Progressives are now getting the “Putin’s Puppet” business.
Will being the subject of smear jobs help leftists gain insight that Russian conspiracy theories were bullshit all along?
EVERYTHING BAD IN SOCIETY IS BECAUSE OF RUSSIA
In February Nancy Pelosi called leftist ceasefire protestors “Putin’s Puppets” and said there should be a government investigation into their finances. She was turning a smear tactic usually reserved for Republicans against her own base. But because it’s so ridiculous on its face to say ceasefire protesters – and now more importantly, student ceasefire protestors are spreading Putin’s message – this label hasn’t really stuck. But they have another smear handy, “antisemite.” Students, who are from the most socially conscious anti-racist generation (Gen Z) of all time, are now suddenly antisemitic because of their opposition to genocide.
In October 2022, thirty members of the House Congressional Progressive Caucus wrote a timid letter saying that while they support Ukraine funding, they would like it attached to diplomacy “redoubling efforts to seek a realistic framework for a ceasefire.” They were immediately savaged by the media and the neoconservative wing of their own party as doing the work of Putin. They realized they couldn’t handle the “Putin’s Puppet” business, withdrew the letter, and never spoke of it again. Later they would all vote for Ukraine funding. This left all future anti-war activism in congress up to the MAGA crowd like Matt Gaetz.
The ultimate point being that those opposed to war will be smeared by those in power as being aligned with the enemy. But leftists and liberals still don’t get that they were wrong to call Republicans traitors for being against the war in Ukraine. And Republicans, soon after being smeared as Putin’s Puppets, will turn around and join Democrats to use the same tactic to smear progressives as antisemites and pro-Hamas. In fact, when congress recently voted to send sixty billion more in funding to Ukraine Pelosi referred to the majority of Republicans who opposed it as being part of “Putin’s Caucus.” Less than two weeks later, that same caucus voted on a bill that would define criticism of Israel as antisemitic hate speech.
After Trump won the electoral college in 2016 a conspiracy theory was started by the Clinton administration that Trump had colluded with Russia. The now discredited, “Steele Dossier” was produced as evidence and the special counsel Mueller investigation, was conducted. The “mainstream media,” meaning every major outlet other than FOX News, the New York Post and the Daily Wire, pushed the idea that Trump was being controlled and/or blackmailed by Vladimir Putin, and this was a major threat to our democracy. The conclusion of the investigation was that there was only a small Russian troll farm that posted anti-Clinton Facebook ads and memes to a small audience that were going to vote for Trump anyway. Trump himself was not involved. That doesn’t matter though, mainstream news outlets never apologized or admitted they were wrong for deceiving the American public for six years. The result being that in the minds of most Democrats today, Trump really did collude with Russia.
But even after it has been proven false, Stephen Colbert still tells jokes, and gets big laughs, with the underlying premise that Donald Trump is a puppet of Putin. Jay Leno used to tell ad nauseam Bill Clinton is horny jokes and George Bush is dumb jokes. Colbert is just as repetitious with his Trump jokes, but the difference is Leno’s jokes were premised in the truth: Clinton really was horny, and Bush really was dumb. But Colbert’s jokes are based on a false premise: Trump was never a servant of Putin. But because the propaganda is so ingrained in the minds of Democrats, and the media pretend the discrediting of these stories never happened, he will always get that laugh.
The Democrats got big on calling everything they didn’t like a Russian conspiracy or Russian misinformation, so much so that it became self-parody. Just Google the phrase “Russia weaponizes . . . (fill in the blank: Trump’s foreign policy, white supremacy, racism, American rage, America’s mindset, Black voters not voting for Hillary Clinton, the media in general, Germany’s far-right, the migrant crisis in Syria, floods, droughts . . .) and you will find ridiculous articles all over American media. Anything bad in American society and the world (and every failure of US elites) was because of a Russian misinformation campaign.
Rachel Maddow ran a story saying that Russia had a secret plot to turn off America’s power grid. This conspiracy theory was later used as the plot of an episode of CSI but they didn’t even give her a writing credit. Even George Takei has said accusations against him for sexual harassment were part of a Russian conspiracy.
