still.
9
@Max duPont He has come pretty close to asking his Right Wing White Supramacist militants, such as Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer, Oath Keepers, KKK and the StormFront - among others on the lunatic fringe who lurk online (remember the pipe bombs and Pennsylvania synagogue massacre?) to step up and do this dirty work for him - in only thinly veiled wording that he believes gives him all the "plausible deniability" he needs with his hand picked prosecutor. Calling for a civil war if he is even remotely threatened politically doesn't get more to the point. Given our own history of political leaders being gunned down, it isn't a far fetched notion to believe it is only a matter of time and rhetoric from the POTUS and his FOX crazies.
1
A long time back, at a conference of minerals and metals in Windhoek, where a lot liquor was consumed late in the night, an Eastern European attendee gobsmacked our small group. His theory: Why would the West accept the rise of an obscure official to the highest echelons of power of global rival with nuclear weapons? This essay connects some dots.
9
It seems that Trump uses the Putin playbook. It actually seems that Putin is Trump’s mentor. Could it just be a coincidence that what Trump does always benefit Russia?
43
@Gary Ward Certainly a high likelihood - given the number of unmonitored communications, congratulatory meetings (including in oval office itself) and Trumps ongoing attacks on his own nations intelligence and cybersecurity apparatus and personnel.
9
Excellent column. Well reasoned and well written. Definitely going to look into your book!
12
This is the most insightful article in today’s opinion section. Read and reread this to explain what is actually happening or has happened to our country. Wisdom is rare.
19
Zowie. Initially, I bristled at the seemingly overstated suggestion that the United States, for all its current problems, resembled Russia and Eastern Europe. But this is one of the most trenchant essays on our political plight that I have read lately. President Trump has never bothered himself with facts. He simply states that, "Many people as saying....," in order to suggest that his conspiracy theory du jour about Ukraine, or Hillary Clinton, or the Deep State must somehow be true. Alas, too many Americans also seem to have jettisoned facts and truth, and stubbornly insist on believing whatever they want, irrespective of evidence and logic.
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@Chris Rasmussen
Go a step further and read Bill Browder's book "Red Notice".
The Russians have the best laws money can buy. Sound familiar? There are numerous eery similarities to what we see in the USA that exist in name only.
12
Unlike Russians during the Soviet era, many Americans have been schooled since earliest childhood to believe in and honor superstitions and inventions unsupported by facts or logic... and to understand the most honorable among us are strongest in their faith in the unbelievable.
This era evokes similar sinking feelings as when suicidal terrorist flew planes into physical buildings that ultimately collapsed. This time a suicidal person crashes metaphorical planes into societal norms, conventions, precedents and institutions. Its not a one time terrible yet tangible event, its intangible and ongoing and encouraged by 40% of population and 99% of national representatives of same party. That uneasy feeling is the implosion of edifices and foundations of American life the were built over the last 250 years, being destroyed in a matter of months.
69
It used to be communism vs capitalism. Now many of us are democratic socialists. We want to rein in the capitalists who are threatening to take the whole pie (and the world down with it) and share the wealth more fairly.
It's hard to be heard through the miasma of propaganda and outright lies thrown out by the rich capitalists. But that is our mission, and we accept it on behalf of our country and the world.
48
Excellent. As someone said, many years ago, at some point it is a choice between democratic socialism - an end to oligarchy - and barbarism. This essay is strong on the process of achieving barbarism. The question is, once posed by the great American philosopher and educator, John Dewey, how we achieve the opposite.
20
This is the Long Game being played by enemies of Democracy and this is the part where we sell the rope. When the transaction is over WW 2 will officially end the Soviets and Germany win by default.
7
First, we have a president sending a private citizen (Giuliani) to conduct a shadow foreign policy outside of any oversight of the State Department, the CIA, the White House (other than Trump) and the Congress. What is he doing? Why? Who is paying him?
Second, it is abundantly clear by now that Guliani, at Trump's direction, was essentially trying to get a foreign leader to launch an investigation into Trump's political opponent Joe Biden. For two years we heard Trump rail against the Russian 2016 election collusion allegations as "fake" and "a hoax". So after skating on those allegations, he takes it up a notch and does this?
Third, it seems abundantly clear there was an express or implied quid pro quo, whereby the Ukranian leader was expected to launch this investigation in order to secure U.S. aid.
And finally, Trump's story has evolved from "Didn't happen", to "Even if it did, it is not illegal", to trying to hide what he did by publicly calling for China to investigate Joe Biden, in order to show that asking foreign nations to investigate his political rivals is perfectly fine. This is a continuation of his common tactic, whereby he seeks to convince us that his immoral, unethical or illegal behavior is somehow normal and commonplace because he is doing it
What would Republicans have said if Obama had done this? No need to answer.
46
We need to stop asking. What would repubs do if Obama did. Rather we need to focus on the idea that this behavior or these actions are wrong and create long term damage to us and the world. Party and paritisonship should not matter. Anyone who finds this behavior or who engages in this behavior has no business in power. None. anyone who justifies this behavior or these actions is equally culpable.
34
@steve
Bravo for your analysis but what in the world can we do to stop our inexorable destruction?
8
@affirm
Maybe peaceful, but massive, protest in the streets
This is an excellent articulation of the Russian formula. This is also why saying the Trump administration is a Russian asset is appropriate. Trump's toxicity is precisely that he erodes, obfuscates, and generally ignores the truth. At the same time, as a Russophile, and also one who is beholding to the Russian oligarchy, he embraces the nihilistic, autocratic, and power-based logic of their political philosophy; one that is quite aligned to that of the Republican Party, and moves toward its implementation like a virtuoso of reflexive, seditious behavior.
53
You are right Peter, however your final sentence seems a little dramatic.
Human progress has faced these political realities before and managed to move on. The digital age may complicate the process but I think the demand for more ethical governance will eventually return.
8
@Charlie Wiles Unfortunately, moving on has often required that a lot of blood be shed. The American Revolution is one example.
“When truth dissolves anything is possible.“
Not quite. Peacefully challenging ensconced power requires law, which depends on logic and facts to determine compliance. When we question the obvious, the legal system freezes, and the law becomes impotent in challenging the powerful. Like a cobweb, it catches the small, but the powerful crash right through.
11
@Tim It would seem that we have arrived at the time you describe: the weak ensnared, the monied and powerful amnestied. The renaming of Freedom Tower struck me as a slip into totalitarian-speak and very Soviet in tone.
1
An excellent angle on where we've been and where we're at. I just wonder where we are going, much of the electorate doesn't care about being informed or actively participating in their democracy. They're happy to be led by an authoritarian, and it's terrifying for many of us Americans. I guess we're headed for a full circle back to some form of feudalism and aristocracy.
