Episode 44: RussiaGate, Year 3 - Using the Nonstop Specter of Russia to Tarnish Black Activists

For over two years, the U.S. government has been investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election - interference broadly considered to be in favor of candidate Donald Trump. As a result, a bizarre flip has occurred with the Right and Left: Polls show liberals now trust the FBI and CIA, while many right-wingers – though by no means all – suddenly act concerned about the so-called “deep state.” Liberals have been turned into even more extreme hawks, not just on the issue of Russia, but anything that shores up support for American intelligence agencies broadly seen, fair or not, as a check on the unhinged Trump administration. 

 

Given that so much of RussiaGate coverage is about the alleged manipulation of Black activists, anti-fracking protesters, the Green Party –and even Bernie Sanders supporters - to attack Hillary Clinton and her campaign, the consequence has been the media, time and again, framing Leftist dissent as de facto Russian propaganda. 

 

Today we ask: how does the fever pitch of Russia coverage, in the aggregate, harm Black activists and movements? What are the historical antecedents for these red-baiting attacks? And how can Left solidarity work to dull the effects of these efforts to marginalize and delegitimize voices for justice?

 

In Part II of this two-part RussiaGate episode, we are joined by Anoa Changa, host of The Way with Anoa podcast.