привет, Russian Political Theater 101: The 2016 Presidential Election

A wise man named Tyrion Lannister once said, “You’re in the great game now. And the great game’s terrifying.” He was right. If you’re worried about the fact that Russians hacked the DNC and ruined Hillary Clinton’s chances of being the first female president in the United States, your scope is far too narrow. The Russian influence in the 2016 election extends FAR beyond hacking because it’s the script for the whole damn show.

Meet Vladislav Surkov:

As the former deputy head of the presidential administration, later deputy prime minister and then assistant to the president on foreign affairs, Surkov has directed Russian society like one great reality show. He claps once and a new political party appears. He claps again and creates Nashi, the Russian equivalent of the Hitler Youth, who are trained for street battles with potential pro-democracy supporters and burn books by unpatriotic writers on Red Square.

Again, for the folks in the back:

Surkov invented Putin. Then reinvented him over and over again, modeling this new Russia on what Pomeranzev calls “one great reality TV show.” Yesterday, he founded a brownshirt youth group tasked with beating up pro-democracy activists, who were all cast as either agents of foreign governments or nobodies.

In June of 2016, Michael Weiss wrote, “As in the Kremlin, so in Trump Tower. The ratings are all that matter.” He’s 100% correct. Ever on the ball and well ahead of the curve, Adam Curtis reported way back in 2014 that:

Surkov is one of President Putin’s advisers, and has helped him maintain his power for 15 years, but he has done it in a very new way. He came originally from the avant-garde art world, and those who have studied his career, say that what Surkov has done, is to import ideas from conceptual art into the very heart of politics.

His aim is to undermine peoples’ perceptions of the world, so they never know what is really happening. Surkov turned Russian politics into a bewildering, constantly changing piece of theater…

But the key thing was, that Surkov then let it be known that this was what he was doing, which meant that no one was sure what was real or fake. As one journalist put it: “It is a strategy of power that keeps any opposition constantly confused.”

Is any of this starting to sound familiar yet? No? Okay, let me spell it out for you then: The 2016 political election was the greatest piece of political theater in world history, let’s briefly recap:

• Trump runs for president, calls Mexicans rapists, criminals, assumes some are good people
• Trump fumbles through debates, doesn’t understand nuclear proliferation but makes a point to ensure the American public his genitals are a-okay
• Trump bullies his way into a three-way dog fight, frequently engages in conspiracy theories, like accusing his opponent’s father of killing JFK but wins the Republican primary anyway
• Trump’s campaign manager physically assaults a journalist, steps down but becomes a talking head on CNN, still gets paid by campaign
• The Republican National Convention happens, Melania Trump plagarizes from Michelle Obama
• Bernie Sanders, revolutionary socialist independent sparks a movement within the far-left but ultimately loses to Hillary Clinton
• The DNC is hacked, leaked emails reveal everything from lunch orders to the fact that no one at the DNC particularly cared for Bernie or his campaign, internet goes wild
• Bernie Bros, protests and the DNC all happen, Clintons like big balloons
• Trump uses nicknames for all his opponents, begins to insist that everything is rigged, nothing is what it seems except for whatever he says because he’s a straight shooter and very successful business man
• Trump incites violence at rallies, insults a Gold star family (for like a month), frequently discusses xenophobic ideas, attacks a US-born judge of Mexican heritage and is generally just a mess, ensures wall-to-wall TV coverage
• Trump’s new campaign manager/chairman Paul Manafort resigns in wake of revelations he received millions of dollars in off-the-books payments from Ukraine and had connections to Russia, wanted to influence GOP platform in their favor
• Trump adviser Carter Page steps down in wake of more Russian connections but Kellyanne Conway and Trump campaign try to deny he was ever connected to them
• Benghazi hearing, Comey hearing, emails become the buzzword of 2016
• The alt-right becomes a thing
• Trump says insane things on Twitter, almost hourly, and retweets conspiracy theorists, white nationalists and racists, becomes normal
• Trump hires Steve “we’re the platform of the alt-right” Bannon and Kellyanne Conway to triage his campaign in wake of Manafort’s departure
• Trump goes to Mexico, says they discussed building the wall but NOT who would pay for the wall. Mexico immediately says WE SAID WE WEREN’T paying for the wall but we didn’t want to embarrass him, Trump flies directly to a rally says to thousands of people that never happened
• Jill Stein and Gary Johnson become a thing? Johnson doesn’t know what Aleppo is. Stein loves dank memes, end of story
• Evan McMullin becomes a thing
• In the last press conference Trump held during the election (to date actually), he invites Russians to find Hillary’s missing emails
• Trump, Clinton, Obama briefed on Russians trying to influence election only one person (Trump) repeatedly denies this happened
• Trump finds Bill Clinton’s accusers, hold press conference with them minutes before second general election debate; tries to get them seated in his family box, debate people say nah dude
• Hillary Clinton, speaking at a private fundraiser says the words, “Basket full of deplorables” which immediately becomes a rally cry for Trump’s base, Deplorable moms, sons and uncles emerge on social networks, merchandise is made and sold, memes fly around the world and back (meanwhile the numbers suggest she wasn’t wrong)
• Furniture shopping is forever changed. “GRAB THEM BY THE PUSSY™” — Donald J. Trump
• Trump sexual assault accussers come forward then seemingly vanish into thin air
• Trump tells rallies full of people he couldn’t have sexually assaulted previous Apprentice contestants and journalists he worked with because he didn’t work with them and also because they were not attractive enough
• Jason Chaffetz and other prominent republicans un-endorse then quickly rendorse Trump, some like McConnell and Ryan never left the train to begin with
• Roger Stone teases something from his friends at Wikileaks is coming
• Wikileaks come into possession of hacked emails from John D. Podesta, release thousands of emails daily for weeks on end
• Final debate: Trump says he will only accept the election results if he wins, media goes wild
• New catchphrase from Trump: Drain the swamp! I will drain the swamp!
• Rudy Guiliani teases on national TV that something from his friends at FBI is coming
• Nine days before the election, FBI Director Comey makes announcement has discovered new emails pertaining to Clinton case, not sure what emails contain or if their duplicates but they’re on the job!
• Three days before election FBI Director Comey makes yet ANOTHER announcement: no new emails discovered, they were duplicates, back to business as usual
• Trump wins the election, world is like, wtf? Dow drops 700 points in a day, private prison stock prices skyrocket
• Trump starts building his no good, very bad, terrible Cabinet full of donors and people with little to no experience, oh and Putin’s fav Rex Tillerson
• Trump doesn’t drain the swamp
• Trump goes on a victory tour, where he routinely reminds his supporters it was all a great show, things like #LockHerUp “play well BEFORE the election” but after not so much
• Trump conflicts of interest rise almost daily, a website is formed to track it all
• Jill Stein emerges from a green commune somewhere to challenge election results in four states, fundraises like 5 million in days (thanks HRC supporters!)
• Recount process becomes confusing and complex, most are unsure where things land but it really doesn’t help much beyond illustrating the system is flawed, which if you’re keeping score at home, you already knew
• Wikileaks confirm some of the hacked emails came from Russia
• Outbound NC GOP Senator calls emergency session meant to repeal heinous HB2 bill, accidentally strips incoming Dem senator of power instead, closes without doing what it was called to do. Oops.
• Everyone calls for the electoral college to do what Hamilton would have wanted, to take a Spike Lee approach and Do The Right Thing™
• Electoral college confirms Trump on Dec. 19th

I’m really just recapping this from memory, so I’m SURE i missed a few storylines but DOES ANY OF THIS SOUND FAMILIAR? It is the greatest act of political theater ever imagined.

I’ll close with this, also from Adam Curtis:

It sums up the strange mood of our time, where nothing really makes any coherent sense. We live with a constant vaudeville of contradictory stories that makes it impossible for any real opposition to emerge, because they can’t counter it with any coherent narrative of their own. And it means that we as individuals become ever more powerless, unable to challenge anything, because we live a state of confusion and uncertainty. To which the response is: Oh dear. But that is what they want you to say.

Oh dear indeed but what the hell are YOU going to do about it?