10
@JP
We are not heading back to feudalism and aristocracy, we have been there all along. The difference is that, despite the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America, we have always had a multi-tiered system. That is has had the facade of equality, meritocracy and American myth ripped away revealing the raw truth underneath may ultimately be the savings grace of American democracy. For it is only now, with those in power no longer capable of pretending otherwise, can we see the inequality and corruption so clearly on display. Upon that we hope that there is a progressive train coming down the line. I know, I'm riding it.
23
@JW The US system of government is constructed so that a small number of states with small populations get to elect the president and control the Senate. It is time for more populous states to start insisting on states' rights, so they can have more control of their own destinies.
1
Thank you for writing this piece. This is an argument I've made to friends and family for the past few months noting that 40 years ago, the US used to go to war to overthrow guys like Trump.
51
Everyone needs to get use to having Trump around 4 more years in office because no one is going to force him out, not the Senate, the Supreme Court or the Democrats. Unless people start filling the streets like they are doing in Hong Kong to demand action. Basically our citizens are too apathetic to help themselves.
40
@Hello
Only 4 more years??? let us hope!
1
"Both have now collapsed...Instead of being a beacon of hope, you accuse everyone else of being just as corrupt as you are. We are all post-Soviet now."
Yes, but there is a big difference: Mr Trump can and most probably will be voted out of the office soon while Mr Putin, pending a miracle of another unlikely revolution, might stay in power forever. It remains to be seen.
I find your article very interesting but the scepticism as far as "the thing once known as “the West”, rather peculiar. The West is not embodied by Mr Trump or merely the US. The West is many other democracies including the EU countries in which many Russian citizans nowdays choose to live rather their homeland Russia, for whatever reason.
The coruption of this US administration, in which Mr Giuliani seems to play an important role, is especially appaling as they have taken on a very vulnerable country drawn into war by Russia, so much so that one ponders if this wasn't at the suggestion of Kremlin.
26
@val
"Mr Trump can and most probably will be voted out of the office soon".
Perhaps you have not heard Trump talk about what might happen if he "loses" the election? Yes, he openly talks about a civil war.
Trump is planning on going nowhere until he is dead.
It is not clear how the US System will respond to the first President who refuses to step down as the Constitution dictates.
So, as Trump often says: "Weeeeeel see what happens".
16
@Michael The right wing was saying this about Obama when he was in office--that he wouldn't step down. Now the left is saying Trump won't step down. This is a good example of buying into the disinformation that is floating around.
5
@val
Yes, but the subtle strands of grievance and conspiracy are fueling “populist” movements in most of the great democracies. We are living in a new age in which the power of boundary free and instant media wreaks havoc. We are not out of the woods even if Trump is defeated and leaves office more or less peacefully.
5
We're in the age of post-truth. An era in which, incredibly, even the Ukrainian scandal is turning in favor of Trump. He asks the Ukrainian President to investigate his opponent. And who is in danger of not participating in the next elections? Trump? No, Biden. In this emergency situation (not only for the United States but for the whole world, because Trump is a threat to humanity) the Democratic Party should have sided with Biden in a united front. Emergency situations require emergency solutions. If I were one of the primary candidates, I would immediately withdraw from the race and give my support to Biden. That's because the only thing that counts is beating Trump, at any cost. Instead we are talking about (and fatally weakening) Biden. Good luck America. And good luck world until 2024.
19
@Alfredo
Let us all get one thing straight, Joe Biden is not a democrat. He is a Trump rival but hardly a democrat of any substance. The last thing the democratic party in America needs is Joe Biden. That is part of the reason why democrats in large numbers haven't gotten behind Biden. The other part is that many of us see the best hope of defeating Trump in more progressive candidates. Joe Biden was never going to beat Trump. On the other hand Elizabeth Warren will.
14
@JW Thank you for your comment. Of course, the problem is not Biden or Warren. What I want to stress is that I do not see too much unity in the Democratic Party. Primary elections should not be a way in which democratic candidates weaken each other, but a way in which only one - the chosen one - and the entire party should come out strengthened. The Democratic Party cannot afford the luxury of making a mistake this time, because - I repeat - Trump is not only your problem but also our huge problem (see the catastrophic Trump decisions on climate change).
9
@Alfredo The GOP playbook has been for some time, repeat the lie as often as possible; all members of the team "rowing together in the same direction" by taking as many press appearances as possible, so the same phrase is spit out by as many members of the party as possible, and pretty soon the fantasy becomes reality for the casual listener. And even if they say "gee I don't know" they will add "but I have heard XYZ about [Biden / Warren / etc.]. Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi - emails emails emails.
1
Pomerantsev’s observations on the use of propaganda to erode the public’s trust in state institutions ring true as a blueprint for GOP strategy since the Reagan administration. The Republican tribe live by the 17th century Jeffersonian ideal that the government that governs least governs best. They want, in the words of Reagan’s muse, Grover Norquist, a government small enough that you can drown it in a bathtub.
While it is also true that the GOP has enjoyed some success attracting voters to this cynical view, the faceless technocrats that he falsely places as equal to Soviet apparatchiks have actually delivered value to American citizens: Social Security, Medicare, safe food, clean air and water, regulated financial services, etc. in my years living in former iron curtain countries, I encountered nothing that actually worked, other than the state security apparatus that kept people enslaved for half a century.
We have a real election coming up in a year. Dems are discussing multiple policy initiatives to improve the lives, economic and otherwise, of a majority of American citizens. Pomerantsev sees the perpetual struggle between the plutocrats and the people as lost. I’m still betting on the people.
39
I appreciated the insightful explanation of post-Soviet Russian propaganda - something I knew little about. The author's discussion of the embrace of Russian-style corruption by American businessmen, starting in the 90's, is very interesting. Certainly it's impossible to believe that Trump is not consciously using these techniques himself. The popular explanation that he is simply out of control and believes in conspiracy theories, is unbelievable. But without the internet and FOX news, I don't think that Trump would have been elected. It probably did take Putin's interference to push him over the edge to win in 2016. Let's hope the Impeachment purifies the collective mind of voters in 2020.
19
Nice images of Putin and Medvedev marking end of world war II. Hope Americans and the western allies never forget the sacrifice made by Russia during world war II. Without Russia and the USA, UK would have been wiped out. Churchill's biggest contribution to UK was getting the USA and Russia dragged into the war with Germany.
Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union before the break up of the Soviet Union. Since that time it was led by corrupt leaders. Trump came to power with a promise to end corruption and Trump and Guiliani wanted to hold Ukrainians to their promise and wanted to make sure that the US foreign aid does not evaporate into the corrupt hands and therefore the investigations into possible corruption by those in power in the USA who were aware of the flow of US tax payer cash from the USA to Ukraine at a time when the USA is the biggest debtor nation in the world with a sky high debt of over 20 T when Obama left office.
