Is it coincidence that Repubs are doubling down on alleged depravity of Dems, pedophilia, Q Anon, alleged child sex ring in basement of DC Pizza shop in 2016 used also by Russia now in Ukraine War? Parallels are striking. Why else would Repub Senators allege Judge Jackson soft on sentencing those in possession of child porn? This is Russian playbook used by many members in today's Republican Party. They are seeding rich & fertile soil with innuendo, lies, fear mongering & need to rescue America's innocent children from evil Socialist Dems. Language is also an important weapon to seize power where end justifies the means. Look for Repubs to turn it up a notch or two during summer & fall. And look out for continued attacks on Judge Jackson to divert attention from the Thomases. Repubs have a open line to the Kremlin. And are good students produced by elite universities & law schools just as SS did in 30's & 40's.
I think it's both a coincidence and not a coincidence. First a few words about the way Rs work in general and how it mirrors/is influenced by Putin. It just so happens that Rs favor kleptocracy, unregulated capitalism, and illiberal politics. Remember that tax cuts for the super-rich go back to Reagan in the 1980s. Most Rs were appalled when, in the summer of 2016, the R platform was suddenly changed to weaken its support for Ukraine. This change was influenced by American supporters of Russia, and possibly Trump, though he denies it. Before the nominating convention, Ted Cruz said of Trump, "He is a pathological liar. He can't open his mouth without lying;" and Lindsey Graham said, "If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it" (his tweet, dated May 3, 2016: https://twitter.com/lindseygrahamsc/status/727604522156228608?lang=en). But then the Rs saw that their base supported Trump and there was nothing they could do about it. They understood perfectly who he was/is, but decided, precisely because they understood and actually approved of at least part of what they would be getting in a Trump presidency, that they could use him to get what *they* wanted: SCOTUS nominees, more tax cuts (kleptocracy made legal), deregulation, support of oil and gas, anti-environmental policies, &c. But over time things started to get out of hand. See Timothy Snyder's article on "the gamers and the breakers," Jan. 9, 2021: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/magazine/trump-coup.html. The breakers (crackpots) in the House were on full display during Trump's first impeachment hearings. Before this they had already started to recite Kremlin talking points often and in earnest, and Russian TV now loves Tucker Carlson. It does seem that Russian propagandists have a pretty good understanding of the American people. But Rs are also influenced by dark money from Russia.
Apropos of pedophilia, there is long a history in the U.S. of moral panics, going back at least to what Nathaniel Hawthorne called the "witchcraft hysteria of 1692." He was so obsessed with both that and hypocrisy that most of his writings can be understood only by looking through that lens. When he writes about hypocrisy and the witchcraft hysteria of 1692 in the same novel/short story, the two are intertwined (the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale in "The Scarlet Letter" (hypocrisy), "The Blithedale Romance" (hypocrisy and the witchcraft hysteria), and the short story "Young Goodman Brown" (hypocrisy). Indeed, Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the very best sources on how and why the witchcraft hysteria started in Massachusetts Bay Colony. One of the things upon which we Americans are fixated is the sexualization of children, mainly because of past moral panics. Remember the McMartin preschool case of the 1980s and the Stranger Danger panic? The fact that most children in the U.S. are sexually abused by people they know seemed irrelevant at the time. The Ping-Pong Pizza incident was likely a distraction, but it played on a well-known fear among Americans, especially those with weak minds. But as Prof. Snyder points out in this essay, the Russian people also have a soft spot for moral panics, specifically pedophilia. Just like here in the U.S., all you need to do is use the media to whip up the people into a frenzy over x, y, or z. The study of the rise of popular, sensationalist newspapers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is instructive.
To summarize: Russia and the Rs are playing on already established fears in the U.S., the Rs are influenced by Russia, and both lie, lie, lie.
It is of course lies using the same tropes that Fascists whether just seen as "populist" or as full blown dictators (Putin, Lukashenko, and soon to be Orban). The issue begins with some kind of depravity perpetrated on children by adults. It is language from the same playbook.
Fiona Hill does a great job discussing how contemporaries are using this conspiracy tactic now. It is like an infection that has spread from Russia to right wing nuts everywhere.
