America’s left puts Putin to shame when it comes to disinformation
By: Rich Lowry
The woke secular progressive left does a far more effective job spinning propaganda and lies to deceive and lie to the American public to keep us divided and manipulated that Putin or even Zi ever could. They are a clear and present danger to the exceptional America we love as well as to her security and economic strength.
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Why do the Russians need to bother spreading disinformation when our own domestic sources do a much better job at it?
We just went through a four-year national obsession with Kremlin disinformation. It supposedly swayed the 2016 election. It was “sowing divisions” in American society. It accounted for the discovery of Hunter Biden’s laptop during the 2020 election.
Social-media companies were excoriated for allegedly letting Russian disinfo poison their networks and the American mind.
There was nothing that some Russian operators — spending a pittance — couldn’t do. The former Time magazine managing editor and Obama State Department official Richard Stengel wrote a book titled “ Information Wars: How We Lost the Global Battle Against Disinformation and What We Can Do About It .” According to Stengel, the Russians had mounted “an unprecedented attack against the very foundation of our democracy.”
The Russians were amateurs, though. If they really knew what they were doing, they would spread rank lies about election reforms passed by a US state, make the deceptions so pervasive that the president of the United States would casually repeat them, unjustifiably dredge up memories of a terrible period of repression in America, relentlessly racialize the debate and intimidate corporate America into thoughtlessly entering the partisan fight and discrediting itself with a significant segment of the population.
No, Russian trolls operating somewhere in St. Petersburg didn’t undertake this highly successful information operation against the Georgia election law — Stacey Abrams and her allies in media and politics did.
If the Russians had the requisite skill, they would spread the false story that a talented American governor had sold out his citizens by letting a campaign contribution distort his distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, suppressing all facts to the contrary and stoking yet more conspiratorial thinking about the governor among his political opponents.
The Russians couldn’t pull this off — yet “60 Minutes” did, in a laughably dishonest report over the weekend about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis using the most popular grocery-story chain in the Sunshine State to get the vaccine in the arms of Floridians.
If the Russians were devious enough, they would take a God-awful mass shooting, ignore all the evidence about the perpetrator’s motives to define it as a crime driven by racial hatred and undermine faith in the local police and FBI when they presented the facts.
The Russians couldn’t manage this, either — but a veritable army of media commentators and progressive politicians could. They insisted against the available evidence that the Atlanta spa shooter must have been driven by hatred of Asians, while Democratic senators openly dissented from the FBI director’s statement that the shooting wasn’t a hate crime.
If the Russians had the power or know-how, they would spin a story of US law enforcement as a racist occupying force that should be resisted in “largely peaceful” protests all over the country, putting the cops on their back-foot and creating an environment of spiraling disorder and violence in some of the most iconic US cities.
Of course, the Russians also had nothing to do with this — Black Lives Matter and the media did all the hard work and have largely managed to ignore the rising tide of crime that is undoing one of the signal domestic accomplishments of the last several decades.
None of this is to dismiss the pernicious influence of Russian information operations and cyber strikes, especially overseas, or to minimize the hideousness of the Putin regime. But it is galling to see the same people who sounded the klaxons about the Russians undermining faith in the American system for years themselves spread — or at least casually accept — progressives narratives based on poisonous lies about our country.
The Russians are never going to stop running their information campaigns against the West, which date back to the Soviet Union. But they must occasionally be tempted to stand back in envy and awe at all that the US promoters of woke narratives have been able to accomplish without them.
Do some conservatives ever get tired of sucking Putin's little hockey stick? This seed indicates they do not. Not a single of point this author tries to outline is anything like the misinformation being shoveled by Putin and his Trump loving minions.
Great article.
We see the results of MSM disinformation every day here. The Jim Crow on Steroids libel and the shockingly dishonest 60 minutes story on Desantis are just the latest examples.
And the empty, deflective responses we see here on NT make it a slam dunk, complete indictment of the American left.
There was nothing substantive in this moronic conservative screed. Comparing American MSM or the supposed "lefts" narrative to the blatantly antagonistic and distorted narrative coming from Putin who anyone with even a spec of intelligence knows wants to damage and destroy western democracy and America is beyond dishonest, it's borderline treasonous. Fuck Putin and fuck anyone who defends that piece of shit with such ridiculous claims like "well Putin's not so bad, just look at the majority of Americans who voted for Biden and don't believe the way I do...". Fuck them right in the ear.