Trump has been consistently against unaccountable foreign aid and has been a breath of fresh air. Either we stop all foreign aid that gets misused and given to countries who use it to buy weapons that end up in the hands of terrorists trained in countries that provide them safe havens or to corrupt leaders in 3rd world who pocket it leaving their masses to resort to mass migration or ensure that we give only humanitarian aid and no military aid. Trump is trying his best to ensure foreign aid is not misused and abused. Business as usual no more.
3
@Girish Kotwal Unfortunately Trump did poorly in spelling during his primary education. He confuses prophet and profit because they sound the same. Corruption is biggest in absolute numbers and does more damage affecting the most people where there's more money, like in the U.S. and other large systems. These would seem to represent a richer target environment for Trump of Arc.
1
@Girish Kotwal
You have recent history about Ukraine backwards. It was during the Obama Administration that the U S and Europe mounted a major effort to uproot corruption in Ukraine and Biden was a point person in that effort. There was a united effort to bring about the dismissal of a corrupt state prosecutor This effort was bipartisan.
Trump and Giuliani are pushing to corrupt the current reform government in Ukraine by requiring them to rewrite this history to find a nonexistent nefarious role for Biden.
This is a perfect example of the author’s point. As in Russia, state T V (Fox) is working diligently to sow disinformation and confusion. They are not bothered by the known facts and are not bothered that they smearing a decent, patriotic American. The ends justify the means.
19
@Joel Sanders from Mont., AL I have always said ethics and corruption are in the eyes of the beholder and at best perceptions based on what ever one is told. No one has monopoly over truth or the facts. Each of us have to search for the truth by not relying on a single source for news. I do not share your endorsement of Hunter Biden's innocence. I think a thorough investigation is in order.
1
The press has played right into Trump’s hands, headlining his every utterance on front pages and leading stories. They amplified his lies until they his alternative facts created the confusion he sought and still seeks. It’s time for our sources of news and information to isolate that confusion on a dedicated back page, labelling it for what it is. Maybe then some actual truth could be recognized on the front pages. Not so long ago he called the Press the Enemy of the People. He knew what he meant.
42
@Chimes...I hear you...but..I think that Public Opinion is starting to shift. Fox Nation has only been hearing one side of the story...fortunately Trump and Rudy have shot themselves in the foot and have helped change some Public Opinion. The Truth must be told and sometimes repeated ..until finally...though maybe not all... at least some people may awaken from their Trump Delusion !! Can't wake them up from the Back Pages. Some people only read the ...Headlines !!
1
Excellent article. Very interesting. But it leaves me with one question: since when did capitalism die? I find it alive and thriving although we could all write for days about its many failings. But to unilaterally claim that it is dead, like communism, is a bit of a stretch.
8
@David Capitalism did not die, what happened is what the article just mentioned, Trump brought together the loosers of capitalism that were left behind with the capitalist that did it to them and made the people working to keep stability and greater good growth the enemy of of both.
4
@David I'm not sure if I misread, but I think the author doesn't claim capitalism to be dead. I think what he claims is that the ideology of capitalism, it's promise to deliver a better future, has died or at least isn't believed by most people any more.
11
but capitalism in its current form will die as you cannot have too much inequality, you will end up with no one to buy the rich man's products from his factories
This piece is worth reading for many reasons, but I take exception to the characterization of Western ideology as mere Capitalism.
There are some who would like us to believe that democracy is capitalism, that freedom is capitalism and that capitalism is all America is about. But I don't believe any of that, just as I don't believe being a billionaire businessman or even playing a business genius on t.v. is qualification enough to become President.
We've failed to protect ourselves as a country by failing to invest in it, in our communities and neighboring communities, in our future, and in our values beyond narrow definitions of economic self-interest. And yet, I still believe that if enough of us take an interest in our society as a whole, we can correct course and find our way by addressing our situation.
I don't know that I'd have that hope if I lived in any number of non-Western countries. In that sense, rumors of our system's failure are greatly exaggerated.
24
@Sachi G
Couldn't agree more. US done in by Reagan-era trope "capitalism and democracy are congruent, marketplaces and politics operate along the same, self-interested principles." Democracy isn't necessarily about self-interest but the common good. It is the politician's job to lead the population towards acting in the common good. Something that has become exceedingly rare.
Now we have figures some find charismatic (others loathsome) ruling from the minority and forcing programs on people that find them immoral and unpatriotic. At least the UK's institutions have defended themselves. The American Senate is happy to become a rubber stamp to the Kremlin's man in Washington.
1
Great piece.I didn't fully understand what the Russians were doing to us during the 2016 election until I read your book.I was very disappointed that the Mueller report didn't attempt to explain the mechanisms used in by the Russians and others.Just saying that there were bogus Facebook pages etc. doesn't really tell the story of what actually happened.My only problem....how do we get out of this mess?
15
@Iamcynic1
I think we get out by taking a broad approach to our problems and avoid the trap that Trump is the only issue. I think that if we give priority to ending Citizens United, gerrymandering and voter suppression we will go a long way towards restoring our democracy. Of course, impeaching Trump is the first step.
40
@Bohemian Sarah While I agree with you on the issues you've mentioned,I think that we have a different type of problem.This is about language and messaging and it's effect on the rational brain.I used to debate my conservative friends over things like climate change or income inequality.I've stopped doing it because they don't come back with facts..they come back with beliefs and strong emotional responses.They will say "I don't believe what you're saying...I doubt what the true motivations of these climate scientists really are."They are, for the most part, well educated but have found that thinking rationally is not as satisfying as expressing emotion.Facebaook logarithms reinforce this reaction.When you're confused as to what to believe,you tend to turn to a way of thinking which makes you comfortable and less anxious.The rapidly approaching climate crisis might be the only event which will restore rational action to its rightful place.Once again it is the young who are our only hope.Otherwise, we're toast.
21
@Iamcynic1 ...Changing public opinion and Voting would work. Public Opinion and Outcry caused many in Trump's Administration to be fired or resign. Public Outcry caused Ivanka to no longer have her clothing line! Public outcry ended the Government Shutdown !! Whenever Public pressure has grown...against a Trump Policy...it's been reversed ! Our Government is supposed to be for the people by the ...majority of the people! For too long Americans have just gone blindly along and not done enough to change our political system for the better.Too many of us Voted for this mess we are in today. Thankfully it wasn't the Majority of us who knew better !!
1
Amazing piece. The cynics/dissemblers are running the show.
The only hope is for good faith people with hearts to prevail,
but we have to understand the mechanisms at work. The big lie, divide and conquer, etc...
16
Excellent analysis. We need to hear more from Russian Studies experts. Not because Putin is the mastermind behind our current disaster - he's just one piece - but because of the parallels in the breakdown.