Re soon-to-be US Supreme Court Justice Jackson, the attacks on her sentencing record have made me wish for a source (and there may be such a source) revealing owners/investors in the private prison industry, and to what candidates and causes they contribute.
A few breadcrumbs to the private prison industry, look up Corrections Corp of America, and GEO Group. Both companies have their own PAC, so, that is pretty out in the open.
Www.OpenSecrets.org is a good resouce, you can see here PAC spending and donors and party affiliation:
Of course, specific to the activism to oppose US Supreme Court Justice Jackson, it’s not as easy to document a direct link but you can guess R’s are opposed, and arrayed resources across the field of influence. Their obsession with straw-person arguments and the sentencing topic shows their desperation.
Ah, the R’s: the party of the War on Drugs and Just Say No.
The “we’re Strong on Crime” party (yes, that was a slogan I recall, and they are indeed very pro-white-collar-crime).
Please keep writing this essential information. I am liberal, an 80-year-old, but spent so much of my middle-class life supporting my family. I am SO ill-educated about these histories, and so very appalled. I have bought Hannah Arendt, your "On Tyranny," and "Maus" over the years for my grandson, who is finishing college with a concentration in global politics. These are essential for his survival.
Thank you for sharing your educational journey. There is so much to learn! I gained a lot from reading "East West Street: On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity" by Philippe Sands. "Black Earth" and "Bloodlands" were essential reading for me too, of course.
This is one of the saddest and most upsetting posts, Professor Snyder. I dread what is coming. Having just got back from Hungary to Ecuador, I'm gravely concerned about Ukraine and my home country as well, even though the level of strife and suffering is not comparable in the two countries. Having worked with refugees from Afghanistan and after spending almost three years as a volunteer English teacher in Ethiopia (with its civil war only just subsiding), I feel so much pain that I'm almost numb. And I'm just a spectator of what is developing...
The war against truth is, in its own way, barbaric. It's as if my neighbor suddenly insisted, repeatedly, that the fresh and soft green leaves of Spring outside my window are actually black and poisonous. But once the outlandish claim is planted and propagated over and over, the reality I encounter every April day is tainted — even if I know it's ridiculous.
Now the cruelties of the battlefield are even more cruel because the brutalized bodies exist in a reality under ceaseless attack. Are they really victims? Did they deserve to die? Are they even dead? The list of twisted lies is ceaseless.
All of this, of course, is beyond horrible for the Ukrainian people. That said, I can't comprehend what it must feel like for the Russian people who know the truth about the war and the false reality the government seeks to force them to inhabit. The weight of shame must be a heavy burden even for those not responsible for its cause.
Everyday brings more heartbreak. Apparently NATO will not do what it did to stop the Serbs from murdering Muslims in the Balkan wars of the mid to late 90's. Then NATO bombed from the air. The Western Alliance seems unable to take that step. There can be no UN blue helmets because Russia vetoes such action by the UN Security Council. Ukraine must win the war Putin has begun. But May 9 looms, as you have written . May 9. Another milestone in both a truth told from the position of unreality and an unreality pushed as truth. The stories coming from Ukrainians who suffered under Russian occupation are horrifying. Just as horrifying as the occupations right after WW2.
Just this morning I posted a piece surprisingly complementary to yours today: https://magusmagnus.substack.com/p/sunflowers?s=w In fact, I mention you and Bloodlands (long time follower of your work).
Other parallels as well: restorative language vs propaganda
Yes, it shook me. I wonder if there's any information re whether this sort of thing is organized...if individual Americans who are propounding this stuff are on direct lines from troll factories. ?
