When voters lose faith

If social media manipulation has influenced elections, and dark money has influenced our elected representatives, then we are already on the road to unfreedom, as Timothy Snyder, the well-known historian of Russia, argues in his new book. He sees threats to democracy in Europe and America as following the Russian model of oligarchic takeover: ‘The stabilisation of massive inequality, the displacement of policy by propaganda, the shift from the politics of inevitability to the politics of eternity.’

Snyder focuses on the Ukrainian crisis, noting how this conflict became a theatre of cultural memory: during the Russian invasion it was once again 1941, the enemies were Nazis, and tanks were even painted with slogans such as ‘For Stalin’. Leftists in the West particularly fell for Russia’s version of events. Snyder shows John Pilger and Seumas Milne parroting information from Russian propaganda sites arguing that the protests in Ukraine were led by fascists, and points out how western coverage bought into the divisive narrative of ‘ethnic Russians’ and ‘ethnic Ukrainians’, based on language use. In fact many Ukrainians use both, including those who were protesting against Russia’s actions. Snyder’s informative timeline of events on the ground in Ukraine is vivid, and offers a much greater understanding of how this conflict emerged than we got in most English-language news coverage.

Snyder also illustrates how propaganda was used to sell the Crimean annexation to the Russian public. The campaign relied on stirring resentment against the West — along with some strange beliefs. Foreign influence was blamed for creating trouble in Ukraine, and this was connected to a particular western threat: dangerous homosexuality. Snyder explains the degree to which ‘gays and Jews’ are seen as the enemy in Russia’s political commentary. Jews are, unfortunately, accustomed to this; but gays will be surprised to learn that the EU is run by a homosexual cabal.