As America tumbles in the Maytag of our current politics, this article offers a coherent explanation--though we can barely hear it over the din-- that can help us save ourselves. Pomerantsev's parallels between Pavlovsky's machinations to get Putin 'elected' and the Trump campaign seem spot-on. I agree that these times call for an understanding of post-Soviet politics, as much as one of American history.
We Americans with our inexhaustible optimism get frantic when faced with what we call Russian cynicism, but we need to find the deeper layer. It's a kind of realism that works like the First Step in AA. Once we accept that we are up against oligarchs who are waging a disinformation/confusion campaign while systematically undermining our democracy, we can fight back. As Masha Gessen says, essentially, "First, believe the autocrat," meaning that if they threaten to do something they may well do it.
Elizabeth Warren gets it, and has plans that will help us. Last time we brushed up against something vaguely like it, Teddy Roosevelt did, too.
I hope that Americans who believe our system will magically save us get up and vote, call, and picket instead. Treacherous times.
61
@Bohemian Sarah ,
excellent comment!! Some comments here are article in their own right.
3
Let's be quick to add that it's not just Trump who's wallowing in corruption, but the American political system that does NOT have sufficient safeguards in place to thwart such criminal conduct from taking place and, worse, not punishing it. Our impeachment processes should be a last resort and in this particular case aren't going to stop a rampaging criminal from maintaining office at least until 2020 if not beyond. Our government is broken. Any pretense of having a representative democracy has been shattered. Democracy, by definition, is supposed to represent the will of the people which it is elected to serve. Nothing could be farther from the truth with our current defiler-in-chief leading a renegade administration, enabled by Republican senators representing swaths of this country that has it's head in the sand. While I gain some comfort in being a "citizen of New York State" which by and large represents my views and values fairly well, I take no pride or comfort in calling myself an American, although that IS what I am. Still, I ask myself: "am I the same type of American that lives in Alabama or Mississippi and flies the Confederate flag with pride?" Rhetorical question, ladies and gentlemen.
41
Charming prognosis. But this muddled reader is not buying it. There's still hope here. Pomerantsev, bless his heart, is not above a little manipulation.
Tens of thousands of citizens from a single Estonian city disappeared into the Soviet gulags. Only a handful ever returned alive. Did the surviving citizens of that city lose when the Soviet Union lost?
Russians bemoan the loss of their preeminence within the Soviet Union and worldwide. Isn't that the source of the toxic nostalgia that Putin has invoked? Surely however some Russians also bemoan the lost opportunities vis-a-vis democracy, freedom, economic development.
The Estonians and Ukrainians are doing a better job keeping their Putins at bay. Their societies are, to varying degrees, true democracies which are doing better than Russia economically.
A parallel exists here. The Trumpies bemoan their own loss of preeminence. In their case, they would it appears do anything at all to preserve the unearned and unmerited entitlements and dominance of white conservatives.
I don't recognize the "strange Western utopia" which Pomerantsev invokes. By our collapse is he referring to the 2016 election?
What's happening now isn't old school propaganda. It also includes gaslighting, conspiracies, endless cynicism, both old media and social media. However, it serves the same masters. It's aims include the same subjugation and dominance.
Pomerantsev's cynicism favors only the Trumps and the Putins.
21
I'm sorry, but this essay reminds me of "The End of History" by Francis Fukuyama, and we all know how that turned out.
Just as history has reared its head again, so to will reality impose itself on society and on our species: nature will not wait for mankind to get its act together.
16
The Soviet Union undoubtedly lost. But then there appeared a strange Western utopia with no alternative, ruled over by economic technocrats who could do no wrong. Then that collapsed.”
This is a fantasy of Western propaganda. The technocrats were constrained to follow the wishes of (to simplify slightly) billionaire people and companies by intense political pressure (read "money") and ideological propaganda (read "money"). Most of the technocrats were trained in the ideology and techniques of billionaire-favored capitalism, anyway.
20
@Thomas Zaslavsky Once the Soviet Union fell and communism was discredited, capitalism became a monopoly in the US market of ideologies. Once people no longer had a choice of ideologies, unfettered capitalism ran rampant. I hope the coming election will give people a real choice again.
1
I am 83 and spent a lot of years in an academic environment, but I am baffled. All of my advanced education was in studying engineering and physics, but I find myself illiterate in politics. I grew up thinking intelligence and integrity were good things. From this article, as I understand it, the only important thing is propaganda, or being an expert spin master. Are we heading towards a new chapter of the Dark Ages? HELP!
338
In many ways, JSK, we have already entered it; the central question now is, How far into it will we go? “Integrity” is still found in the dictionary; to what extent, and where, it is found elsewhere remains to be seen. There are potentially very dark days ahead for the American Experiment.
81
@JSK: At 77, and with a similarly academic background (though in the humanities), I share both your bafflement and your despair.
I know this cycle will eventually turn, and I'm also fairly sure that "the long arc of the moral universe bends toward justice"; but you and I won't be here to see it.
109
@JSK "A new chapter of the Dark Ages" may sadly be a very apt description of what we're headed for, considering that the original was named such largely due to a lack of contemporary written records that could cast "light" on what transpired in them.
Though we certainly don't lack for written words in this era, we've only just begun to realize that the same effect can happen when lies become easier to create than the truth, and the signal of accurate information is drowned out in a noisy typhoon of untraceable disinformation. We got a taste of it in 2016 with the rash of fake news that spread virally through social media (before even the meaning of the term "fake news" itself was corrupted), but the worst may well still be to come with the predicted imminent rise of deepfake video, not to mention the chaos that could ensue if quantum computing is able to crack conventional encryption somewhere down the line.
Actually, if history has some wit to it, perhaps they won't refer to the coming years as a new Dark Age after all. I think the name of "The White Noise Ages" might be much more apt.
For now, though, please take solace in that while our journalistic and governmental institutions may be under siege, for the moment, they're still putting up a pretty good fight. The signal hasn't been lost quite yet.
55
A great analysis followed by a non sequitur that ironically mimics the Russian disinformation technique: the US is not collapsed but working through the Trump stuff. It seems to be working.
17
@Richard Brummel /True. But with emphasis of "seems".
@Richard Brummel
He is quoting a Russian spin doctor, in the line you plucked.
There is much to read between the lines in this all too short essay, but some comments are cherry-picking, to what aim? To discredit the whole piece?
an intense read. a postmodern world, with no care for a comprehensive story that validates truth, perhaps has no real place for a democratic republic. if lies are equal to truth, it's just a matter of time before we have an authoritarian leader who will know no bounds.
thank you for your honest perspective -- that speaks truth in the midst of a land that wants to hear none.
