Fiona Hill Describes Russian Mirror Propaganda Attack on the United States in 2019 Trump Impeachment
Channel: Robert Gaudette
Date: 09/02/2024

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This video accompanies the People's Media post on Substack about what's going on in Congress and Russian propaganda. https://thepeoplesmedia.substack.com

Mirror propaganda: the method of attributing your own intentions, or what you're currently doing, to one's adversary. Those who intend to start a war proclaim their peaceful intentions while accusing their adversary of warmongering. Those who use terror accuse their adversary of terrorism. 

Mirror propaganda has numerous advantages. Besides the ironic 'halo of righteousness' bestowed upon the aggressor, the adversary's protestations are undercut. The targets of mirror propaganda [the public], 'virtuous and decent,' are certain that, when aggressing against the adversary, they're acting in self-defense. Everyone wants to be on the side of the 'just cause.' 

To make accusing the adversary of lying easier, mirror propagandists spread fake information as if it came from the adversaries themselves.  By prominently debunking this "lie," it convinces the public that our claims about the dishonesty of the adversary are true.  

As Speier noted, the language of propaganda is always one of indignation; over time, the public will care less about the subject of the lie, and focus more on the "fact" that the adversary lacks morals or values."  

-Mucchielli, Roger (1970). "Psychologie de la publicité et de la propagande: Connaissance du probleme, applications pratiques" (PDF). francegenocidetutsi.org (1 ed.). Retrieved 9 February 2023.
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Russia uses mirror propaganda all the time. For example, Russian intelligence services might set up a fake Ukrainian news outlet. The outlet will then publish stories that Ukraine wants to join NATO to protect itself from Russian aggression. Several months or years later, the same news outlet publishes forged documents ‘showing’ the true motivation for joining NATO is to invade Russia. The intelligence services may include an AI voice ‘recording’ supposedly capturing President Zelenskyy saying he would love to invade Russia. Russian state media would then take this scandalous ‘news’ and amplify it across its domestic media apparatus. Russians feel outraged, righteous, and defensive; worse, though, they feel cynical. Since this is one of hundreds of similar ‘stories,’ they stop caring about whether Ukraine is really going to invade. Subconsciously, then consciously, they view Ukrainians as lacking morals, purely evil, and a threat that must be eliminated in self-defense.  

Russia used a type of mirror propaganda against Ukraine by blaming Ukraine for interfering in the 2016 Presidential election. Fiona Hill, former Deputy Assistant to President Trump and Senior Director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council, expressed her alarm eloquently when she testified at Trump’s first impeachment hearing in 2019.