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Conspiracy Mirroring: A Schoolyard Psy-Op Goes High Tech by Doniphan Blair
Caricature is the stock and trade of conspiracists like Putin and Trump. illo: D. Blair
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WHEN VLADIMIR PUTIN CLAIMS THAT
Ukrainians are genociding Russians while carpet bombing Mariupol, when Donald Trump accuses Democrats of stealing the election while leading a conspiracy to do so himself, when antisemites insist Jews are taking over the world as they plot the same, it can be called “conspiracy mirroring,” the conspiracy theory trick of accusing enemies of what one is doing. It may seem ineffective or immature, like the schoolyard taunt, “I’m rubber, you’re glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you,” but conspiracy mirroring turns out to be a sophisticated psy-op. It is also evident in the “false flag” accusation, another common conspiracist tactic.
“Always say about your opponent what you yourself are doing,” affirmed philosopher Jason Stanley, author of “How Fascism Works” (2020), in a PBS interview (1/6/22). “We are even seeing the fascist label thrown at Democrats. Projection is a standard propaganda tool, one that Hitler and Goebbels explicitly recommended.” Although Goebbels is credited with the concept, it largely comes from his claim that, "The cleverest trick used in propaganda against Germany during the [First World] war was to accuse Germany of what our enemies themselves were doing," (Nuremberg, 1934)
Timothy Snyder, a historian specializing in fascism as well as Ukraine, coined “schizo-fascism” for authoritarians who call their antagonists fascists, while YouTube commentator Brian Tyler Cohen noted about Republicans: “Every accusation is a confession.” Most precisely, French psychologist Roger Mucchielli coined the phrase "accusation in a mirror," in his 1970 book discussing defense against propaganda techniques. He notes how war perpetrators often proclaim their devotion to peace and accuse their enemies of warmongering. This strategy is sometimes enacted in tandem with false flag operations.
Generally speaking, conspiracy theorists build false narratives on an actual fact or two, but conspiracy mirroring allows them to both draw on stories about themselves, their allies or their antecedents, and get the jump on accusations by opponents, turning the latter into a he-said-she-said contest. This obliges the innocent party to play catch-up while they themselves appear to be doing the conspiracy mirroring.
By using their own presence in the collective memory but switching the story's protagonist, conspiracists kill four birds with one stone. They exonerate themselves and incriminate enemies, they re-enforce rule one of conspiracism, “Things are not as they seem,” and they explore their own psychology, by default. Mirroring may appear odd or insane to those unfamiliar with the venality of conspiracy theorists, but its ability to trade on long-known narratives, which they are suddenly revealing to be the opposite of what was assumed, is an effective way to convince people saturated with regular theories, who need grander conspiracy narratives.
The claim that Ukrainians are “Nazis,” however, is a standard conspiracy theory built on the fact that 80 years ago some Ukrainians did join the Nazis and some mass murdered Jews (for this author's survey of that history, go here). Never mind that so did other Europeans, including Russians, or that their number was small compared to the four and a half million Ukrainians who fought the Nazis or the six-and-a-half million Ukrainians who perished in the war, which makes Ukrainians some of fiercest anti-Nazis in Europe.
Another “Nazi fact” concerns Ukraine’s Azov Battalion, about a fifth of which were found by one survey to espouse white supremacist ideas. Again, many countries have that problem, from Putin’s mercenaries, the Wagner Group, known for Nazi ideologies and tattoos, to the American militias seeking to overthrow its democracy. The Azovs, on the other hand, have been fighting for Ukraine’s democracy since the first Russian invasion eight years ago and gave their “full measure of devotion” at the Battle of Mariupol, despite not having any representation in parliament, currently.
Although Russia is obviously the Nazi-like aggressor and Ukraine the young democracy, many Russians and better-informed folk worldwide have swallowed Kremlin propaganda, augmented by their masterful use of cyberwar and conspiracy theories as well as traditional propaganda, and capped by the magic of conspiracy mirroring, which taps into subconscious feelings about the region’s horrific history and channels it at their enemies. Ukrainians suffered terribly in the twentieth century from both the Nazis and the Soviets, who killed four million in the manufactured famine, the Holodomor, in 1932, and up to a million more in the Great Terror. Mirroring assuages that guilt, hence their ability to make even more absurd claims, like “Ukrainians attack themselves for publicity purposes.”
