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Conspiracy Mirroring: A Schoolyard Psy-Op Goes High Tech [1]
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Date: 2022-07-12
When Vladimir Putin claims 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, it can be called “conspiracy mirroring,” the conspiracy theory trick of accusing enemies of what one is doing. It seems implausible 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 is a sophisticated psy-op also evident in accusations of “false flagging,” 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.” 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 simply, “Every accusation is a confession,” in reference to Republican conspiracy mirroring.
Generally speaking, conspiracy theorists build false narratives on an actual fact or two, but mirroring allows them to draw on stories about themselves, allies or antecedents. By playing off their own presence in the collective memory but switching protagonists, they kill four birds with one stone. They exonerate themselves as well as incriminate their enemies, they reenforce rule one of conspiracism, which is “Things are not as they seem,” and, by default, they explore their own psychology. Mirroring may appear odd to those unfamiliar with the venality of conspiracy theorists, but its ability to trade on known narratives helps convince people saturated with regular theories.
The claim that Ukrainians are “Nazis,” however, is a regular conspiracy theory built on the fact that 80 years ago some Ukrainians did join the Nazis and mass murdered Jews. Never mind that so did other Europeans, or their number was small compared to the four and a half million Ukrainians who fought the Nazis or the seven million Ukrainians who perished in the war, which made them some of Europe’s fiercest anti-Nazis.
Another “Nazi fact” concerns Ukraine’s Azov Battalion, about a fifth of which 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 current representation in parliament.
Obviously, Russia is the Nazi-like aggressor and Ukraine the young democracy, but many Russians and better-informed individuals worldwide have swallowed their masterful use of cyberwar and conspiracy theories, capped by the magic of mirroring, which taps into subconscious feelings about the region’s horrific history. Ukrainians suffered terribly in the twentieth century at the hands of the Nazis, but four million were also killed by the Soviets during the manufactured famine, the Holodomor, in 1932, and up to a million more a few years later in the Great Terror. Mirroring assuages that guilt, hence the Russian propaganda claiming Ukrainians attack themselves.
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, China and QAnon. Such accusations probably indicate Russia’s own preparations for WMD use, noted some Kremlin watchers. 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.
Mirroring is central to another CT strategy, the false flag operation, which is occasionally employed by states but is an allegation 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.
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.” Intellectually shallow, it is strategically and emotionally brilliant, able to provide simple answers and feelgood objects of rage by shifting a single fact, 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 adept conspiracy mongering. 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 Bucha on April 2nd claiming they were hoaxes using “crisis actors,” Photoshop or self-attacks. One “investigative report” seemed to show a Ukrainian soldier confessing to raping a Russian woman and murdering her husband. Although it looked like primitive propaganda, it is believable and triggering in a region haunted by millions of murders.
Interestingly, Putin apologized to Israel’s prime minister for Lavrov’s antisemitism, suggesting a successful conspiracy theory needs constant tending, but his Foreign Ministry was unrepentant, indicating how contradictory theories can be operated in tandem. In an online essay, the Ministry stated some Jews collaborated with Nazis during the Holocaust, which is true but their numbers were minimal compared to other Europeans, and Zelensky’s Jewishness is "not a guarantee against rampant neo-Nazism in the country."
Russia’s tradition of fabricating false narratives dates back to the “Potemkin Villages,” built to impress Catherine the Great, and the czar’s secret police’s forgery of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which accused Jews of controlling the banks and is one of the most successful conspiracy theories in history. Based on those achievements, the Soviets established an all-consuming conspiracy kingdom or empire, if one includes the many fellow travelers worldwide.
Of course, some Russians were immune to brainwashing, remained humanists and were able to end Stalinism and then the Soviet Union but not the rampant conspiracism. Indeed, Putin focused on conspiracies as a KGB counterintelligence officer and, when heading the KGB’s descendant, the FSB, selected which theories to cynically promote or naively believe. His spinmeisters specialize in weaving cacophonies of claims so confusing 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,” according to Masha Gessen, the Russian-born American journalist and author, who has interviewed Putin herself, 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 the 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, “discredit their best.” By attacking an opponent’s most esteemed representative or group, from day one in extreme terms, conspiracists get the jump on propaganda’s repetition principle and their secret-enemies-are-plotting trope, a point made personal by alleging that a respected figure is, “in fact,” secretly irredeemably evil. Without a shred of 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 their own traumas.
More mature discredit-their-best operations were exemplified when the Nazis “discovered” that Germany’s most honored author, Johann Goethe, killed his best friend, the writer Friedrich Schiller, or Senator Joseph McCarthy accused General George Marshall, who led the Allies to triumph both in war and the generous peace, of also leading the communist conspiracy, or Trump smeared Senator John McCain’s military service and 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 facts about Russia and Ukraine’s thousand years of shared history and Russia’s imperial colonization. But it is contradicted by Ukraine’s five-year fight for independence a century ago and three recent rebellions, the Granite, Orange and Euromaidan revolutions, in 1990, 2004 and 2014, respectively, 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 someone 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 notorious CT strategy of “fake news,” which was perfected by the Nazis, who coined the term. Not only do the conspiracists propagandize “alternative facts” or use mirroring to flip critiques by the media or opponent, they “claim that all news is fake, and finally that only their spectacle is real,” according to historian Snyder. Divorced from almost all social constructs but their own, victim believers are pushed into a group hallucination.
Mirroring, flagging and discrediting work well as psy-ops by virtue of their ability to harness existing narratives but also the conspiracists’ underlying psychology. By projecting onto others crimes they have committed or are conspiring to commit or would support if committed by others, by displacing internal feeling onto external forces, they can 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 obviously the most likely, and the conspiracy theorists’ Rube Goldberg plots seem absurd. But when they are repeated relentlessly, with preternatural confidence and periodic updates, they are surprisingly powerful. 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. By pushing confusing stories, while rolling out more extreme revelations, even if only implied, recipients are compelled to seek relief in cynicism, suspicion or belief.
It’s a difficult game to understand, let alone oppose or defeat, especially in our golden age of conspiracy theories, driven by rapid advances in information systems and populist authoritarians but also the innovations of professional conspiracists. In addition to exploiting social media and conspiracy mirroring, they use gaming, from conspiracy culture’s spirit of play—do your own research, who knows more, do I really believe?—to massively multiplayer online games or 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 challenges, unless we, too, develop secret weapons, like using empathy for their traumas to find game-changing insight and tactics.
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