Hot Type: How Russia Weaponises Scandal So You Forget to Defend Democracy
Political columnist Heidi Siegmund Cuda investigates how scandals are weaponised to destroy trust in democracies, paving the way for further autocratic capture
The only thing people in democratic nations should be doing is trying to figure out how to remain democratic nations. That’s it. That’s the game. Defend every institution from the battering ram of propaganda and endless engineered sleaze.
Leaders and citizens alike in the world’s remaining democracies need to focus on strategy – too much scandal rubbernecking and this moment will slip away. Right now, it looks like the world is made up of pervy grotesques, but that’s not reality. The reality is most of this world is beautiful, and people everywhere are amazing.
The Russian-backed Jeffrey Epstein Paedophile Project, where deviant men were supplied with an endless supply of largely Eastern European girls, kompromat was gathered, and the tech and political worlds were infiltrated, was part of a very long game.
Before the latest email dump by a US regime working in lock-step with Russia, we already knew Epstein was a convicted paedophile working with the Russians. We already knew that Trump was a convicted sex felon. We’ve known for years that Trump’s orbit is filled with convicted paedophiles with ties to Russia. Thread after thread, year after year, I and others reported on this deviant bunch. We also knew some Democrats were closely tied to Epstein.
Sleazy Glitz
I learned from author Peter Pomerantsev, who worked in television in Moscow during the rise of Putin and political technologist Vladislav Surkov, that a Russian intelligence speciality is sleazy glitz parades. The idea is to break reality, break trust, demoralize, and destabilize nations.
