Russiagaters Ramp Up Narrative Management As Mueller Report Nears
By: Caitlin Johnstone
Tags: Media Criticism, Politics, Propaganda, Mueller, Russia

Both CNN and the Washington Post are reporting that Robert Mueller’s investigation into a possible conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government will be wrapping up as soon as next week. This report comes without a single American having been charged with any such conspiracy during the investigation up to this point, and we’re seeing a very revealing uptick in narrative management from the people who have been making a name for themselves promoting the Russiagate conspiracy theory.

A Washington Post article titled “Mueller’s ‘winding down’ may be less than it appears” by Jennifer Rubin (a member of WaPo’s large lineup of neoconservative empire loyalists) argues that while it is very possible there won’t necessarily be anything earth-shattering in the report itself, “the host of other investigations will continue while the focus moves to Congress.” A New York Times article titled “The Mueller Report Is Coming. Here’s What to Expect.” argues much the same thing. Both articles effectively tell the reader that they should brace themselves for disappointment, but definitely still keep their tinfoil pussyhats on.

“I’VE EXPRESSED SKEPTICISM ON #MUELLER FROM DAY ONE,” tweeted the totally calm and unbothered former Hillary Clinton advisor Peter Daou. “Trump obstructed justice in plain sight and bragged about it to Russian operatives in the Oval Office. THAT’S UNQUESTIONABLY AN INDICTABLE/IMPEACHABLE OFFENSE. If he remains in office, it is an abject failure of our system.”

“As you await the Mueller report, please remember how many of Trump’s worst offenses against American democracy have taken place in full public view,” tweeted David Frum, author of George W Bush’s infamous ‘Axis of Evil’ narrative. “Inciting violence against political opponents? It’s not some clandestine plot pierced by investigators. Trump … tweeted it out.”

“From what I understand about the complexities, opaqueness and length of counterintelligence investigations, I’d be surprised if Mueller was able to uncover the breadth of this conspiracy,” tweeted Hollywood’s most prolific Russiagater Rob Reiner, who once went so far as to collaborate with neoconservatives and intelligence community insiders to make a blatant propaganda video starring Morgan Freeman.

“What makes you so confident this report is on Mueller’s terms and timetable?” asked Congressman Eric Swalwell, easily the most virulent and conspiratorial Russiagater on Capitol Hill after Adam Schiff (who for his own part has already started moving the goalposts and accusing Mueller of timidity in his investigation). Advancing the baseless claim that Mueller was being secretly forced to wrap up his investigation by outside forces, and also forced to remain silent about it, is about par for Swalwell’s contributions to the Russiagate narrative.

“The best possible result would be if Robert Mueller found Donald Trump completely innocent because I don’t want our president to have engaged in collusion with a foreign power, I just don’t want that,” said Congressman Ted Lieu, pretending that he hasn’t been circulating incendiary Russia conspiracy theories for months.

Over and over again we’re seeing the gears shifting, the goalposts moving, and the herd being paced out of its belief that Trump is about to be dragged out of the White House in chains any minute now, and into a narrative about how if Mueller turns up with nothing it will actually be fine, and certainly not an indication that they’ve spent two years obsessing over a fact-free conspiracy theory.

Others, like Russiagate pundit and Bill Kristol coworker Molly Jong-Fast, are just plain doing it wrong.

“I am incredibly stressed about the mueller report,” tweeted Jong-Fast. “If it’s damning then Alex Jones will try to start Civil War 2.0 and if by some weird possibility it exonerates trump then trump will go full banana republican kleptocrat and turn what’s left of our democracy in North Korea.”

Rank-and-file Russiagaters have been worshipping at the altar of Saint Mueller this entire time out of the sincere hope that Trump will be proven guilty of conspiring with the Russian government to steal the 2016 election, but those who have been building and maintaining this narrative have long known that no such thing is going to happen. The mainstream conspiracy theory which has duped mainstream liberals into supporting the US intelligence community and longtime neoconservative agendas against Russia, Syria and WikiLeaks has done its job beautifully, and when “It’s Mueller Time!” has outworn its usefulness they’ll simply be paced into something else. Meanwhile Trump’s term is more than halfway over, and we’re not one iota closer to seeing the Russiagaters vindicated than we were in 2017.

People tend to believe things not because of facts and evidence, but because the people around them believe it. There’s a whole sub-sect of Left Twitter that still believes I’m a fascist simply because a few influential manipulators in their circle started saying so in an assertive tone, and now if I run into one of them online and deny the things they tell me about my own worldview I get accused of “gaslighting” them. Because that clique has isolated itself from any outside perspectives, the consensus within that echo chamber gets taken for reality, despite the fact that anyone who regularly reads me knows that I’m as far from a fascist as it gets.

Russiagate works the same way, as do other fact-free establishment-serving narratives like QAnon. People are so isolated into their echo chambers that you can run into a Russiagater who will stare at you mouth agape in genuine shock if you tell them you don’t believe Trump colluded with the Russian government. Russiagaters so rarely encounter intelligent arguments against their pet conspiracy theory that you have to get past a huge wall of “Everyone knows this is true!” objections before you can begin showing them that claims they’re making are entirely baseless.

Since narrative control is the source of real power in this world, you can understand why this ability to isolate people and then get them believing whatever you want is being so carefully cultivated and protected by the social engineers. Which is why we’re now seeing all the narrative control agents of the political/media class working together to steer the mainstream herd in a direction which will keep them plugged into the official narrative and isolated in their carefully constructed echo chambers as the situation moves around them. Keep everyone herded into their respective echo chambers, and you can get them supporting any agenda you want.

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