77
Randy Buist,
Millions of Americans want the truth to win out. Some of those Americans choose a corrupt propaganda medium, Alt-right talk radio, that dresses opinion and innuendo as fact. Limbaughisms, are opinions, innuendo and outright lies spun as facts. The fake news alt-right cynically peddle these alternate facts to a gullible and fearful fan base looking for answers. It beggars belief as to some of the things these people swallow. 9/11 is a good example. Some people believe the tower collapse could not have been accomplished with anything but planted explosives. Well guess what Rubes, I was in Manhattan on 9/11. There was no insider conspiracy, only a cowardly attack on thousands of innocent people by muderous fanatics. Jet fuel is highly explosive and the attack was planned for early in their flights when they would be fully loaded with that highly explosive jet fuel. Osama Bin Laden and his team were laughing at you on that one. Wake up people. You are trusting a cynical medium that is exploiting your fears to make money, not give you the truth.
5
@Randy Buist
"with no care for a comprehensive story that validates truth,"
You mean... Saddam had weapons of mass destruction!!?
Needed perspective to our understanding of reality. The question is whether there can be a return to decency, progress, and responsibility. I have to hope that there can be.
39
“The Soviet Union undoubtedly lost. But then there appeared a strange Western utopia with no alternative, ruled over by economic technocrats who could do no wrong. Then that collapsed.”
It is fine to talk about effective political leadership. but if you accept the premise of the article then the real question is why the western utopia is not working. What is it about the west that has failed? Is it the nature of western capitalism with our "free market" system? Is it rampant individualism? Is it greed? Is it the dumbing down of general education?
What people have lost is faith in the future and this has happened at a time when we desperately need to work together to deal with climate change, inequality and AI. Is our economic system going to deal with these without immense suffering and possibly the destruction of our our one and only world?
61
@Brian
There are good questions. We should break them out a little bit.
Is it the nature of western capitalism with our "free market" system? I believe that for capitalism to work it must be restrained. It has been proven again and again empirically that markets do not provide the "self-correcting" mechanism that the Chicago School so confidently predicts. Over the past 40 years, administrations on both sides (although much, much more so on the Republican side) have worked steadily and tirelessly to reduce regulation to allow for completely free markets to dominate. That this has led to chaos and deep economic pain doesn't seem to matter to those who are less vulnerable.
Is it rampant individualism? In terms of what social media has brought to our discourse and an almost complete breakdown of what trusted information is, with every person with a Twitter account shouting at the top of their lungs, I'd say yes, it has not helped.
Is it greed? Most definitely, at every level, but especially at the top, and at the corporate/shareholder levels.
Is it the dumbing down of general education? Yes, the path to stupidity and shallowness has been inexorable. I read the letters my parents and others of that generation wrote to each other - the things they discussed and the way they expressed themselves. A generation that read widely and thought deeply. We have .. the Tweet.
Perhaps the future of humanity is in tiny stone-age pockets cleverly adapted to a harsh, hot world.
3
@Brian
It is always about the money and the power. Greed, oligarchs and kleptocracy are omnipresent in any society. The provide "leadership" under the guise of religion, or nationalism, or retribution, or many other such "worthy" mantles.
@Brian Perhaps the current state of the world is what motivates Elon Musk to pursue the development of a spaceship to go to Mars.
I hope that we strive together according to our most basic cherished values- like truth, trust, justice, community, the common good. Let us enter the battle of ideas with those weapons and armor. We will have the greatest foundations supporting a struggle for victory. Life without this struggle will not be worth living.
18
The problem isn’t the absence of an appropriate ideology, it’s idelogy, itself. Instead of seeking to solve problems, we devote our energies to confirming preexisting beliefs. Facts are tweaked to be consistent with our preconceptions, and what doesn’t fit is ignored. That’s true for all isms, period.
28
@Jay, So ideology is the problem and the solution is pragmatic problem solving? I think that sounds like an ideology.
4
The following paragraph can also be concluded as follows:
Seeing all rules and norms as mere facades for a vast conspiracy also legitimizes getting around them to exercise unlimited corruption. The cynicism implicit in conspiratorial thinking frees you up to indulge in anything ... Mr. Trump was, like many American businessmen, attracted to Russia in the 1990s and early 2000s, a time when rules — both logical and financial — were suspended. Throwing off the constraints of factuality goes together with throwing off political and legal norms, which for Mr. Trump means...
NOT RELEASING HIS TAX FORMS and never ever acknowledging his drivel is completely false. To do so once would destroy forever the illusion of credibility that only the true believers claim exists...
The analogies between the 2 societies apply insofar as it doesn't consider the audiences
for whom the tissue of lies is intended. Putin's seizure of
power consists of absolute control over almost all forms of
public communication. This insures his propaganda unlimited
distribution and zero pushback. So, he and his enablers
feel free to say whatever with no pause given to how it'll play
wherever.
But trump can't eliminate an independent press,
nor stifle other parts of civic society. He can only try to brand the press as fake hoping that the core swallows it and the press is supine.
There are many other voices here. But cynicism can still work if it damps voter turnout. He's hoping for that.
25
Hope so. But he’s promising civil war.
You are very wrong about Russia. The same cynicism that pervades the official worldview prevents people from taking it seriously. And most young Russians don’t watch Putin’s TV, they get their news from the internet. And that is dominated by oppositional views. We Americans have institutions that may save us but individually we are more gullible. Since we take our views more seriously we are also more scary. Smart Russians laugh at the authorities.
2
Most people’s story arc follows a family pattern.
Look closely at Rudy’s Dad’s work, and like Donald’s Dad, like father like sons.
33
This article illuminates how the pronounced lack of effective political leadership in the developed world at present imperils liberal democracy and enables figures such as Putin. In the English speaking world, which leader aside from Jacenda Arden inspires confidence? Nope, Trump, Boris Johnson and Trudeau don't measure up well.
If peoples of the west suddenly demand better political leadership, it further behooves us to become better informed ourselves. Rather than watch Fox News or CNBC for ideological affirmation, people must scrutinize what they read and hear. Remember, too, that the internet is only a portal for information, not a primary source itself.
Until we ascertain this, America will be subject to a president who eschews actual governance while preaching to his congregation. Trump's appeal in this regard isn't grounded in facts, but blind faith and malicious lies.
32
@Timberwolf999ds
You say:"...it further behooves us to become better informed ourselves." But you did the opposite.
Lumping Trudeau together with charlatans
Trump and Boris shows your the total lack of being better informed. Trudeau was attacked not so much for his controversial but pragmatic political decisons on pipelines, and on legally handling a corruption charge against a major canadian company this is allowed and widely used under the guidelines of the international corruption treaty Canada has signed. Instead the atacks on him seem clearly to sew misinformation and mistrust of Canada governance and democracy altogether, the tactic Pomerantsev describes about by Russia in eastern Europe (and now by Trump in the Ukraine) .
