url: https://youtu.be/ZJe4NlOjAJo

08:02
we then see some tactics which are very
revealing about what Russia will do with
mr. Trump against the United States of
America so let me give you some examples
of some tactics the first is a head of
state who simply denies reality what I
call in the book in plausible
deniability so when mr. Putin sends the
Russian army to invade Ukraine he simply
denies that he’s doing so which is a
little bit unusual but it’s a tactic
because if you stand up and you deny
something that every reporter knows is
true
you put the profession of journalism and
indeed the whole media into a difficult
position because on the one hand you
could actually cover the facts of the
war which we are as money and effort and
it’s risky on the other hand you can
cover this fantastically charismatic
leader who seems to have mazing power to
bend real
to his will who can deny factuality
itself who can turn reality into a
television show that’s very tempting and
that’s what most of the Western media
actually did instead of covering an
actually existing war in the real world
people preferred to watch a reality
television show
where a head of state basically created
an alternative world now that should
sound familiar
because that is of course how mr. Trump
also governs he’s a head of state who
constantly generates unreality thereby
forcing reporters into this impossible
choice do you do you get into the the
television drama or do you actually
cover real issues which in the u.s.
would be things like wealth inequality
opioid abuse and and so on a second
example of a tactic in Ukraine which is
also now very familiar in the u.s. is
what I call in the book cacophony that
is something happens it’s out of your
control because where you don’t control
everything by lying about it something
happens it’s out of your control and the
way you react to it is you throw a whole
bunch of fictions around it so that
nobody’s then really sure what’s
actually happened so in the Russian
invasion of Ukraine this is mh17 this is
the civilian airliner which Russian
forces shot down over Ukraine while they
were invading the country so what the
Russian media does is when this happens
this as it were irreducibly real thing
happens people die you attack it not by
directly denying it but from the flags
you come up with a whole bunch of
different versions like Ukrainians did
it by accident trying to shoot down mr.
Putin’s airplane the Ukrainians did it
because a certain Ukrainian Jewish
oligarch controls the airways Ukrainians
said it by accident from the ground NATO
did it from the air you come up with a
whole bunch of different variants none
of which you can pretend have any
factual basis but they serve as a kind
of discursive shrapnel they just cloud
everything up and at the end of the day
and I mean literally at the end of that
day because this starts on the day the
plane is shot down at the end of the day
no one is exactly sure what’s going on
and no initial who’s responsible even
for this very simple thing so in the
yes this happens during mr. Trump’s
campaign during the Access Hollywood
incident remember for a moment for half
an hour everybody thought that Access
Hollywood the tape where mr. Trump
advocates sexually assaulting women that
this would end his campaign mr. Trump
seemed to think that mr. pence seemed to
think it the Democrats seem to think it
the commentary it seemed to think it why
didn’t that happen it didn’t happen
because half an hour after that tape was
released Russian BOTS and Russian trolls
and others began to spread other
versions fictions like Hillary Clinton
is a pimp who sells sex with children or
John Podesta takes part in wild rituals
where he consumes human bodily fluids
and those things although completely
fictional surround the real event which
is mr. Trump thinks that it’s okay to
sexually assault women and confuse it to
the point where no one knows what
actually happened and in a way the whole
Access Hollywood event never takes place
because it never actually reaches the
people that it’s supposed to reach now
we experience that as a weird American
event Access Hollywood seemed it was
going to matter and then suddenly didn’t
matter at all
what I’m trying to explain here is that
if we keep in mind the whole background
the Russian philosophy about fiction
ality the Russian strategy about
strategic relativism and Russian tactics
which involved this kind of discursive
and propagandistic trick it all makes a
whole lot more sense it all it all falls
into place and and this is in a way a
plea for history right because what
history allows us to do a history even
of the 2010s of recent events allows us
to do is get out of this daily news
cycle where we’re how we think about
this framed in terms of the way our
leaders wanted to be framed collusion
not collusion um you know so what what
the book then does in the end is it runs
through 2016 with all of this in the
background and so we’re not surprised
then to see that mr. Trump only exists
at all as a public figure
thanks to Russian money from the 1990s
and the 2000s
people often ask I mean could did Rush
and influential II make a difference
well think about it this way if Russian
money and I go into this in great length
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in the book doesn’t rescue mr. Trump who
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is a total failure as a real estate
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developer if Russian money doesn’t
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rescue him he doesn’t even exist as a
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public figure there’s no logical
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possibility that he could have become
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president without Russia and then the
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next step is we think about the
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personnel whether it’s Man afford or
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Papadopoulos or Flynn or Kushner or Ross
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it’s astonishing on the extent to which
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the people around mr. Trump were morally
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politically and financially connected to
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the Russian Federation nothing like that
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has ever happened before and then of
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course when we get to the campaign
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during 2016 Democrats and Republicans
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alike marveled at the fact that mr.
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Trump didn’t seem to have a traditional
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campaign but what he did have was all
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kinds of support from the rear for all
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kinds of support in the world of cyber
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the public opinion polls were in favor
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of Secretary Clinton but the bots were
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decidedly
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on on the side of mr. Trump and that
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turns out to matter whether it’s Russian
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intelligence agencies hacking and
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leaking emails as I mentioned or whether
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it’s Russia’s internet research agency
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working in social media to figure out
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what what frightens and what motivates
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America and going on a social media
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offensive from September to early
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November of 2016
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either way mr. Trump had a campaign
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which wasn’t his he was in a way just
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kind of going along for the ride so the
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idea that mr. Trump colluded doesn’t
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really make a lot of sense because he
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wasn’t an equal partner mr. Trump was
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not an equal and this is the thing that
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Americans I think we have really a hard
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time understanding because we want to be
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number one you know we’re in the worst
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case we want to be cooperating with
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someone else in this case there’s not
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we’re not number one um we’re not
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cooperate in this case we’re just being
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brought along mr. Trump is just being
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brought along he’s not capable of
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colluding he’s not an important of
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person to collude with the Russian
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Federation he’s an instrument he’s a
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tactic that makes sense with the
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strategy
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he’s an instrument that makes sense with
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the philosophy in light of all that it
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makes sense at the end of the day mr.
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Trump can’t collude mr. Trump is the
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pelo
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of a Russian cyber weapon the payload of
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a weapon doesn’t collude it just does
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damage