If they don’t like what you are saying you spreading misinformation, if they REALLY don’t like what you are saying you are spreading Russian misinformation.
LEFTISTS DON’T HAVE GOOD INSIGHT ABOUT SMEAR TACTICS
The short answer is no, the left doesn’t get it. I have been posting on r/latestagecapitalism regularly since the war in Gaza began. It’s one of the better left-wing subreddits these days. It’s more concentrated on economic and foreign policy issues and the users are great on Israel’s occupation. But they have a blind spot regarding the U.S./Russia Proxy War because they believe in the framing of the war as Russia’s War on Ukraine. I can’t get mad at people for believing this as the propaganda regarding the Ukraine war has been so complete that people of both the right and left accept it’s framing. And a big part of why they accept the framing is that media primed them to consider Russia as the Big Bad for years. The replacing of the Italian mafia with the Russian mafia in Hollywood films started in the early 2000s. But it was 2016 when the Democrat’s started using Russia as a scapegoat for everything they don’t like.
I posted the meme that takes of the form of Martin Niemoller’s “First they came . . .” holocaust poem and got zero likes. Amy Schumer also made a “first they came . . .” meme about her stand with Israel. I’m guessing Niemoller didn’t think he was making a meme template when he wrote those words.
One commenter summed up the liberal position, writing: “Ehhhhh Trump does have very compromising ties to the Kremlin. Let's not conflate Trump's guilt with Pelosi's obvious scare tactics.”
I also posted it in r/Marxismmemes where the reaction was more positive as the users have a pro-Russian bias. It got 80 likes and some jokey comments like “My check just cleared. Thanks Putin!” and “Where's my Putin dollars and xi bucks? I got HRT to pay for here!”
I was sent an invite to a sub called r/uniteagainsttheright and I posted a meme bashing Ron DeSantis that they liked. But then when I posted the top meme on this article I was permanently banned. I had replaced the Political Compass meme backdrop with a black one because I thought the meme held up on its own without it and many subreddits will not allow PCM memes on their page -- but this was suspicious to the moderators. When I asked why and explained the meme was anti-war the response I got was “We do not platform fascist politicians on either side of the aisle. If you wanted to discuss Ukraine funding, you should have done so without trying to make fascist demagogues look reasonable.” Meaning that the panel where Rand Paul says Ukraine funding should be audited triggered him and there are only certain ways he will tolerate discussion of this issue. But Rand Paul was being reasonable! It’s unreasonable and extreme to think that any foreign war aide should be unaccountable. But these moderators are so brainwashed by war propaganda they do not see they are serving the purposes of the military industrial complex. They did not realize they are being the opposite of leftists.
THE RIGHT ALSO LACK INSIGHT
When this meme was posted on PCM it did well with 411 likes. I think it would have done better with the right-wing audiences if I had made the Gaza protestor look ridiculous — the Libleft panel would have been savaged if it had not been attached to the other three. Many of the 111 comments agreed they were being stupidly smeared. Even though they still thought it was fair to call ceasefire protestors Hamas but unfair to call Ukraine funding skeptics Putin’s Puppets.
One centrist wrote, “Is this omnipotent omnipresent omniscient "Putin", in the room with us right now???”
One Liberal-Center commentator made a good point: “Reddit's Director of Policy for the last 5 years has been a former Atlantic Council member (NATO's de facto think tank.) Go to Worldnews on any topic and find me one where the prevailing hivemind opinion is anything other than the US State. Dept. line.”
One Authoritative-Right commenter wrote “the protestors at Pelosi’s house are part of Code Pink, which is literally CCP funded. Their founder describes China as “a defender of the oppressed and a model for economic growth without slavery or war”. They also deny Uighur oppression is happening in China.” This is a neoconservative distortion of Code Pink’s position, ignoring the point of the meme and replacing a Russia smear with a China smear. And the commenter may or may not have seen that Code Pink have been repeatedly attacked on Twitter as Putin’s Puppets. So, calling leftists Putin’s Puppets is not new, it’s just rarer.
‘Nuff Said.
