Americans still clinging to the idea that their candidate lost the 2016 election because of meddling by the Russian state have much in common with victims of brainwashing cults. For them, doctrine has eclipsed reality.
Russiagate true believers are already screaming about foreign interference in the 2020 election and it hasnt even happened yet. Months after the long-awaited special counsels report failed to serve up the promised evidence ofRussian collusion,they have held fast to their conviction that President Donald Trump is a Russian asset placed in office by Vladimir Putin, and the intelligence agencies that serve as their oracles have predicted furthermeddlingwill occur to keep him in office. Indeed, their beliefs only grow stronger the more contrary evidence is presented, to the point where they have more in common with a cult than any other political group.
Russiagaters are back in the headlines after the Justice Department, the Pentagon, and a cluster of intelligence agencies released a joint statement onensuring securityfor the 2020 elections on Tuesday. But to be fair, they never really left. Just last month, they were pearl-clutchingabout Russianson Facebook targeting Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden, and before that, it was a non-story about Trump supposedly telling Russian officials he wasnt concerned about the (still-unproven, but whos counting)Russian interferencein the 2016 election.
Theres no such thing as a negative Russiagate story, and even if Trump is ousted from office and replaced with a safely Russophobic warmonger like Biden, the election will be presented as a narrow victory over the forces of Russian meddling. If Trump wins in the absence of Russian interference, Russiagaters will claim there was a coverup. If intelligence agencies claim there was, but fail to show proof, as they did in 2016, it will be because the proof has to stay classified. If they declare there was meddling, and show reality-based proof which hasnt happened yet for any of the elections deemed to involve Russian meddling - then, and only then, can the story be trusted. This is not how reality works.
Such unshakeable faith is typically the domain of religion, not politics. But three years after the initial claims of Russian meddling in the US election, with the sanguine early predictions Trump would be running home to Putin within months having thoroughly collapsed, Russiagate resembles nothing so much as a fringe religious cult. The devotees of high priests Rachel Maddow and Bill Maher may not have a deity, but they have their saints former FBI director James Comey, former special counsel Robert Mueller, and failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who continues to play the part of the martyr in interviews. On the side of evil is, of course, Vladimir Putin, portrayed as omnipotent Russiais behind all domestic discord and will shut off your heat in the middle of the winter on a lark and irresistible, with a few Facebook groups and clumsy memes somehow enough to induce black voters to elect a Russian asset.
Led by Maddow and Maher, certain mainstream media figures have set themselves up as apriest class,urging viewers to allow them to interpret primary sources such as the Democratic National Committee emails released by WikiLeaks in lieu of reading them themselves. CNNs Chris Cuomo led the establishment of this caste, warning viewers the month before the election that they werenot allowedto read WikiLeaks publications that was for journalists to do. The media can thus smooth over any logical inconsistencies with the collusion doctrine and memory-hole the really inconvenient primary sources. Believers faith is thus protected, dissenting reports rejected (after all, if it was legitimate, it would be printed or discussed in the mainstream media), and doubters frozen out in a phenomenon cult expert Robert J Lifton callsmystical manipulation. In fact, most of the characteristics Lifton includes in his checklist for brainwashing cults are fulfilled by Russiagaters.
Cultists are kept from straying too far intowrongthinkthrough thought-stopping techniques they are taught by other members early on. For Russiagate, this manifests in buzzwords likefake newsand the smearing of all non-mainstream sources as unreliable. True cultists will cut entire websites out of their news diet, lest they be exposed toRussian disinformationcarefully disguised as, say, American conservatism (Breitbart, Infowars) or peace activism (antiwar.com, the Ron Paul Institute). Even aggregators like Drudge Report have been smeared by thePropOrNot listlater used, more disturbingly, by more authoritative voices like the Poynter Institute in an attempt to smear entire sections of the web as disinformation andfake news.Suchmilieu controlkeeps cultists safe in their echo-chambers.
By controlling a persons information environment, it becomes much easier to control their thoughts. Brainwashing cults demand purity from their members, and both impure thoughts perusingfake newsor having civilized online chats with dissenters and impure people must be jettisoned. If you cant convert your friends (or family, or spouse!) to see things your way politically, ditch them, a surprising number of articles recommended around the 2016 election. This is no different than a cult demanding followers cut off family members who frown on its activities. Cults know that without a strong support system, it can be difficult to leave.
Sacred scienceis another hallmark of brainwashing cults, referring to unquestionable doctrine and the discouragement of questioning. Many elements of the Russiagate conspiracy theory CrowdStrikes assessment that the DNC fell victim toRussian hacking,delivered to the FBI without the actual server; the claim that the Internet Research Agency somehow changed voters minds with a few hundred thousand dollars worth of goofy memes, many of which were posted after the election require a complete suspension of ones critical faculties. The Hamilton68Russian botdashboard, cited by dozens of publications to support the claim that the Kremlin is steering political conversation on social media, has seen one creator largely disavow it (Im not convinced on this bot thing,Clint WattstoldBuzzfeed last year) and the other exposed as the leader of his own election-swaying faux-Russian bot armies.Yet theRussian bots persuading people on social medianarrative persists, even when its targets reveal themselvesto be humans.
The most disturbing element of a true brainwashing cult isdispensing of existence,the cult leaders ability to determine who lives or dies (sometimes metaphorically, by being excommunicated, but sometimes literally). Russiagaters are quick to label their enemies traitors former CIA director John Brennan infamouslyaccusedthe president of treason last year, a crime that has a very specific meaning for an intelligence official who deliveredkill listsweekly to the desk of former president Barack Obama. Brennan is not the leader of the Russiagate cult per se, but the investigation currently being conducted into the operations roots seems to point to the intelligence community, and recentlyturned intoa criminal investigation.
Less powerful Russiagaters are fond of denouncing their enemies as Russians (and by extension less than human recall former Director of National Intelligence James Clappers conviction that Russians aregenetically driven to co-opt, penetrate and gain favor,unlike the rest of humans who are presumably trustworthy types who never lie under oath). Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul have all been tarred with the Russiagaters brush recently, given cringe-inducing nicknames likeMoscow MitchandRed Paulfor disagreeing with doctrine. In medieval times, heretics were burned at the stake; now they areburnedon social media.
Perhaps sensing the cults days are numbered, Brennan recently backpedaled in his conviction that Russians stole the 2016 election. Russian meddlingchanged the mind of at least one voter,he hedged at the National Press Club last week, not long after an enthusiastic colleague caused him to cringe by cheeringThank God for the Deep State!Russiagate may not be over the warning from the intelligence agencies suggests they are preparing yetanother excusein case they lose the election but when it does end, it will be with the saddest of whimpers.
By Helen Buyniski, RT
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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
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Russiagate is a cult, complete with unquestionable doctrine, dissent-shaming, and us-vs-them cosmology - RT
