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Trump's Pandemic Propaganda Comes Straight from Putin Playbook - The Fog of Unknowability
Eric Boehlert, Apr 1
Trump's commitment to creating confusion with lies and contradictions continues unabated during the national health crisis. Recently he has:
· Claimed one hundred thousand coronavirus deaths in the United States should be deemed a success.
· Accused hospital workers of stealing much-needed surgical masks.
· Lied about recorded statements he had made days earlier about the pandemic.
· Mistreated reporters who asked factual questions about the government's criminally inadequate response to the coronavirus.
· Told governors on a conference call that he hadn't heard complaints about a lack of coronavirus tests.
· Offered false hope about an unproven covid-19 cure.
It's all part of White House's pattern of sending mixed and conflicting pandemic messages, often from multiple sources. It's exactly what the federal government should not be doing at a time of a national health crisis, according to guidelines established by the Center for Disease Prevention, which urges leaders to be consistent, transparent, and accurate. Trump has effectively ordered a stand down for the virus invasion, dangerously downplayed the public health risk ( "I think it's going to work out fine" ), and relentlessly praised his own performance. ("We’ve done a phenomenal job on this." )
...
This authoritarian approach is foreign to America, and specifically to American presidents, all of whom before Trump would've considered it unthinkable to place the population in jeopardy during a national health emergency, and to then lie about it everyday. For longtime Kremlin watchers though, what Trump is doing, and what he's being doing since Inauguration Day 2017, looks quite familiar — he's using the Vladimir Putin playbook, and what observers in Moscow have called the "fog of unknowability."
The fog is a particularly pernicious form of state-backed propaganda, and Putin has been practicing it for years on the Russian press. Trump now borrows heavily. “Trump’s team is finding ways to shrewdly approximate Putin’s capacity to shape narratives and create alternative realities,” noted Mike Mariani in Vanity Fair, back in 2017. “Specious narratives, conspiracy theories, and indeed fake news have been part of Russia’s geopolitical playbook for more than half a century.”
More: https://pressrun.media/p/trumps-pandemic-propaganda-comes
Trump's commitment to creating confusion with lies and contradictions continues unabated during the national health crisis. Recently he has:
· Claimed one hundred thousand coronavirus deaths in the United States should be deemed a success.
· Accused hospital workers of stealing much-needed surgical masks.
· Lied about recorded statements he had made days earlier about the pandemic.
· Mistreated reporters who asked factual questions about the government's criminally inadequate response to the coronavirus.
· Told governors on a conference call that he hadn't heard complaints about a lack of coronavirus tests.
· Offered false hope about an unproven covid-19 cure.
It's all part of White House's pattern of sending mixed and conflicting pandemic messages, often from multiple sources. It's exactly what the federal government should not be doing at a time of a national health crisis, according to guidelines established by the Center for Disease Prevention, which urges leaders to be consistent, transparent, and accurate. Trump has effectively ordered a stand down for the virus invasion, dangerously downplayed the public health risk ( "I think it's going to work out fine" ), and relentlessly praised his own performance. ("We’ve done a phenomenal job on this." )
...
This authoritarian approach is foreign to America, and specifically to American presidents, all of whom before Trump would've considered it unthinkable to place the population in jeopardy during a national health emergency, and to then lie about it everyday. For longtime Kremlin watchers though, what Trump is doing, and what he's being doing since Inauguration Day 2017, looks quite familiar — he's using the Vladimir Putin playbook, and what observers in Moscow have called the "fog of unknowability."
The fog is a particularly pernicious form of state-backed propaganda, and Putin has been practicing it for years on the Russian press. Trump now borrows heavily. “Trump’s team is finding ways to shrewdly approximate Putin’s capacity to shape narratives and create alternative realities,” noted Mike Mariani in Vanity Fair, back in 2017. “Specious narratives, conspiracy theories, and indeed fake news have been part of Russia’s geopolitical playbook for more than half a century.”
More: https://pressrun.media/p/trumps-pandemic-propaganda-comes
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