1.) While I've read about that subject, I don't know enough about it to speak on it, but I highly recommend @SarahKendzior and @AndreaChalupa and their podcast GaslitNation for that sort of thing (https://twitter.com/sarahkendzior). Sarah has a PhD in anthropology and specializes in kleptocracy, disinformation, and organized crime in central Asia and Russia, and specifically in Uzbekistan, as well as corruption in the U.S. She's never been wrong about anything, which I (and others) find frightening. And they've been talking about Ukraine for years on their podcast. 2.) Americans in general are wont to have opinions on subjects they know nothing about, without knowing that they don't know what they're talking about. In other words, they don't know the limits of their knowledge. What this means is that their thinking (cognitive style) tends to be lacking in complexity and nuance, which makes them all too gullible. They have no trouble finding sources, but don't know how to evaluate them. I think some of them could be taught how to evaluate sources and to think analytically, but only if they read, which takes a lot of effort. What I mean by that is that reading has to become a looked-forward-to and loved *habit*. Reading has a way of making one painfully aware of the limits of one's knowledge.
Thank you, Rose, for the podcast recommendation; and as to your point about complexity and nuance, agreed - cognitive style, arrogance of ingnorance. Also, corresponding to what seemed to happen with my post: repetition and shouting down - ignoring the nuances - are techniques of propaganda.
A friend whom I met when I worked as a volunteer English teacher in the Amazonian jungle has read this post and had this to say: Incredible article. Fascinating and horrific. Thanks. Hope you are well. Lucy
As usual, excellent essay. Please continue to add bibliographies in the future. I just came across "The Orphanage" and Hiroaki Kuromiya's "Freedom and Terror in the Donbas" a few days ago, and figured I should probably order them. I already have the latter's "Voices of the Dead," and ditto + Georges Mamoulia's "The Eurasian Triangle: Russia, the Caucasus and Japan, 1904-1945." The others I already have/read or are on order. But I do need to reread "The Origins of Totalitarianism." Now I know at long last that I'm on the right track! :) BTW, I could kick myself for missing the thing you did last night that was hosted by Miami U. I was looking for any news I could find on Mariupol, and then saw it was too late to join. I'm also trying to figure out what's happening in Odesa, Mykolaiv, and Kherson.
"You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies." - John 8:44
Is it coincidence that Repubs are doubling down on alleged depravity of Dems, pedophilia, Q Anon, alleged child sex ring in basement of DC Pizza shop in 2016 used also by Russia now in Ukraine War? Parallels are striking. Why else would Repub Senators allege Judge Jackson soft on sentencing those in possession of child porn? This is Russian playbook used by many members in today's Republican Party. They are seeding rich & fertile soil with innuendo, lies, fear mongering & need to rescue America's innocent children from evil Socialist Dems. Language is also an important weapon to seize power where end justifies the means. Look for Repubs to turn it up a notch or two during summer & fall. And look out for continued attacks on Judge Jackson to divert attention from the Thomases. Repubs have a open line to the Kremlin. And are good students produced by elite universities & law schools just as SS did in 30's & 40's.
I think it's both a coincidence and not a coincidence. First a few words about the way Rs work in general and how it mirrors/is influenced by Putin. It just so happens that Rs favor kleptocracy, unregulated capitalism, and illiberal politics. Remember that tax cuts for the super-rich go back to Reagan in the 1980s. Most Rs were appalled when, in the summer of 2016, the R platform was suddenly changed to weaken its support for Ukraine. This change was influenced by American supporters of Russia, and possibly Trump, though he denies it. Before the nominating convention, Ted Cruz said of Trump, "He is a pathological liar. He can't open his mouth without lying;" and Lindsey Graham said, "If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it" (his tweet, dated May 3, 2016: https://twitter.com/lindseygrahamsc/status/727604522156228608?lang=en). But then the Rs saw that their base supported Trump and there was nothing they could do about it. They understood perfectly who he was/is, but decided, precisely because they understood and actually approved of at least part of what they would be getting in a Trump presidency, that they could use him to get what *they* wanted: SCOTUS nominees, more tax cuts (kleptocracy made legal), deregulation, support of oil and gas, anti-environmental policies, &c. But over time things started to get out of hand. See Timothy Snyder's article on "the gamers and the breakers," Jan. 9, 2021: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/magazine/trump-coup.html. The breakers (crackpots) in the House were on full display during Trump's first impeachment hearings. Before this they had already started to recite Kremlin talking points often and in earnest, and Russian TV now loves Tucker Carlson. It does seem that Russian propagandists have a pretty good understanding of the American people. But Rs are also influenced by dark money from Russia.