Of course Trudeau made some political decisions - pragmatic policy decisions that attracted the ire of politically correct hard-liners and extreme enviromentalists in Canada. But then lumping Trudeau together with Trump, whom Trudeau stood up to in the Trumps NAFTA debacle (Mexico partly caved on this), is ignorant and misinformed.
These recent political attacks and false hysteria about Trudeau climate and pipeline actions, sound uncannily like what Pomernantsev describes about Russian media attacks in eastern Europe: repeated misinformation whose purpose is not to unseat Trudeau as much as to sew a perception that another western Democracy (Canada) is corrupt.
2
This article illuminates how the pronounced lack of effective political leadership in the developed world at present imperils liberal democracy and enables figures such as Putin. In the English speaking world, which leader aside from Jacenda Arden inspires confidence? Nope, Trump, Boris Johnson and Trudeau don't measure up well.
If peoples of the west suddenly demand better political leadership, it further behooves us to become better informed ourselves. Rather than watch Fox News or CNBC for ideological affirmation, people must scrutinize what they read and hear. Remember, too, that the internet is only a portal for information, not a primary source itself.
Until we ascertain this, America will be subject to a president who eschews actual governance while preaching to his congregation. Trump's appeal in this regard isn't grounded in facts, but blind faith and malicious lies.
7
I couldn't agree with this op-ed more, especially the last paragraph. For this I blame the Democrats. This didn't happen over night and has been cultivated over decades in plain sight. By not feeding the electorate a steady diet of comparing and contrasting the two parties, Democrats are providing strength to the false equivalence Republicans like to employ lest say a disparaging word only about their beloved party. Believe it or not many folks think the only thing different about the two parties is that one is for abortion and the other is not. By Democrats not sounding off and educating the lost flock who are hopelessly clinging to Fox News as their personal misinformed political bible, they are every bit as complicit in dooming this country from inaction as the Republicans are from action.
25
@David I hear you, and yet you blame the party that seems to still cling got human rights and integrity. We've been busy trying to do good while the GOP burned down the house. We were not really motivate to stand on the street corners telling everyone the other team was playing with a different rule book. We knew that, but we've been busy trying to be better people. So, let's not blame the one team that has a bit of dececy left.
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@Randy Buist
For the sake of the country, Democrats, all Democrats, including and especially the 2020 contingent, need to be vociferous about comparing and contrasting. It seems the other side likes to be the first and last voice in the argument and Democrats concede with silence.
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@David
I can understand the anger, as I also witnessed the Clinton years, where the shift was rightward in order to win the second term, great people like Robert Reich were encouraged to leave, and policies and trade agreements put in place that ended up gutting vast parts of the middle of the country.
And through the Obama years, where the Huff Post had a headline in 2012 "Income Equality Worse Under Obama than George W. Bush."
All of this is true, but when you compare those years against the Republican years starting with Reagan, there is no comparison between the parties in terms of raw destruction of the middle class. The apotheosis of this, of course, is the recent, massive tax cut for corporate America and the upper, upper classes.
I do believe, though, that the last paragraph is speaking very directly to the Republicans, especially now.
I don't think we can accuse the Democrats of complete inaction now, with Elizabeth Warren the front-runner, and Impeachment in full swing.
And finally, it's much harder right now to reach the Fox News Lost Flock, who live in a bizarre echo chamber of nonsense, which was originally constructed by Roger Ailes as an alternate reality so that what happened to Nixon would never happen to a Republican president again. We shall soon see, but it may turn out to be a success in that regard.
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It’s time for decent Republicans to stand up and cut Trump loose. I used to admire how those on both sides of US politics respected the position of President. This seems no longer possible with a grub like a Trump in the seat.
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@Michael
Where are the so called”decent” republicans? They no longer exist.
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@Michael
The problem is, it seems there are not enough decent Republicans left (or are they a silent majority?). Too many have swallowed their morals and hitched their wagon to the careening mess that is Trump - they fear that to unhitch themselves would mean a rough tumble over the cliff edge of their political careers, never mind the good of the country.
This may be an absurd analogy, but whichever decent Republicans are left should take a leaf out of the playbook of the aliens in the movie ‘Space Jam’. After being bullied, used and abused by their boss, they realized that not only did they outnumber him, they were also bigger and stronger than him. Thus, together, they were able to hand him defeat and liberate themselves.
4
@Michael. Decent Republicans, at least the decent ones in leadership roles, are for the most part all deceased - dead and buried - turning over in their graves with (regardless of party) the likes of Washington, Madison, Jefferson and Lincoln.
"Nothing is true; everything is permitted." Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals, III:24. Unfortunately, this manner of thinking is no longer limited to the hypothetical realm of the philosophical imagination.
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For a know-nothing so proud of his ignorance and famous for refusing to learn anything from anyone, Trump has become a surprisingly excellent student of Putinism.
Clearly, the raison d’être of Trump’s White House political SWAT team is to insulate the President from the consequences of his actions and attack critics. Why, then, would they ever allow the partial transcript, which so nakedly revealed his shakedown of the Ukrainian leader, to be made public? Equally baffling is their continuing insistence that this document actually exonerates him, the same strategy employed following the release of the similarly incriminating Mueller report.
In my view, what this reflects is the regime’s confidence in its ability to rewrite reality, and by extension, its belief in the Republican base’s dependable credulity. Until now, White House confidence in post-truth pixie dust has been justified. Trump supporters have predictably followed the mandate of their leader to mistrust what they see and hear and to use the President’s everchanging and incoherent utterances as their compass through the world. It’s not clear if that will change. Our only hope is that Trump and his enablers have overplayed their hand, at least with those voters who may not yet be members of the reality-based community but who might be, at minimum, reality-curious.
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@Stephen Ducat - I really have to wonder if Trump bowed before Putin with "please tell me how you do it, control your country," then received his coaching. This is why he abolished all records of his conversations with Putin. And Putin is more than happy to comply.
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@Stephen Ducat
"...the regime’s confidence in its ability to rewrite reality"
thanks to their cozy relationship with election software and hardware providers, especially in vulnerable districts/states and with the judicial capitulation, the authoritarian party struts like they know the fix is already in.
1
Yes, we need a new way forward. Specifically, I think we need a progressive politics that sits less in the head and more in the heart, so it appeals beyond elites to all beings human. In other words, a unifying spiritual revolution that connects us and points the way.
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@L.R.
I like your perspective, and I happen to agree with it.
A Spiritual Revolution is already underway, and has been for quite a few years.
Why isn't it more visible? A few reasons. First, by its very nature, it is unlike the John Wayne prototype (hard on the outside, soft on the inside). Instead, it is soft on the outside and resolute within.
