The Russians have, for a century or more, been masters at creating destabilising and corrosive propaganda.
Their problem, during the Soviet era, was the lack of a good delivery system.
People read local newspapers, and listened to local radio stations, and watched local TV stations, and where Russia tried to mimic these media channels, it was unavoidably obvious. You could put your propaganda into your own media channels, and you could maybe get some friendly local channels to parrot it; But ulimately even the most unsophisticated Westerners knew which ideas were coming straight from Moscow, and would treat it with the skepitcism it deserved.
The Internet, and particularly social media, changed all that. It became easy for a person anywhere in the world to pose, successfully, as a local "concerned citizen"; To introduce ideas by "Just Asking Questions"; And to give the impression of vast popular and local support, through astroturfing and the use of sock puppets.
The poorly educated rubes, trained to a lack of (local) skepticism by centuries of religious "teachings", were absolute suckers for any and all of the Internet's new ways to get their attention, and fell for Nigerian 419 scams, phishing attacks, and foreign propaganda, hook, line, and sinker.
The generation who grew up in the era before the Internet hold a genuine, heartfelt, and lifelong trust that media are fundamentally trustworthy, because "they wouldn't be allowed to say it if it wasn't true". My father in law has
repeatedly given his bank details to scammers, because if an email says it came from his bank, and has his bank's logo on it, it
must actually be from his bank -
they wouldn't be allowed to send it if it wasn't for real.
Russia isn't behind every single destabilising rumour, every viral trend, every dubious politician or political idea, or every concept that white ants the structures of our society. But it's a better than 50-50 chance that any given example of these things originated (at least in part) with Putin's propaganda team.
The tabloid press (the Daily Mail being an exemplar) both amplify this propaganda, and add to it agenda items of their own. Like Moscow, they see profit in enraged citizens.
There was a protest march through Brisbane last week, by a group calling themselves "The People's Revolution". It was a small crowd; I had a front row seat as I was driving the first vehicle stopped by the police cordon, and I would estimate that there were perhaps 150-200 protestors. Their placards were fascinating, not for their content, but for its scattergun (lack of) focus. They were protesting about:
- Mask wearing mandates (these went away years ago)
- The imprisonment of Julian Assange
- Digital Identity Cards (not, as far as I can tell, something currently even proposed by any Australian Government body)
- Gun control laws
- Bill Gates (no further information on what his alleged misdeed(s) might be, we are expected to know)
- Vaccination (maybe that's Bill Gates's misdeed)
- Health Insurance
- The World Trade Organisation
- Immigration
- Taxes
And probably a few other things I didn't note at the time.
I have seen a lot of protest marches in my time, and even participated in a fair few. Never have I seen one so unfocussed, or unclear about its demands.
These are people who have been caught by the fallout at the fringes of a set of targeted attacks on America. Their concerns are mostly American issues, irrelevant to their lives in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia; But the Internet crosses national boundaries, and propaganda designed to make the worst educated Americans become activists (even
violent activists) against "the authorities" also makes a handful of comfortable Australians angry - because it's designed to invoke anger.
It is of zero importance to the originators in the Kremlin, or in the tabloid "newsrooms" what particular things people are angry about; They just need people to be angry.
In the '70s, the people who swallowed Kremlin propaganda were a tiny number of laughable losers;
Wolfie Smith would have been right at home at last week's Brisbane protest. But today, they have 40+% of the vote, and may well choose an insane convict as the next US President, on the basis of this absurd collection of Kremlin amplified vague and imagined grievances.
And there seems to be very little that the reality based fraction of the population can do about it.