In March, Russia’s ambassador to the UN denounced Ukraine for developing chemical-biological weapons and planning their use, an inflammatory accusation which blew up across Twitter, Chinese media and QAnon. Such accusations probably indicate Russia’s own preparations for WMD use, noted some Kremlinologists, well aware of their traditional use of mirroring. On May 8th, a Russian state TV broadcaster “reported” that, if the West wins, Russians will be sent to camps and subjected to sterilization, even as Russian soldiers were rounding up and deporting up to a million Ukrainians, including many children, into Russia.
Mirroring is central to another CT strategy, the false flag operation, which is occasionally employed by states but beloved by conspiracists. The Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11 and the 2012 Sandy Hook Connecticut schoolchildren slaughter were committed by the “deep state,” according to America’s preeminent conspiracy theorist, broadcaster Alex Jones. As silly as it sounds, many conspiracists believe him devoutly. Indeed, Marjorie Taylor Greene rose to national prominence and won a Congressional seat in part by ascribing the 2018 Parkland Florida high school shooting to a false flag operation and her stunts harassing traumatized students on YouTube.
Again, the power of a pre-existing narrative is harnessed by revealing hidden malefactors in accord with the second rule of conspiracy theories: “Enemies are secretly plotting.” While appearing intellectually shallow, it is strategically and emotionally brilliant, able to provide simple answers and feelgood objects of rage by shifting a single fact in the narrative, the perpetrator’s identity.
Even the multiculturalism which allows Ukrainians to live as neighbors, colleagues and spouses with their large Russian and smaller Greek, Jewish, Muslim and tribal minorities, or to elect a Russian-speaking Jewish president in a 73% landslide, can be impugned by the adept conspiracy monger. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov defamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zalensky on May 1st saying Hitler “had Jewish blood” and “the most ardent antisemites are usually Jews.”
Russian state television went full flag-and-mirror show with the atrocities reported from Mariupol in March and then Bucha on April 2nd, claiming they were hoaxes using “crisis actors,” Photoshop or self-attacks. One Russian “investigative report” seemed to show a Ukrainian soldier confessing to raping a Russian woman and murdering her husband. Although it looked fairly primitive propaganda-wise, it is sufficiently believable and triggering in a region haunted by millions of murders.
Interestingly, Putin felt obliged to apologize to Israel’s prime minister for Lavrov’s antisemitism, suggesting the successful conspiracy theory master needs to constantly tend his concoction, but Lavrov’s Foreign Ministry was unrepentant, indicating how a regime can operate contradictory theories in tandem. In an online essay, the Ministry claimed Zelensky’s Jewishness is "not a guarantee against rampant neo-Nazism in the country," which it proved by stating some Jews collaborated with Nazis during the Holocaust, which is factually true even though their numbers were minimal compared to all other Europeans.
Russia’s tradition of fabricating false narratives dates back to the “Potemkin Villages,” built to impress Catherine the Great in the 18th century, and the czar’s secret police’s forgery of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” at the beginning of the 20th. Still one of the most successful conspiracy theories in history, it accused Jews of controlling the banks and, thereby, the world. Based on Russia’s immense achievements in the realm of disinformation, the Soviets established an all-consuming, propaganda-centric conspiracy kingdom or empire, if one includes the many fellow travelers among unrepentant communist, conspiracy theories or far rightwingers worldwide.
To be sure, some Russians were immune to the brainwashing and remained humanists, hence they were able to maintain their sanity and end Stalinism and then the Soviet Union—but not the scourge of conspiracism, that stains deeply a people’s sub and regular consciousness. Indeed, Putin’s carreer focused on concocting conspiracies as a KGB counterintelligence officer and, when he headed the KGB’s descendant, the FSB, for almost a year, he must have overseen which theories to cynically promote or naively believe. His spinmeisters—like the hipster Vladislav Surkov, who managed propaganda, false-flag political party organizing and was the Maidan Revolution, overseeing it for Putin—specialize in weaving cacophonies of claims so confusing that demoralized subjects have little choice but to select the seemingly safest.
“Russian propaganda is designed not to convince its audience that Ukrainians are Nazis and that Russia is waging a defensive war,” explained Masha Gessen, the Russian-born American journalist and author, who has interviewed Putin, in her New Yorker article about Russian propaganda (5/18/22), “but to muddy the waters, to create the impression that nothing is true.” In this manner, conspiracism incorporates not just fascism and nihilism but the credo of 12th century Persian assassins, “Nothing is real, and everything is permitted,” and Satanism, the exaltation of lying and amorality.
