Bi-directional disinformation

The 21st century relationship between Russia and the far right ought to give historians and sociologist and political scientist plenty to chew on over the next 50 or so years.

We've all become jaded to the level of influence that Russia has gained over the modern Republican Party despite being something that, as far as I can tell, we have never seen before.

Woman at Trump rally today says she loves Putin because he is cleaning out the American bio weapons labs in Ukraine: “I love Putin! He’s a good president, #2 of the presidents” after Trump. pic.twitter.com/jd7CuJGzUs

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) October 8, 2022

It has been obvious for a while now that the coverage of Russia and Ukraine from conservative media outlets such as Fox News and OAN consist largely of Kremlin talking points. This has reached such a level that Tucker Carlson clips are routinely seen on Russian propaganda television programs.

Here we see that Russian propaganda about America intended for the Russian people is largely based on Fox News talking points.

Russian propaganda film to dissuade people from abandoning Russia for USA. Portrays USA as gay-loving PC hell where whites literally have to bow down to swaggering black people so they can have all the good stuff. iow sort of a Fox News vignette https://t.co/qCZRbKnW3k

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) October 9, 2022

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The first bit I sort of understand -- Twenty-first Century Russia has a horrible problem with homophobia so it's not surprising that propagandists would try to play on that bigotry -- but veganism and and particularly reparations are a strange choice here. This doesn't seem to be the sort of message that you'd push when trying to scare your citizens away from America, unless those citizens had learned about our country from Fox.