Second, it speaks to the Spirit, not the Ego. The Ego fears everything. The Spirit fears nothing and no one.
And third, it doesn't play in the Media because it doesn't promote the kind of Fear&Loathing that generates headlines and clicks.
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Has it occurred to anyone that these propagandistic outbursts and perturbations, while muddying the waters for most of us, also provide unique opportunities for hedge fund managers and other risky kinds of financial pursuits that cast bets on and/or profit from up-to-the-minute changes in political life?
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@F I suggest you check this out. The profit on one trade was 1.8B (that's billion). Me thinks it has been happening.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/the-mystery-of-the-wall-street-trump-trades
If Pompeo was fully embracing these nonsensical conspiracy theories why did he and others try so hard to hide it from the public? Why not openly espouse it upfront and convince the public its appropriate, if this is really going to be our foreign policy?
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I highly recommend Mr. Pomerantsev's book "Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible" for a ground-up view of how propaganda works in Putin's Russia. For me it was a real eye-opener and showed how public opinion can still be manipulated in a world where people have access to whatever information they want.
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As someone who studies authoritarian regimes, I read this article with great interest. The author offers a penetrating analysis Putin's Russia and compares it with Trump. How conspiracy theories found their home in post-Communist Russia is really a lesson for all societies, particularly for the US. I applaud the author for giving us a very informative and convincing analysis of the history and links between Putin's Russia and Trump.
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May be this is also disinformation, but would like to present a different version of Putin. Didn't President Bush look in his eyes and found him trustworthy?
The only fair yardstick is what he did for Russia. He inherited a nation with inflation that drew parallels to Germany in 1929. There was anarchy on streets, CIS states were formed, China then allied to US against Soviet Union, claimed huge tracts of Siberia. Their only reliable friend was India.
He brought order to streets, crushed terrorism in the oil fields regions with strong arm tactics. It was a matter of economic survival for them. Integrated economy with Europe, conjured an Asiatic vision. Strengthened relations with India, joined Shanghai Conference. Maintained semblance of democracy however imperfect, for rule of law within democratic norms to prevail.
Crimea was transferred to Ukraine by Nikita Khruschev, who was from Ukraine, probably some internal political operation to maintain his grip. Crimea is the only all weather access for Russia. Without Crimea Russian Navy will have to hibernate in winter. Kissinger, the real-politic practitioner, and a former US Admiral have underscored legitimacy of Russian need.
The neo-cons, once mainstream in pre-Trump Republican Party, have undermined free world security architecture by continuing with their cold war mentality. A policy of engaging Russia and weaning it away from "no-option inclination" towards China, termed "Reset" by President Obama is required.
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@second Derivative: I would hope for constructive engagement, but as long as Russia practices its current bullying colonialism toward former vassal states, this will remain difficult.
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@landraic
Yes there are 'frozen conflicts' with several nations those which were in erstwhile Soviet Union. Russia has been using nibbling tactics to make illegal territorial gains, particularly in areas where ethnic Russians are present.
According legitimacy on Crimea, given the military imbalance is fraught with grave risk to these much smaller nations. Fallouts of the dissolutions of Soviet Empire have had several consequences, and these have not worked out yet.
It is necessary for US to be tough on Russia, but with stance of, as you put it, 'constructive engagement'.
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Unless the Democrats can get an super-majority in both the House and the Senate in 2020, we are in for (more) serious trouble. The Republicans are busy disenfranchising potential Democratic voters and gerrymandering as if their lives depended upon it (which they do). The Republican bought and paid for SCOTUS has ruled that partisan gerrymandering as acceptable.
None of this bodes well for our country. But we can still hope. (and Vote!)
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@Democracy / Plutocracy
Yes! And support what Stacey Abrams is doing to help make the 2020 election resemble a normal democracy. Unlike so many of her political contemporaries, she is not running for either the Senate or the Presidency, instead choosing to devote herself to mitigating some of the most egregious voter suppression activity we have seen in decades. Helping her is maybe the one thing we can do that can actually make a difference, since she is focusing on the 20 states that need it the most. And in this electoral college nightmare era, it's all about the states.
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@Democracy / Plutocracy Is it intentional that obsequious terms "POTUS" and "SCOTUS" sound like some type of dematological condition?
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I've not yet read "This is Not Propaganda." But I did read "Nothing is True and Everything is Possible," which was superb. Whatever the new book contains, the last one is as apposite as the day it was published.
As for equating corruption in the West with Russian corruption, it would help if academics didn't assist Mr. Putin in his legerdemain. Sadly, that's all we hear from the likes of Stephen F. Cohen. And it is regrettable when an Anne Applebaum, a fine historian and an ally in this fight, goes on an impulsive Twitter rant about how she's tired of hearing that Ukraine is corrupt and that we should look in the mirror. In truth, the two corruptions are very different beasts -- as she knows.
One of the things that's producing cynicism about truth is the sheer volume of information, regardless of willful deception; though of course we must be more aware of the latter.
I don't think the West has to tell everyone a story about how we're heading for a Great Future. In free societies, the future should usually evolve spontaneously, not be shaped by commissars and bureaucrats. It's a bit ironic that progressives grouse about state capture while calling for a far larger state, which is what has enabled so much of said state capture. Small states can be corrupt and large ones clean, but, generally, in a system like ours, the more opportunities for corruption, the more of it we will see. The dismissal of all concerns about the size of government as "reactionary" is imprudent.
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@David L, Jr.: For those, like me, who haven't heard the term, apparently "state capture" refers to how a corrupt small group of oligarchs can take control of agencies of a state, to direct decisions in their favor. Contrary to David L's view, "state capture" is not facilitated by a large state, but by a chaotic state with poorly functioning lines of democratic communication and control. It was seriously characteristic of the newly formed states formed in the break-up of the Soviet Union, leading to the corrupt oligarchies of today, and is found in many other areas of the owrld.
I suspect you could make a case that it was characteristic of this country in the "Gilded Age", when corrupt public officials were pretty openly for sale, and vast fortunes came into being with the rise of the modern corporation. I wouldn't want to say we have gotten over it.
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I came here to comment that I find this essay to be one of the most illuminating explanations of our present political malaise that I have read. Upon reading the other comments, I find that most seem to agree with me. Thank you, Mr. Pomerantsev for your deep insight. I'd like to think that the way forward for our civilization should be to find a way to preserve the great strength of a free market system which is encouragement and support of innovation; while also finding a way to regulate it - curb it - so that it does not create such economic inequality that it destroys itself. The confusion sown by cynical disinformation frustrates that goal completely.
Perhaps it is no accident that another silent but pervasive counter-movement has gained such popularity over the past decade: mindfulness - the Buddhist practice of calming the mind in order to remain in touch with the "direct experience" of our senses. So many are yearning to find a way of grounding themselves to get past the public confusion. So far this movement has been mostly local and private. It is hard to know whether it will ever be able to help recreate a positive political ideology.