You seem all upset about it.
Comparing American MSM or the supposed "lefts" narrative to the blatantly antagonistic and distorted narrative coming from Putin who anyone with even a spec of intelligence knows wants to damage and destroy western democracy and America is beyond dishonest, it's borderline treasonous.
It's not treasonous. The left has become the personification of "Big Brother!"
Fuck Putin and fuck anyone who defends that piece of shit with such ridiculous claims like "well Putin's not so bad, just look at the majority of Americans who voted for Biden and don't believe the way I do...". Fuck them right in the ear.
And FUCK THE LEFT that loves Xi and his pandemic!
Only those living detached from reality in the alternative conservative Republican universe where 'alternative facts' fly free would believe such complete nonsense.
Only those living detached from reality in the alternative conservative Republican universe where 'alternative facts' fly free
Tell us again how racism is as bad now in the south as it was during Jim Crow.
Cartoon time? Ok boys & girls, put it away.
Gee, Dad. The Seeder of this article encourages cartoons. See his Comment 1.1.
Actually, I banned them at one time, but our little leftist babies bitched, as usual. They can't deal with adult conversations. They need cartoons.
That is just absolutely hilarious. You don't even realize how funny that is, do you? Who is the most prolific poster of cartoons on NT? A little rightie baby who can't deal with adult conversations and needs cartoons?
It is apparent that the anti-freeze in the GOP orange aid is tasteless since Lowry, who has inherently and not passively fallen into the worn out cliché of, "I'm like a really smart guy."
Rich Lowry is one of the jagoffs among right wing "thinkers" who held his nose for four years while telling us about all the great things Trump was doing for (to) America. Republican and right wing objectives were more important to him than the integrity of our country. Fuck him.
You mean making America safe instead of flooding it with migrants? You have until 2022 and the scum will be tossed out!
Recently ford announced they will renege on a promise to make a next generation vehicle in ohio and will move production to mexico. trump would’ve called them out and tried to get them to change their mind. I guarantee we will not hear a word of this from dementia boy or giggle bitch.
I'm very willing.
Of course not. You see, progressives think it's a good thing if we can pay less for the price of one of those Ford vehicles. They have no use for America's middle class.
BTW, I can't stand her cackling!
Ask Iggy!
I agree, she is worse than clinton.
That's because trump is a socialist.
Nonsense, most progressives are middle class, they just can't stand those with no class like Trump and all his whiny petulant sycophants.
Only if they don't have a brain. "How are you going to pay for those progressive ideas" must never enter into their heads. Tax the rich and corporations and watch the middle class shrink as their jobs are sent overseas. Those corporations/businesses not rich enough to dodge the new tax system will have to raise the cost of their goods and cut workers; which means more cost and unemployment to the middle class and poor.
But they will cuddle up with BLM, Antifa, and the rest of their leftist Brown Shirts. That is so much better!/S
So you don't think that progressives are a part of the American middle class?
So does this statement mean that you consider all migrants to be unsafe and scum?
I think 'we' already know the answer to that Thomas.
President Biden is incapable of understanding what his handlers are putting on his teleprompter.
I actually feel sorry for the man, and his handlers should be prosecuted for elder abuse.
Ulike trump, Biden can actually READ a teleprompter.
President Trump does not need a teleprompter. Of course, President Biden uses more than a teleprompter, he's using a jumbotron with super size scripts.
Biden also gets the questions from the media ahead of time. That way the scripted response is planned out well in advance- not that Biden can remember the script.
This statement is quite ironic, as it is the opening salvo of a propaganda piece.
No, this piece of Russian/Republican/Right propaganda works by smearing one side (Democrat/Left/Liberals) by using facts dissociated from full context to distort information and to demean and dehumanize a section of the American electorate. The tactic is used by all sides frequently and is easily recognizable if one has most/all of the facts instead of just some of the facts and follows the logic of the argumentation presented.
Usually, the piece will tell you what it is going to do in the setup, as we can see here:
What do you feel after reading this? You were warmed up by the title "America’s left puts Putin to shame when it comes to disinformation" cause that is obviously going to be a well balanced and thoughtfully written piece. What, no? Of course not, the title and the opener get you excited or maybe angry so that your brain is actually operating on a different level, a level that has been shown to alter the chemistry and the reactions of the brains logical reasoning centers. I.E. It makes you more susceptible to flim-flam schemes. After that, you just have to nod, feel supported in your outrage and occasionally wipe the spittle from your chin.