Apropos of pedophilia, there is long a history in the U.S. of moral panics, going back at least to what Nathaniel Hawthorne called the "witchcraft hysteria of 1692." He was so obsessed with both that and hypocrisy that most of his writings can be understood only by looking through that lens. When he writes about hypocrisy and the witchcraft hysteria of 1692 in the same novel/short story, the two are intertwined (the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale in "The Scarlet Letter" (hypocrisy), "The Blithedale Romance" (hypocrisy and the witchcraft hysteria), and the short story "Young Goodman Brown" (hypocrisy). Indeed, Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the very best sources on how and why the witchcraft hysteria started in Massachusetts Bay Colony. One of the things upon which we Americans are fixated is the sexualization of children, mainly because of past moral panics. Remember the McMartin preschool case of the 1980s and the Stranger Danger panic? The fact that most children in the U.S. are sexually abused by people they know seemed irrelevant at the time. The Ping-Pong Pizza incident was likely a distraction, but it played on a well-known fear among Americans, especially those with weak minds. But as Prof. Snyder points out in this essay, the Russian people also have a soft spot for moral panics, specifically pedophilia. Just like here in the U.S., all you need to do is use the media to whip up the people into a frenzy over x, y, or z. The study of the rise of popular, sensationalist newspapers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is instructive.
To summarize: Russia and the Rs are playing on already established fears in the U.S., the Rs are influenced by Russia, and both lie, lie, lie.
It is of course lies using the same tropes that Fascists whether just seen as "populist" or as full blown dictators (Putin, Lukashenko, and soon to be Orban). The issue begins with some kind of depravity perpetrated on children by adults. It is language from the same playbook.
Fiona Hill does a great job discussing how contemporaries are using this conspiracy tactic now. It is like an infection that has spread from Russia to right wing nuts everywhere.
@Sterling Leese
“Is it coincidence…“
It’s similar, in that in both cases it is the mark of desperation…
to make something happen at any cost.
What did Ginni Thomas say to Mark Meadows Jan 6th? “There are no rules in war.”
https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1509544083613700096?s=21
Re soon-to-be US Supreme Court Justice Jackson, the attacks on her sentencing record have made me wish for a source (and there may be such a source) revealing owners/investors in the private prison industry, and to what candidates and causes they contribute.
A few breadcrumbs to the private prison industry, look up Corrections Corp of America, and GEO Group. Both companies have their own PAC, so, that is pretty out in the open.
Www.OpenSecrets.org is a good resouce, you can see here PAC spending and donors and party affiliation:
https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/geo-group/C00382150/pac-to-pac/2020
https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/corrections-corp-of-america/C00366468/summary/2014
Of course, specific to the activism to oppose US Supreme Court Justice Jackson, it’s not as easy to document a direct link but you can guess R’s are opposed, and arrayed resources across the field of influence. Their obsession with straw-person arguments and the sentencing topic shows their desperation.
Ah, the R’s: the party of the War on Drugs and Just Say No.
The “we’re Strong on Crime” party (yes, that was a slogan I recall, and they are indeed very pro-white-collar-crime).
Please keep writing this essential information. I am liberal, an 80-year-old, but spent so much of my middle-class life supporting my family. I am SO ill-educated about these histories, and so very appalled. I have bought Hannah Arendt, your "On Tyranny," and "Maus" over the years for my grandson, who is finishing college with a concentration in global politics. These are essential for his survival.
Thank you for sharing your educational journey. There is so much to learn! I gained a lot from reading "East West Street: On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity" by Philippe Sands. "Black Earth" and "Bloodlands" were essential reading for me too, of course.
Thanks. will put them on my list.
This is one of the saddest and most upsetting posts, Professor Snyder. I dread what is coming. Having just got back from Hungary to Ecuador, I'm gravely concerned about Ukraine and my home country as well, even though the level of strife and suffering is not comparable in the two countries. Having worked with refugees from Afghanistan and after spending almost three years as a volunteer English teacher in Ethiopia (with its civil war only just subsiding), I feel so much pain that I'm almost numb. And I'm just a spectator of what is developing...
