America’s war of words with Russia is no laughing matter
The positive message that the West once offered to Russia during the waning days of the Cold War — democracy, freedom, respect for human dignity — has been replaced by a starkly negative message that encourages confrontation rather than engagement. Instead of telling Russians how great things are in America, the new strategy seems to be telling Russians how terrible things are in their own country. In the lexicon of political campaigns, America is going negative.
As a result, for many in the West, Russia has become a cartoon evil empire. According to this logic, everything in Russia is crap, everywhere in Russia is cold and bleak, and every Russian — young or old — is either stupid or poor (but usually both). And anyone who would lead that type of nation must be an autocratic, authoritarian thug. Because, logic.
Take, for example, Louis C.K.’s standup comedy routine about Russia that just went viral this week. It’s a 10-minute laugh fest about his miserable, nihilistic vacation to post-Soviet Russia. He starts off by commenting on how stupid the Russians were for building Moscow in the middle of a forest, and then proceeds to reel off a litany of things that are depressing about Russia — mysterious waiters that sell you black market Coca-Cola, nasty little urchins that roam the streets at night and details about the physically daunting layout of Moscow (including super-wide thoroughfares to make sure missiles can get to and from Red Square and subway stations that seem to descend endlessly to an underworld below).
Now, take a deep breath and ask yourself the following question: If a Russian comedian were to deliver this same kind of comic routine about America, wouldn’t it immediately be hailed as an example of the hate-filled propaganda speech filling Russian TV airwaves these days?
In general, the West seems to be lost in a sort of time warp, never having really adjusted to the dissolution of the old Soviet Union. The same stock characters and ideas that were popular 25 years ago during the peak of the Cold War, are now reappearing as part of an undeclared pop culture-fueled propaganda war with Russia.
Look no further than the character of Olya Povlatsky on “Saturday Night Live” — a bitter, dirt-poor Russian woman (or is she Ukrainian?) who complains about everything in modern Russia. She’s wickedly funny, but she’s also a stock character out of the Cold War era, when Russians queued up for life’s essentials just about every day.
Not convinced about that time warp issue? Check out Louis C.K.’s comic routine — he suggests that the past 25 years in Russia have essentially been one, unbroken chain of misery. Getting the exact date right is not even important because Russia, the Soviet Union, what’s the difference?
But anyway, I went to Russia in 19 — , no, 20 — no, when the f**k was it? — yes, 1994. I went to Russia. It has just become Russia again. It was the Soviet Union until really that year, everything started to crash down.
Sadly, the people who should be leading the charge in America’s “information war” with Russia — politicians, diplomats, professors and think tank experts — have largely been co-opted by America’s pop culture creative class — filmmakers, actors, musicians and, yes, comedians such as Jon Stewart, John Oliver and Stephen Colbert. Bad jokes about Russia and funny “Simpsons” characters have replaced any type of meaningful engagement with Russia.
Want to do a withering critique of Russian state-owned TV propaganda? There’s no need to do a thorough academic study — if you’re the New York Times, just sign up comic writer Gary Shteyngart and pay him to sit in front of multiple TVs watching Russian news and entertainment for a week in a swank Manhattan hotel. And then give the piece an absurd title that’s just the right mix of sarcasm, irony and humor: “Out of my mouth comes unimpeachable manly truth.”
Want to make a statement about Russia’s human rights violations? Sign up HBO to make a documentary about Pussy Riot. Or, better yet, get Madonna to adopt the girls of Pussy Riot as a new cultural signifier of her hipness and commitment to human rights.
At some point, the West stopped trying to appeal to the real, everyday people in Russia with a positive message of hope. Instead, it focused on trying to appeal to a very slender cross-section of Russia’s English-speaking, Western-educated creative class, which it believes is the best wedge to push Putin out of power. The new focus, apparently, is convincing this top 1 percent of Russians that their nation has become a global laughingstock.
As a result, the West celebrates people like Garry Kasparov, someone who’s basically irrelevant in Russia these days. But since he’s willing to dish out the West’s negative message in a big way, he’s embraced on American newspaper op-ed pages.
Who did the New York Times sign up to do a withering op-ed critique of Russia just in time for Victory Day (one of the most important days of the year for Russians, just behind New Year’s and March 8th)? That’s right, acclaimed Russian writer Mikhail Shishkin, who wrote a predictably depressing piece about the various ways that Russia’s leaders continue to abuse their people and spew hatred abroad:
It is impossible to breathe in a country where the air is permeated with hatred. Much hatred has always been followed in history by much blood. What awaits my country? Transformation into a gigantic version of Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region?
Once again, the dictatorship is calling on its subjects to defend the homeland, mercilessly exploiting the propaganda of victory in the Great Patriotic War. Russia’s rulers have stolen my people’s oil, stolen their elections, stolen their country. And stolen their victory.
Want to really get inside the heads of Russian intellectuals? Tell them that their proud heritage of having the world’s greatest literature is going down the tubes, as Owen Matthews recently wrote for Foreign Policy in his piece “Is Russian Literature Dead?” The demise of Russian literature is all part of an overall cultural rot in Russia, he implies.
Again, more negative messaging, because that’s what works. Just ask any political consultant.
However, a lot has changed since the old days of the Cold War, something the West seems to have forgotten. At the end of the day, the reason why the West may lose the “information war” (and some would say, the “disinformation war”) with Russia is because it’s still stuck in the 1980s Cold War era mindset. It’s tone-deaf to new changes and attitudes emerging in Russia. It can’t see the ways in which a global, multilateral world is changing. And, most importantly, the messaging from the West has just become so negative. You simply can’t win by going negative over and over again for 25 years.
Ever wonder why folks like Vladimir Putin come to power in Russia? It’s hard not to see how more than a decade of being made the butt of Western jokes gets a bit stale. It’s simply impossible for so much bad news and misery to come out of a single country on such a consistent basis.
And, as Louis C.K. would say, that’s all I got.
