Dr. Word makes one of his rare appearances on The Range to express his mystification at the tenacity with which certain words stick to certain subjects in the journalistic world, often words inadequate to the task of reporting a story accurately. Such is true of the use of the word “meddling” when referring to Russian actions during the 2016 election.
The Russian government made a sustained, systematic attempt to influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election using a multi-pronged approach to swaying voters. A significant majority of the populace, including a sizable number of Republicans, acknowledge Russia’s actions, though whether the foreign power’s attempts were successful at changing the outcome of the election is a matter of some debate. (The Doctor is of the opinion that the Russians’ success is no more debatable than the existence of climate change, or gravity.) What we witnessed in 2016 was a clear example of cyber warfare mounted with hostile intent by a state whose interests, more often or not, are antithetical to those of the United States. To say using the term “meddling” to describe these intrusions is an understatement is, at the risk of sounding redundant, an understatement.
“Meddling” most often refers to a minor offense, such as when a busybody interferes in matters which are not said busybody’s concern. A “meddle” often begins with a phrase such as, “If you ask me . . .” in situations where, in point of fact, no one asked. When someone offers advice or performs actions which are neither requested nor appreciated, that qualifies as meddling.
“Interference” is a better term than meddling to describe the level of disruption the Russians created in our 2016 elections, but it is still too neutral. “Attack” is a significantly better term. “Warfare,” “Information warfare” or “Cyber warfare,” are more accurate still. They capture the nature of the attack.
And yet, when journalists and analysts refer to the Russian attacks in print and audiovisual media, the phrase most often employed is “Russian meddling.” One has to wonder two things. First, who initiated the use of “meddling,” and why? Second, why have Democrats acquiesced to employing such a weak term when “attack” or “warfare” are more potent and therefore more potentially damaging to Republicans who benefitted from the attack?
Who initiated the use of “meddling”? A reasonable hypothesis is that the media settled on that term because its use implies evenhandedness, which journalists often aspire to. Words like “attack” and “warfare” are clearly accurate and therefore unbiased when applied to a missile attack by a hostile power. The distinction here is, Republicans, being the beneficiaries of the cyber attack, do not consider themselves victims of the intrusion, while Democrats do. Therefore, a journalist who is attempting to create a balanced news report might shy away from using the more accurate phrases, thinking critics would accuse said journalist of bias. Another reasonable hypothesis is, Republicans, who understand the importance of language far better than Democrats, decided to encourage the use of “meddling” and were successful in making its use nearly universal.
Why have Democrats acquiesced to the use of the term “meddling” and even employ it themselves? The most likely reasons are: Democrats are far less adept at messaging than Republicans, both in the adoption of the best words and phrases to further their agenda and in the constant repetition of the words and phrases they adopt; and, Democrats tend to be cowardly, almost to the extent that they act like the wronged party in an abusive relationship, terrified to say anything which might subject them to further abuse. Either or both reasons help explain the Democrats’ passive acceptance of a word which downplays the importance or severity of the Russian government’s actions.
An interesting discussion of the origins of the word “collusion” to describe any cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russians presented on the Lawfare blog a few weeks ago sheds some light on the way terms originate in the world of journalism. (Note: The Doctor does not frequent the Lawfare blog, but it appears local journalist Dylan Smith does, to whom the doctor tips his hat for the link.) According to the author of the piece, the use of “collusion” began during the Democratic National Convention. Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager told CNN that DNC emails were stolen by parties working for the Russian government for the purpose of assisting the Trump campaign. Though the word “collusion” was not used by the Clinton campaign, it was employed in the subsequent press report. When other journalists picked up the story, they adopted “collusion” as the term of art to describe the theft. Henceforth, “collusion” became the standard word used to reference the connections between Russian attacks on the election and the Trump campaign.
The word doctor believes word choice is a critical part of effective communication. When journalists choose to use a word like “meddling,” which is little more than a euphemism for the direct attack the Russian government mounted against our democracy, they are not framing the story accurately, and thus are lessening the accuracy of their reporting. It is an example of poor journalism, analogous to leaving critical facts out of a story for fear the facts might offend some readers.