"for the children"...."protect the children"...."the other side....." Russians and Republicans.
The war against truth is, in its own way, barbaric. It's as if my neighbor suddenly insisted, repeatedly, that the fresh and soft green leaves of Spring outside my window are actually black and poisonous. But once the outlandish claim is planted and propagated over and over, the reality I encounter every April day is tainted — even if I know it's ridiculous.
Now the cruelties of the battlefield are even more cruel because the brutalized bodies exist in a reality under ceaseless attack. Are they really victims? Did they deserve to die? Are they even dead? The list of twisted lies is ceaseless.
All of this, of course, is beyond horrible for the Ukrainian people. That said, I can't comprehend what it must feel like for the Russian people who know the truth about the war and the false reality the government seeks to force them to inhabit. The weight of shame must be a heavy burden even for those not responsible for its cause.
Everyday brings more heartbreak. Apparently NATO will not do what it did to stop the Serbs from murdering Muslims in the Balkan wars of the mid to late 90's. Then NATO bombed from the air. The Western Alliance seems unable to take that step. There can be no UN blue helmets because Russia vetoes such action by the UN Security Council. Ukraine must win the war Putin has begun. But May 9 looms, as you have written . May 9. Another milestone in both a truth told from the position of unreality and an unreality pushed as truth. The stories coming from Ukrainians who suffered under Russian occupation are horrifying. Just as horrifying as the occupations right after WW2.
Just this morning I posted a piece surprisingly complementary to yours today: https://magusmagnus.substack.com/p/sunflowers?s=w In fact, I mention you and Bloodlands (long time follower of your work).
Other parallels as well: restorative language vs propaganda
you should see what happened just now in the comments on my page - re propaganda
Yikes. Just read the comment.
Yes, it shook me. I wonder if there's any information re whether this sort of thing is organized...if individual Americans who are propounding this stuff are on direct lines from troll factories. ?
1.) While I've read about that subject, I don't know enough about it to speak on it, but I highly recommend @SarahKendzior and @AndreaChalupa and their podcast GaslitNation for that sort of thing (https://twitter.com/sarahkendzior). Sarah has a PhD in anthropology and specializes in kleptocracy, disinformation, and organized crime in central Asia and Russia, and specifically in Uzbekistan, as well as corruption in the U.S. She's never been wrong about anything, which I (and others) find frightening. And they've been talking about Ukraine for years on their podcast. 2.) Americans in general are wont to have opinions on subjects they know nothing about, without knowing that they don't know what they're talking about. In other words, they don't know the limits of their knowledge. What this means is that their thinking (cognitive style) tends to be lacking in complexity and nuance, which makes them all too gullible. They have no trouble finding sources, but don't know how to evaluate them. I think some of them could be taught how to evaluate sources and to think analytically, but only if they read, which takes a lot of effort. What I mean by that is that reading has to become a looked-forward-to and loved *habit*. Reading has a way of making one painfully aware of the limits of one's knowledge.
Thank you, Rose, for the podcast recommendation; and as to your point about complexity and nuance, agreed - cognitive style, arrogance of ingnorance. Also, corresponding to what seemed to happen with my post: repetition and shouting down - ignoring the nuances - are techniques of propaganda.
A friend whom I met when I worked as a volunteer English teacher in the Amazonian jungle has read this post and had this to say: Incredible article. Fascinating and horrific. Thanks. Hope you are well. Lucy
As usual, excellent essay. Please continue to add bibliographies in the future. I just came across "The Orphanage" and Hiroaki Kuromiya's "Freedom and Terror in the Donbas" a few days ago, and figured I should probably order them. I already have the latter's "Voices of the Dead," and ditto + Georges Mamoulia's "The Eurasian Triangle: Russia, the Caucasus and Japan, 1904-1945." The others I already have/read or are on order. But I do need to reread "The Origins of Totalitarianism." Now I know at long last that I'm on the right track! :) BTW, I could kick myself for missing the thing you did last night that was hosted by Miami U. I was looking for any news I could find on Mariupol, and then saw it was too late to join. I'm also trying to figure out what's happening in Odesa, Mykolaiv, and Kherson.
"You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies." - John 8:44