One of the major themes of this series is the genesis of modern conspiracy theories, and I'm definitely ready to hear Curtis' take on the matter. I feel like he's had to scrap several projects over the past few years as events overtook one's ability to digest.
I'm hoping he mentions something about the liberal/russiagate conspiracy theories as the emotional counterbalance to the rightwing/qanon-kenyan theories. Also a discussion of how the current dismissal of all conspiracy theories as axiomatically untrue is foolish.
This comment appears to be an attempt to paint these conspiracy theories as equivalent.
One posits there was a Russian influence on an election(which is probably true if not likely in all of our elections for the past 50 years) and the other is an almost comical rejection of reality.
For what it’s worth the parent likely knows this and I don’t think the person I’m responding to is making this comment in good faith.
there was a Russian influence on an election(which is probably true if not likely in all of our elections for the past 50 years)
I think anyone advancing the hard line that Russia has influenced US elections for the last 50 years still has not emerged from the rabbit hole dug for protection from nuclear attacks 50 years ago.
Russia may revel and delight in anything that weakens the pre-eminent superpower, they surely have cyberwarfare teams reacting to constant US attacks. But the idea that US election results were swayed is far-fetched. The "division" that was supposedly sowed by clever Russian propaganda was manufactured by the economic engine running out of control in the USA and the resulting impoverishment of many.
Like many conspiracy theories the Russiagate hysteria seeks to replace complexity with simplicity. From my cultural and economic background it is less obviously crazy than QAnon, but if I seek to find solid grounds for either of them I end up dropping both of them into the same asylum.
Reality, as Curtis has reminded us, is not something we have direct access to, we are working off imperfect models. When those models stop working we should change them. Clinging on to them is irrational. It looks like our current models are very poor at describing the complexity of the world.
You are holding the factual motte: that Russian intelligence agencies bought some adds on social media and pretending it's the same as the bailey of the larger conspiracy theory: that Russian agents did everything up to an including hacking into voting machines, changing tallies in swing states, having blackmail on Trump, Trump having a Russian handler, Trump being a Russian asset and all sorts of other nonsense.
Russia gate is Qanon for liberals.
We even have a factual Jewish pedophile with ties to Clinton, the British Crown and the CIA who died in 'mysterious' circumstances for the Qanon motte.
Likewise, you're doing the reverse motte and bailey of: that Trump clearly was not a super-spy being directed out of Moscow as part of a Cold War style operation where a host of right wing Americans were controlled and micromanaged by Russian spymasters: THEREFORE there was nothing Russia could have been doing that would be useful to them, and it's all just made up nonsense, 'russiagate'.
Adam Curtis himself outlined some background for the counter-argument in Hypernormalization: Putin's very successful politics of chaos. This is a practice where Putin supported a number of contradictory political actors to produce 'the Zone', a condition where you couldn't really know who was real and who was being supported by Putin and putting forth fake argument.
THAT, not the Cold War style micro-management, is what ended up doing the real damage, and it's been dismayingly effective. Adam Curtis had observed and reported on it years ago.
Denial of the totality of Russiagate (shadowy foreign powers are using the scary, technological internet to reach into the minds of innocent Americans who would otherwise be happily eating apple pie and going to work on time in the porn and missile factory) does not imply that the motte is untrue.
It is very possible that Russia, or some element of the Russian elite, have sought to propagandize the USA. But here is zero proof that it was effective, let alone that there was control of Trump, zero proof of voting irregularities, zero proof of a change in foreign policy advantageous to Russia.
Russiagate is irrational. Maybe not as lurid as QAnon, but similarly lacking in support for its major theses.
Or we did it to ourselves with a media that gave Trump 2 billion dollars in free air time because he was the best thing to happen to ratings, 40 years of falling living standards only buoyed up by more work, mortgages and credit cards, of politicians lies that left 80% of the country sinking while making life at the top better than it ever was.
It is easy to blame someone outside for our problem, much less so to admit that there wasn't an evil master mind smart enough to play 20 dimensional chess yet foolish enough to be brought down by a few plucky reporters with a mac book.
No, Russia is an excuse and if the next Trump is what people lied this Trump was we would be indeed doomed.
There's an interesting kind of reverse motte and bailey I've noticed happening with QAnon too.
Motte: Trump was not an undercover operative working to undermine a deep state cabal with patriots who have secretly arrested almost every major politician and celebrity and replaced them with holograms.
Bailey: there's no such thing as elite pedophile rings.
"The Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election with the goals of harming the campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the candidacy of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States. According to U.S. intelligence agencies, the operation — code named Project Lakhta[1] — was ordered directly by Russian President Vladimir Putin.[2]"