This article appears in Jul 19-25, 2018.
And what is the word doctor’s ruling on the accuracy of the term “collusion?”
The Doctor believes “collusion” is a poorly chosen term, even though it reasonably accurately describes the possibility that the Russians and the Trump campaign worked together. The problem is, the word has no legal meaning. Even if the world agrees that Trump and the people around him “colluded” with the Russian government during the election, that doesn’t mean they did anything illegal. Trump, Giuliani and the other scoundrels involved in the Trump deception operation could agree there was collusion and still maintain none of them broke the law.
Dr. Word is not a doctor of jurisprudence, so he cannot offer a term which would have standing in court. Truth be told, his doctorate is self conferred, so he lacks university standing in the linguistic and etymological disciplines as well.
What Russia did during our last presidential election pales in comparison to what the U.S. has done to rig literally hundreds of elections since WWII.
The Russians obtained some emails–and in fact, it is still not clear whether they were originally leaked before the hackers obtained them–that clearly show what a craven, corrupt mess the Democratic leadership is, esp. w/r/t conspiring to suppress the chances of their own best candidate in that election (Bernie Sanders) on behalf of a stale, deeply unpopular, corporate-friendly retread that the leadership was more comfortable with. This is just one in a very long list of progressive candidates that the party power brokers have suppressed over the years. No lies, no surprise, no fake news there, just a fundamental truth of how the party operates that the Ds would rather keep hidden. Revealing it to the American public counts as a public service, in my book.
Another thing that the Russians did was pollute our social media airwaves with all sorts of memes and stories, often fake or exaggerated, that were designed to sow conflict among our citizenry. The fact that this was so successful is a testament to the abject ignorance and infantile cultural attitudes of our electorate more than it is to brilliant Russian skill or skullduggery. Let’s face it, Americans (of any stripe) tend to be eminently susceptible to bullshit.
Lastly, there is evidence that Russian hackers investigated some U.S. electoral systems, but there is absolutely NO evidence that they did anything to compromise these systems or change the results. It would be almost impossible for a foreign entity to accomplish such a thing in any event, since our electoral infrastructure is scattered in thousands of different county-level systems, each with somewhat different procedures, technologies, and administrators. However, there is plenty of evidence that Republicans are actively and successfully working at the state and local levels to suppress millions of votes in U.S. elections with restrictive and racist voter ID laws, voting rules changes, gerrymandering, etc. If you want to identify and counteract an active threat to our elections, this is by far the most egregious and dangerous. This Russian circus is certainly problematic, but it’s a sideshow distraction in comparison to the very real and growing threat presented by the Republican Party.
Throughout the Cold War and after, the U.S. aided the efforts of innumerable dictators and corrupt ruling parties to stuff ballot boxes, use violence and threat of imprisonment to frighten the electorate, assassinate opponents, deploy vote counting technology that allows for hacking the results, etc., often dumping huge amounts of money into other countries’ elections in order to ensure that corporate/business-friendly parties and politicians would win and progressive/left-wing parties and politicians would lose. In fact, it has only been about 20 years since we did this to a RUSSIAN election, as anyone familiar with Boris Yeltsin’s 1996 victory can testify.
It is beyond ridiculous that Democrats are using this red herring to avoid taking responsibility for the mistakes and corruption that led to Tchump’s victory, and it is an abject failure of the mainstream media to place this current situation in the proper context. Moreover, the obsessive focus on Russia it obscures the real threat as identified above.
As far as collusion is concerned, well duh, there are many Republicans and some Democrats colluding with the Russian oligarchy on a regular basis, for one primary purpose: to make a lot of money. The fact that in Russia this bleeds over into politics means that it is really not much different from the U.S.–their government, much like ours, largely functions to serve the interests of the wealthy and powerful. The fact that these U.S. and Russian corporate interests overlap–and that the interested parties collude–should surprise no one. Alas, it surprises everyone, because people are not told the truth in any meaningful way.