Comment by raxxorrax
5 years ago
Most of the Russian stories were pure election stories, there is almost no merit to it at all.
This is actually one thing I don't understand about the alleged progressive side and many people share this view. You could be made to believe basically anything the same way Trump supporters believe a communist overtake of the US is imminent.
Furthermore the support these stories got from intelligence agencies point to very serious problems that do indeed influence democracy in a very bad way, far worse than Putin can imagine in his dreams. Of course it might put a smile on his face, that much is understood.
True that the zeitgeist has influence, but it is mainly driven by western companies, not by the Russian government. Aside from the language barrier you cannot name one talking point this alleged Russian propaganda contained.
You do understand the implication if you decry any opposition to EU integration as Russian interference? Because any political discourse stops right there with you.
No, there was honest dissatisfaction with the EU in Britain. That might be wrong or not, but the Russian thing just made people reinforce their views, because that actually makes sense now.
Russians, seriously...
Brazil is another story here, although I think the facts have to be checked.
> honest dissatisfaction with the EU in Britain
Well, I don't know how honest you'd call The Sun. Obviously, it wasn't Russia - but equally obviously, the whole euro-skepticism thing was hardly an organic phenomenon. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a single issue of a right wing British tabloid published in the last ten years that didn't have at least one article in it about how bad the EU is.
Influencing democracy is older than democracy - I think the thing that's causing such a furore is that the internet is lowering the barriers for this kind of yellow-press skulduggery, to the point that losers like Steve Bannon start to have actual power.
It was and still is purely organic. The entire establishment aggressively suppressed euroskepticism of any kind for decades to the level that it required a total outsider, who was himself frozen out completely, to create an entirely new political party twice and bring them to winning enough votes to ensure the Conservatives couldn't ignore it anymore.
You say "the Sun" as if a single tabloid the vast majority of all powerful people and decision makers don't even read was some decisive factor. Now consider the total and complete opposition of the BBC, the Guardian, the Economist, the Financial Times, the Times, the Civil Service, dominant factions in both political factions, etc.
To say Brexit wasn't organic is to innuendo into existence some vast but vague conspiracy. "Obviously" it wasn't Russia you say, but it had to be someone right? Isn't this the same sort of rhetoric that has lead to the Capitol just being stormed? Isn't it far more likely that parts of the British press reported bad stories about the EU for decades simply because there were bad stories to report, as you'd expect there to be? And reporting stories about governments is the sort of thing a free press is supposed to do?
Do you live in the UK? It's hard for non-residents to understand the impact of The Sun. It's the most read newspaper by far - having a greater readership than all the other papers you mentioned combined.
After the victory of John Major in 1992, the Sun ran the headline 'IT'S THE SUN WOT WON IT', a line that's since become a sort of mantra in english politics - nobody has won an election since without the support of The Sun.
The second most read is the Daily Mail, another euroskeptic paper. In fact, if you look down the list of papers by readership [1], you can see the euroskeptic press (Telegraph, Mail, Murdoch papers) is almost the entirety of newspapers that are in circulation.
I'm not saying there's some vast conspiracy. I'm just saying that Rupert Murdoch is not a fan of large, big-state regulatory projects, and as a result, his papers (which include the Times, for instance) have followed an anti-EU line. He traditionally takes a very active role in this kind of editorial decision making, and is very public about this fact.
Obviously, the establishment in england are traditionally liberal, internationalist, and the argument for Brexit is a hard sell on pragmatic grounds for obvious reasons - and that's why the vast majority of powerful people were against Brexit, and it took 'outsiders' to push the campaign through.
However, these 'outsiders' were able to do so because they knew the issue sold well with both conservative core demographics and swing voters. And, if you think that your average midlands swing voter would have opinions about supra-national trade standards without some serious narrative building, I have a bridge to sell you.
[1] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/529060/uk-newspaper-mark...
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Political union was a stupid idea, Europeans all have different values that I doubt can be reconciled for the sake of good governance. I doubt the average German cares what a French cheese is called or what the dimensions of the wheel are, as long as it's safe to eat. Similarly, the average Frenchman gives absolutely zero shits about what's happening in Germany as long as there aren't troops forging through the Ardennes.
That and the structure of the EU government is a mess, the parliament has precisely zero impact on decision making and everything is run by the unelected bureaucrats in Belgium.
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