Kremlin Propaganda and Us

Propaganda is an important subject — always has been. I have written copiously about propaganda — the Kremlin’s, in particular. The Kremlin has devoted itself to this art for generations. Recently, I spoke with Peter Pomerantsev, the Soviet-born British journalist and book-author. His insights into propaganda are remarkable.

Some people are innocent victims. They know not what they do, or repeat. Other people? Not so innocent. There is a relationship — a kind of cooperation — between the propagandizing and the propagandized.

Michael McCaul is the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee (and a Republican, of course). He has spoken candidly:

Mike Turner is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee (and, again, a Republican):

McCaul and Turner are two key chairmen. Two key Republicans. And when they say, “Hey, our party has a problem,” ears should prick up.

The influence of Kremlin propaganda is all around us. On social media. In comments sections. On the cable shows. In podcasts. There is an old saying: “You are what you eat.” I have taken to saying, “You are the media you consume.”

What media are these Americans consuming, that they should think and talk this way?

What media does this lady consume, that she should associate Vladimir Putin — one of the most monstrous killers and tyrants of our time — with “good morality”?

No fair citing ordinary folks, you may say. All right: How about a U.S. senator? Here is a man who says that “Russia is open to a peace agreement, while it is DC warmongers who want to prolong the war.”

This is the way far-left people talked when I was coming of age. Now it is people known as “conservative Republicans.”

Senator Tuberville is alert to propaganda, however: He believes that the Kremlin is the victim. “You can tell Putin is on top of his game,” said the senator. “One thing he said that, it really rung a bell, is the propaganda media machine over here, they sell anything they possibly can to go after Russia.”

A question: If a U.S. senator thinks and talks this way, can better be expected of his constituents? Maybe, but probably not.

J.D. Vance is another senator, and another Republican. Recently, he sneered at reports about “Havana syndrome,” and the Kremlin’s responsibility for it. (For details, read Noah Rothman, here.) This instinct — to sneer at such a thing — abides in many. I have seen it before. But not in the Republican Party (far from it).

Did the new chairman of the Republican National Committee mean to say “Ukraine” here, as he did? Did he mean to say “Russia” instead? Ordinarily, I would think, “Mere slip of the tongue.” But we are not in ordinary times.

Jeffrey Sachs is a professor at Columbia University. He is very, very well educated. He belongs to a peculiar camp that also includes Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer.

Soloviev, as you know, is one of the most odious of the Kremlin propagandists. His calls for the genocide of Ukrainians are routine. Such calls are, in fact, routine in the Russian state media (virtually the only media that are allowed in Putin’s Russia).

I repeat my mantra: “You are the media you consume.” Think what ordinary Russians consume, day after day. A recent poll found that more than half of Russians believe that Ukraine was behind the terrorist attack on the Moscow concert hall — because their media have told them that.

But back to us Americans and what we consume. Obviously, there are people who are ripe for Kremlin propaganda — predisposed to side with Putin over the United States, to say nothing of the Ukrainians. In all likelihood, such people cannot be reached with any facts or counterarguments. They are goners. But others are more innocent — and can perhaps be reached? Peeled away from the lies they are fed?

That is a big job, and I admire all who are engaged in it.

In a podcast with me last January, Professor Phillips O’Brien said, “The Russians have gained far more geopolitical leverage out of the millions they’ve spent on information warfare than the billions they have spent on the military.” The democracies, and democrats, need to be more energetic on this score. A lot depends on it.