A terrifying film showing how Kremlin propaganda on Russian TV has fooled millions of the country’s residents into believing fabricated claims about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton has left everyone at Sundance gaping at the complexity of the Russian “fake news” machinery, according to a report in the Washington Post.
The film, Our New President, made by Russian-American filmmaker Maxim Pozdorovkin, is edited entirely out of footage taken from Russia’s lesser known TV networks, Vesti and NTV, as well as the Kremlin-run media giant Russia Today. While Americans might be aware of the dubious methods employed by propaganda channels to spread misleading information in Russia to some extent, they might not be aware that most Russians — as much as 86 percent of the entire population — depend on these Russian networks to form their opinion on domestic as well as foreign matters. And that problem is compounded when the full spectrum of that manipulation is shown to us in all its absurdity, to judge for ourselves.
Our New President shows how mainstream news networks in Russia have propagated outright falsities to create a euphoria around Donald Trump’s election as president. Boys as young as 12-years-old are seen celebrating Trump’s victory with gusto, while generations of older people compose hymns to the American president, with cringe-worthy lyrics such as this.
If it’s true what they say on TV
Barack caused disasters and ruined America
The crowds outside protesting now
Are just there to hang out and get paid
Believe it or not
Some news anchors, unhinged about their affiliation to Vladimir Putin, wholeheartedly admit that Trump’s victory has been meticulously orchestrated by the Russian president, with some even going to say that Russia managed to annex America without war. One minister, with a glass of Russian champagne in his hand, claims that Trump’s victory is the death-knoll for “liberals.”
“America is ours. Like Crimea, America was taken politely and peacefully…
“Liberals are deleting their web posts in panic. But we have tracked all their moves. We’ll soon bid all the liberals farewell.”
My first Sundance piece for @FilmComment on this mind-bending doc, OUR NEW PRESIDENT, premiering tonight. https://t.co/O2TVod6thl
— April Wolfe (@AWolfeful) January 18, 2018
What is particularly alarming about the Our New President is that so much of what appears on it is similar to the events unfolding in America. Here, too, major news networks are beginning to present increasingly misleading information to create partisan divides on most issues, and when lobbying for a move seems fallible to cross-questioning and research, networks are presenting totally fabricated information.
If we are not careful enough in the times to come, it won’t be long before we find all of American news TV turning into mouthpieces of the incumbent government, and probably then, Russia will have truly annexed America.