# Washington Post: Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 25, 2016, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945 "2016-11-25T03:41:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 27
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2016, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/522 "2016-12-25T00:39:56Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > It’s more accurate, by far, than all the nutty left wing comparisons of Trump to Hitler or a fascist. I don’t see you labeling Democrat fake news as ass dwelling, bullshit slurs. Uh, even the conservatives at the Weekly Standard did notice how Trump did the same bullshit maneuver of “not knowing” about where he gets ideas. [http://www.weeklystandard.com/vanity-fair-trump-kept-a-volume-of-hitlers-speeches-by-his-bedside/article/2001343](http://www.weeklystandard.com/vanity-fair-trump-kept-a-volume-of-hitlers-speeches-by-his-bedside/article/2001343) > [@](#): > > Of all the crazy revelations about Donald Trump, arguably the one that seems most alarming, is that he has a fondness for reading Hitler speeches. Now the charge was made by his first wife Ivana relating to his divorce proceedings, but when asked about it, Trump’s denial was less than reassuring: > > Last April, perhaps in a surge of Czech nationalism, Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. Kennedy now guards a copy of My New Order in a closet at his office, as if it were a grenade. Hitler’s speeches, from his earliest days up through the Phony War of 1939, reveal his extraordinary ability as a master propagandist. > > … > > “Actually, it was my friend Marty Davis from Paramount who gave me a copy of Mein Kampf, and he’s a Jew.” (“I did give him a book about Hitler,” Marty Davis said. “But it was My New Order, Hitler’s speeches, not Mein Kampf. I thought he would find it interesting. I am his friend, but I’m not Jewish.”) > > Later, Trump returned to this subject. “If I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them.” > > Now lots of ordinary people read Hitler for valid reasons, such as innocent historical fascination. But it seems particularly strange in light of Trump’s bizarre refusal to denounce David Duke, even as he apparently lies about knowing about the former KKK grand wizard. > > And if you’re inclined to cruise down parts of the information superhighway where it’s a good idea not to roll down the window, you’ll see that Stormfront and lots of other racists think this detail is pretty significant. Trump is an expert at eating his cake and making many Republicans to believe that he never had it. But for the fascists there are no easy pickings indeed, so they do support the ones that wink at them or toss bones at. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2016, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/523 "2016-12-25T01:45:09Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Uh, even the conservatives at the Weekly Standard did notice how Trump did the same bullshit maneuver of “not knowing” about where he gets ideas. > > [http://www.weeklystandard.com/vanity-fair-trump-kept-a-volume-of-hitlers-speeches-by-his-bedside/article/2001343](http://www.weeklystandard.com/vanity-fair-trump-kept-a-volume-of-hitlers-speeches-by-his-bedside/article/2001343) > Trump is an expert at eating his cake and making many Republicans to believe that he never had it. But for the fascists there are no easy pickings indeed, so they do support the ones that wink at them or toss bones at. I’m not sure what’s wrong with reading someone’s speeches and seeing how effective rhetoric can be. I’m not surprised Trump denies it because it doesn’t sound good and we all know how vital perception is. This election is scary precisely because it proves what I thought about democracy. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2016, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/524 "2016-12-25T02:01:58Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > I’m not sure what’s wrong with reading someone’s speeches and seeing how effective rhetoric can be. I’m not surprised Trump denies it because it doesn’t sound good and we all know how vital perception is. Actually, somehow, he thought it would be better to claim that\*\* it was “Mein Kamp” the book that he was reading.\*\* Really, it would had been better to report that it was something else related to Hitler and that would had been the truth. But Trump is really someone that can not even leave the truth alone. He either prefers to sound better for unsavory people that will read about his book preferences, or… Or he is really that incompetent/inept/forgetful and he really does forget what even he thinks is important and will bullshit his way… at a global scale now. And will react to other nations pointing at that bullshit in very childish ways. … Either way it is not a reassuring thing. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2016, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/525 "2016-12-25T02:18:21Z")
There are pictures that can be found, Hitler practicing his various poses in a mirror. The look of stern conviction, the reasonable declarations of fact, the man suddenly stirred to emotion, all as practiced and planned as a hooker’s passions. But his style is nothing like Trump’s. Hitler was a dark genius of rhetorical skill, the Devil’s Billy Graham. He brought his audience with him, building the emotion, then letting them rest, and the building again, rest, and finally building to a crescendo of raw feeling, then he would clutch himself like a man struggling to regain self-control. Every gesture, every tone, practiced and precise. Trump feels his audience out as he flitters from topic to topic, probing for the nerve, the vein. When he finds it, he exploits it, magnifies it until it starts getting stale and then he rambles around again, until he finds another. His rhetorical style is nothing like Hitler. Where they are alike is in their delusions. Hitler imagined himself a geo-political genius and a military strategist without equal. Trump has similar delusions of adequacy with things he knows next to nothing about. But Trump is not even a good dancer, much less a terrific one. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2016, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/526 "2016-12-25T04:44:57Z")
Yes, but Trump has nukes. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2016, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945/527 "2016-12-25T05:12:32Z")
Well, not for campaign rallies. I mean, sure, it would be one _hell_ of a rally, but what could he do for an encore? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-post-russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/772945.md?page=26)