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@mbkennedy: The problem will be the temptation for meditative practices to be a form of escapism, where we are told that all we can change is our own attitudes towards the world, not the world itself, where the privileged tell themselves that it is all a dream, and enjoy the serenity of their expensive austerity, and the unprivileged are told to let go of their resentment. Presumably it doesn't have to be like that.
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@John Bergstrom
That has not been my experience. In the sojourns that I have taken to Buddhist monasteries, doing Sesshins and spending extended time, I have found that the objective has always been clarity. Not escape.
With clarity can come more directed action, more focused and with more energy, since our minds are less cluttered, fearful and angry.
I believe that the view of those that do not practice mindfulness on a daily basis - that it is some kind of upper-crust, shallow dalliance, is inaccurate. In fact it's very, very difficult work to quiet the mind. Maybe the most difficult.
It is also far from dreaming. It is the opposite of dreaming. Those who have spent a lot of time sitting understand that those that spend zero time in that state are, in fact, living in a confused dream most of their waking moments.
Practicing mindfulness will make you a better activist, a better organizer, and a more effective foil to the regressive forces that surround us at every turn.
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@O I agree with you, too! In fact, what you say has been closer to my experience with mindfulness.
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Thank you for this essay. We need this perspective. We used to be different from Russia in many ways but now the Trump gang has used Russia as a model, a bad role model, to emulate.
I just saw the documentary Meeting Gorbachev. It was worth seeing for more perspective on the Soviet system and how it collapsed but was resurrected in its new incarnation by Putin.
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This article provides all the reasons to vote out Trump, Republicans, and BlueDog/Third way Democrats. It’s time to get our national affairs in order and legislate for the masses instead of the wealthy few.
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@Donna M Nieckula
The article doesn't provide reasons to vote out any particular group. Which group(s) you think should be voted out depends on your own version of reality.
@Donna M Nieckula If you think any political party is honest, you missed the point.
2
@Observer Actually, it's you that has missed the point. There is truth but for those who are not served by it the hope is to create a society of people who believe like yourself, thus making everyone untrustworthy. And any lie plausible.
2
Mr. Pomerantsev speaks from experience--he grew up in a country where the leadership's lies were transparent, yet nonetheless effective in changing the beliefs of a significant portion of the citizenry.
We are new at this game. It is still disorienting, which is part of its effectiveness. It works just as well here as it does in Russia. Perhaps better, due to America's lack of experience with the phenomenon.
Ever read George Orwell's "1984"? An American reading that book before 2015 felt that it described somewhere else; a Russian felt that it described his own country.
If you read it before 2015, read it again. It still describes Russia, and now it describes America, too.
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It´s clear our political, cultural, moral, and government institutions- including how we determine political voting districts, the role of ¨dark money and corporations¨ in our elections, voting rights and enfranchisement, immigration, and appointments of judges to federal courts are in need of reform. In my, and other peoples opinion, the Trump administration has been elected by a minority of americans to support a plutocracy of a select few-namely the top 1% of the richest citizens of the USA(see recent tax cuts and changes to the federal tax code). In addition, the environmental and land use regulations and laws have been twisted and changed to benefit oil, coal and fossil fuel supporters of this president and his cronies. These changes go against the clean air act and also federal land conservation policies of past administrations-both republican and democrat. We must reform our insitutions so that they reflect the values of the majority of people in our country, not a select corrupt few.
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We've ceased to value education. We don't ask our kids to question or think, nor do we expect our teachers to be able to do the same. We hire from the bottom third of the class. We get what we paid for.
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@otto Let's not use "we" too freely here. Most Americans value education and the folks hired from the bottom third of the class tend to get the lowest-paying jobs. People with high-tech skills get paid very well, and this will continue to be the case well into the future as we become more and more an information and technology-based economy. The folks who think higher education is simply a breeding ground for liberals will increasingly fall behind in the modern economy (and unfortunately will therefore be more motivated to vote for the Trumps of the future).
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@otto I certainly do ask my students to question and to think. EVERYDAY. And I didn't graduate from the bottom of my class, Otto. Furthermore, I discourage (and even penalize) students for making blanket generalizations like you have done.
3
@otto And the few that do questions are led by the madness of conspiracy theory.
Now a near majority of Americans will believe almost anything. Trump is just the beginning. when there is no fixed truth anything can happen, and it will not be pretty.
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@Bill Metcalf
Many can play at this game. Ultimately it gets leveled out. It's only dangerous when one side gets permanent power.
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@Bill Metcalf There are even millions of credulous people who think taking a salary of 50,000 USD per month, for years, at a foreign gas company in which you have no expertise only because the VP is your father, is ethical - and it's also ethical when that VP daddy uses foreign aid blackmail to halt an investigation into it.
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@Observer Of course the investigation story is untrue. I won't try to convince anyone because there is no point. It will be believed regardless of facts.
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Much of western philosophy has been engaged in what Santayana called "the malicious theory of knowledge." In it's latest manifestations, what is commonly called knowledge is not knowledge at all, but "socially constructed" ideology designed to serve the interests of the powerful. Thus we see the retreat from an ideal of free speech on college campuses, to an ideal of all out battle for power.
As described in this excellent piece, Putin, Trump, and others have shown us where we are headed if we cannot recover a spiritual allegiance to the truth, which is the only solid foundation for a decent society.
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@LewisPG That's a fairly cynical view of higher education -- I think the so-called retreat from free speech on campuses is vastly over-stated. It has been the purveyors of hate speech that have been the subject of campus protests, but otherwise college students seem more open to diverse experiences than in the past; interest in foreign languages for example is at an all-time high. And this is now one of the best-educated generations we've had in America.
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I believe the only solid foundation for a decent society is an interminable effort to attain and maintain sufficient resources and their broad allocation. That would be the "operating system" onto which apps can be attached and run such as rule of law, ethics, morality, etiquette and so forth.
6
@LewisPG True, but you mentioned just Putin and Trump. The BLM/MeToo/Cancel/PC culture has far more to do with free speech suppression in the public arena.
4
There is hope though. That we can comprehend and discuss these issues means we can fix them. Trump serves to remind people what kind of world we want to live in. He reminds us what we want in our leaders. I’m hopeful that we will end up with a better world because DJT was President.
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Trump is showing what a clean sweep by Republicans can do.
It’s encouraging that once Americans saw that in 2018, they voted for Democrats in droves.
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@Judith Evers
Well, no, he's showing us what can be done holding just enough cards. He's showing up the presidency is tailor-made to harbor the worst criminals.
5
@Billbo Keep hoping!! I will too.
4