The statements are disingenuous by overstatement. The quotes around largely peaceful imply that they weren't. Some weren't, between 93 and 95% were. That is largely peaceful. A careful look at he rest leaves one to consider the actual reasons for the violence and to consider maybe they did have a point. Unless you were a NT conservative, then all of the protests were bad and the organization was as well. Kind of a broad brush off the page , "nothing to see here, we are not going to admit that we have a problem until it bites us in the ass again and again and then we will just tear gas and riot police our way out of it" attitude.
All of this brings up the question, "Why would anyone do this?" Well control, my dear. Politicians are trying to get elected for fun and profit of politicians and political party. The more they can sow the seeds of corrupt logic and disseminate the distortions of the "Others", they will keep us squabbling over made-up controversies so that we don't notice that we are sinking into the muck of their creation.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Just keep on hating the other, whomever that may be.
You were complaining about the author of this piece arguing dishonestly to distort information and to demean and dehumanize? Do I have that right?
Since when is a 5% violence rate acceptable? It boggles the mind that liberals think they should be praised because they only riot, loot and engage in violence 5 percent of the time they held a meeting. Try applying that standard to any other situatiion.
"Since I only punch my boss 5% of the time I engage with him, I deserve a raise for being "largely peaceful"
"Your honor, I only beat my kid 5% of the times I see him, rather than going to jail, I deserve an award for being a "largely peaceful" parent.
"I only assault 5% of the uber drivers I summon, how can they possibly block me since I'm "largely peaceful"
Civilization cannot be sustained if it's acceptable to engage in violence in 5% of your interactions.
What a perfect comment from you.
Please point to where I said that violence was acceptable? Be specific.
You can bleat and piss and moan all you want. It still does not change the fact that most of the the protests were peaceful. That 5 to 7% figure is not even for the entirety of the protest. Almost all of the people who attended these protests during the day were peaceful. But that doesn't sell add copy or equal clicks so they were not payed attention to. So the actual percentage of the protesters who were violent is much smaller than that, but that does not fit your narrative of uppity black people destroying society.
Your arguments do not apply and you know it. Why don't you go back to the land of false equivalence you came from with all the rapists and murderers and drug dealers and, some of you may be good people too..... .
Again, so what? The overwhelming majority of the election protests (above 95%) were peaceful. Does that mitigate or make the riot at Capitol Hill less newsworthy? Yet every time the nationwide riots get mentioned, the "95% peaceful " card ets played as if that has possible relevance. All protests should be peaceful. Any deviation from that standard is something to be troubled. Yet no matter how many violent riots the left engages in, they seem to think the 15 high school girls protesting for BLM at a suburban McDonalds somehow makes it impermissible to focus on the dozens killed and hundreds of police officers injured at the left wing riots.
So the actual percentage of the protesters who were violent is much smaller than that
There you go again. Minimizing and excusing the violence. Let me guess, all of the violence in all of the cities was the result of right wing agitators from out of town...
, but that does not fit your narrative of uppity black people destroying society.
Distorting what I wrote to demean and dehumanize someone who disagrees with you. in. Just keep on hating the other, whomever that may be.
I don't hate people, I just despise people who distort truth to try and paint a problem to resemble more closely what they want people to see. So I don't hate you, Sean, I pity you because you have swallowed the distortions that you spout without recognizing that you are really lying while doing so.
I did not minimize anything. If somebody is violent then they need to be held accountable for the violence which they perpetrate. What I do is try to place events in their proper context so that we can hopefully learn something from them instead of jumping in with preformed conclusions to stamp on problems and then we dismiss those same problems as somehow "fixed."
When the figure of 95% comes up, you treat that as if 5% of the protests were violent in totality, as if all of the peaceful protesters who were at any one protest that happened to turn violent at some point where therefore violent protestors also. You point to the 5% and say things like This:
and
Which distorts, incredibly, the amount of violence and the perpetrators of the same at BLM protests. And this is before taking into account the disparate reasons for the violence in the first place. What really needs to be done is to look at the conditions that caused the formation of systemic racism and attempt to change them instead of blaming the symptoms, otherwise, the symptoms will be recurring.
Think of it like a leaky roof: You can paint over the stain on the ceiling, but eventually it is going to leak through and then you have a bigger problem than if you had just done the work and fixed the underlying problem in the first place.