You can fool all the people some of the time
and some of the people all the time
and that’s enough
Russian Foxhub is more powerful than American Foxhub, but it may not be powerful enough to save Putin.
The American Foxhub shows there are limits to its power. The United States remains a free country. There are multiple sources of news. Indeed, people have the option of choosing from among a full range of possibilities reflecting a wide assortment of political views. At this point in time, it is unlikely that any news outlet and format is dominating enough to have a single message become the uniform message of the land.
Take the January 6 insurrection to overthrow the government and the rule of law. At the time, no one envisioned that tens of millions of people would come to regard it as legitimate political discourse. Now January 6 is an expression of patriotic Americans exercising their Constitutional right to prevent an election from being stolen by taking the law into their own hands. The point for the Russian-Ukrainian war is that even with multiple media outlets tens of millions Americans believe and will continue to believe to their dying day that the con of the stolen election is true.
This reality bodes ill for the hope that the Russian people will force Putin to face the truth.
THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE AND THE WAR
By now people in the West are much more aware of the power of the Russian Foxhub than at the onset of the war. The incident of a single person with a handwritten sign denouncing the Putin lie garners a great deal of attention. There must be others who share that perspective. They must not have had the opportunity to express themselves or they are afraid to do so given that it is illegal.
It would seem that the people who are most aware of the Putin lie are the ones who have left the country. By contrast, the polls would suggest that Putin’s popularity has increased as the war continues. The anti-Russian actions perpetrated by the West have only verified the claim that America is behind the Nazis in the Ukraine and intends to establish an anti-Russian base there. In other words, for the Russians this is World War II all over again. The anti-American narrative provides an opportunity for Russians to relive the Russian greatness from the Great Patriotic War against the Nazis. It is questionable whether Russian relatives in the Ukraine, the Russian soldiers who do not return, and the wounded Russian soldiers who do return are likely to change sufficient number of minds to end the war. So far, the Russian people are prepared to rise to the occasion and stand firm against America and the Nazis.
ENDING THE WAR
Unfortunately, this does not bode well for ending the war. The world may be outraged by the horrific sight of the slain Ukrainians by the Russians, but the Russian know better. They know that Russians did not commit these atrocities. They are familiar with Fake News. They are familiar with Jewish George Soros. They know that there are no limits to what the Nazi Ukrainians would do. They know that good Russian boys would not do such things. And they know this because Russian Foxhub has a news monopoly and is delivering this message continually. China knows it too and the two countries reinforced their collective anti-American message.
There is the hope that with drones and satellites, the truth can pierce the new Iron Curtain.
There is the hope that the returning conscripts alive or in body bags will communicate the truth to the Russian people.
There is the hope that call for new conscripts will expose the lie that Putin’s special military operation is going according to plan.
However, in the meantime, Putin continues to set the rules of the engagement and we continue to let him do so. Therefore his war will end only when he has decided it should end.
AMERICAN ACTION AND INACTION
As a result we need to wake up and smell the coffee.
The oligarchs are not going to end the war.
The Russian people are not going to end the war.
The generals are not going to end the war.
The only way the fighting ends is the way it has ended in some parts of the country now – by the Ukrainian defeat of the Russian army. Such a victory seems less likely in the portions of the country that have been at war since 2014. Those areas may even include people who really do prefer Russian to Ukrainian rule. We won’t know until a plebiscite is held, not that we even have proposed one.
Consider the American example for illustrative purposes.
What would it take to get Trumpicans to stop believing in the big lie?
What would it take in a free society to convince true believers that they have been conned?
Donald Trump could tell the truth. That’s not possible.
His conspirators might tell the truth. That hardly seems likely. They don’t even have any reason to since there are no consequences for having helped organized the attempted takeover.
Now apply these lessons to Russia.
Putin could tell the truth. That’s not possible. He seems to be a permanent resident of his alternate reality.
His conspirators, the Russian generals, could tell the truth. That hardly seems likely. What reason do they have to do so? They are no more afraid of being tried as war criminals as Steve Bannon, Jim Jordan, John Eastman, et. al., are afraid of being tried for sedition.
The question to be asked is how long the Ukraine can hold out? Zelensky like the House Select Committee faces a deadline. If the Trumpicans seize control of the House of Representatives, its primary action will be to impeach Joe Biden using Hunter Biden to do so. The leader of the party already has signified what is important to him. The Trumpican votes in the House already are shifting to Putin’s favor. His fiercest supporters do not even want the United States to collect data on the Russian war crimes. By the time of the election, who knows how many will have fully embraced Putin’s legitimate military discourse.