Mirroring is also integral to another CT strategy, which could be called “discredit their best.” By attacking an opponent’s most esteemed aspect, representative or subste, from day one and in the most extreme terms, conspiracists get the jump on propaganda’s repetition principle and establishing their enemies-are-plotting trope, a point made personal by alleging that a respected figure is, “in fact,” secretly evil. Without evidence other than Jeffery Epstein, QAnon followers insist that many prominent Democrats and celebrities worship the devil and practice pedophilia, which suggests a mirroring of the accusers’ traumas, and worse, as hard as that is to imagine.
The Nazis exemplified discredit-their-best operations when they “discovered” “evidence” incicating that Germany’s most honored author, Johann Goethe, had murdered his best friend, the writer Friedrich Schiller. Another master was Senator Joseph McCarthy, when he accused General George Marshall, who literary led the Allies to triumph both in war and a generous peace, of actually leading the communist conspiracy. Ever the good disciple, Trump smeared Senator John McCain’s military service, including five years in a prisoner-of-war camp.
Putin’s claim that “Ukraine is not a real country” is another regular conspiracy theory, based on Russia and Ukraine’s thousand years of shared history and Russia’s imperial colonization. But it is contradicted by Ukraine’s 19th century rebellions and five-year fight for independence right after World War One as well as the three recent nationwide democracy movements, the Granite, Orange and Euromaidan revolutions, in 1990, 2004 and 2014, driven by young people flooding the streets in largely peaceful protests. As Russia’s more tolerant and democratic cousin, Ukraine is ripe for “best discrediting.”
What is commonly called gaslighting draws on both enhanced and regular conspiracism to trick subjects into thinking not just that reality is askew and brimming with hidden enemies, but they themselves are certifiably insane.
Gaslighting on a grand scale emerges around the central CT strategy of “fake news,” which was perfected by the Nazis, who also coined the term. Not only do the conspiracists propagandize “alternative facts” or use conspiracy mirroring to flip accusations against them, they “claim that all news is fake, and finally that only their spectacle is real,” according to historian Snyder in “The Road to Unfreedom” (2018). Divorced from almost all social constructs but their own, conspiracy theorist use various forms of “enhanced methods” to push their victim-believers into a group hallucination.
Mirroring, flagging and discrediting work well as psy-ops by virtue of their ability to harness existing narratives but also conspiracists’ desires and underlying psychology. By projecting onto other individuals the crimes they have committed or are conspiring to commit or would support if committed by others—by displacing their internal feeling onto external forces—they simultaneously hide from and explore their own pathologies.
False narratives are often contradicted by overwhelming evidence or Occam’s Razor analysis, where the simplest solution is the most likely, and the conspiracy theorists’ Rube Goldberg plots seem patently absurd. But when theories are repeated relentlessly, with preternatural confidence and periodic updates and finetuning to fit psycho-politcial developments, they are surprisingly powerful to people who are susceptible.
Russian “[c]overage is repetitive not just from day to day, television channel to television channel; nearly identical stories appear in print and online media, too,” notes Gessen, pointing out the power of centrally-planned, authoritarian conspiracism. By pushing confusing stories, while rolling out more extreme revelations, even if only implied or conjectured, viewers are compelled to seek relief in cynicism, suspicion or full belief.
It’s a difficult game to understand, let alone oppose or defeat, especially in our current golden age of conspiracy theories, which has been supercharged by advances in information technology but also the innovations of the professional conspiracists. In addition to exploiting social media and conspiracy mirroring, they use aspects of gaming, which range from conspiracy culture’s spirit of play to the massive multiplayer online games that almost all teenage boys are addicted to or the hipster fad that started around the turn of the millennium: live action roleplaying games. That is how a master conspiracist, pretending to be a high-level government insider codenamed “Q,” used enigmatic pronouncements on an obscure libertarian message-board website to create QAnon, a millions-strong, international conspiracy theory-based movement, in three years.
Traditional virtues of honesty, self-awareness and social responsibility seem hopelessly outclassed against such sophisticated subterfuges, unless we, too, develop secret psychological weapons, like using empathy for their traumas to find game-changing insights which are convertible to tactics.
Doniphan Blair is a writer, film magazine publisher, designer, musician and filmmaker ('Our Holocaust Vacation'), who can be reached .