#mashagessen

It’s surreal out there. I see American flags waved wildly by folks in red hats, and I think, “If only they knew.”

If only they’d watch the three Zembla reports on “The Dubious Friends of Donald Trump.” If only they’d read the Steele Dossier and all the Mueller indictments. If only they’d watch the Frontline documentaries, “Vladimir Putin’s Rise to Power” and “Putin’s Revenge,” Parts 1 & 2. If only truth wasn’t becoming an endangered species. If only journalists weren’t dying.

As media falls into every gaslighting trap set by the president* and his stooge$, I think, “If only they’d stop repeating the lies.” I started writing about the dangers of gaslighting in 2016, how lies can become “truth” when repeated often enough, and now we’re seeing the verified impact in the polling percentages. Lying is a cheaptrick, and it’s straight out of the Dictator’s Playbook. Lying is the message, as Russian journalist Masha Gessen cautions, the lies then amplified by bots and trolls, which are then amplified by people, which are then countered by reporters and so it goes.

I first wrote about Trump in the Los Angeles Times in 1996, referring to him as a has-been. I then investigated him in 2006, in relation to a pyramid scheme. He was the shiny object trotted out to lure the naïve to write checks. By now, investigating the trumpery of the election of 2016 is a fulltime passion. So many rabbit holes, so little time. So many activists doing great work, enduring attacks for presenting the truth. Lonely are the brave. But we have each other. We stay rooted in truth by communicating truth, propping each other up with facts and reassurance. When one is attacked, we all share the pain.

Activists knew early on the seriousness of democracy’s carnage: if you just followed the rubles it led straight to the Kremlin. Most of us never acknowledged the authenticity of the election, because we simply knew too much. We followed the rubles to the oligarchs, who’d bought and propped up the politicians. Clearly, the uptick in hate and inelegant cruel rhetoric was bot. It’s all been hiding in plain sight, regurgitated by the media, inflamed on social media and filtering into churches, which embrace the bigotry embraced by the Russian orthodox. Pitting Americans against each other was easy, our openness a vulnerability.

Seasoned investigative reporters at McClatchy DC, Mother Jones and the Guardian have been unwavering in truth, exposing shells and cyber subterfuge, and independent activists continue connecting truth-dots, exposing the greed at every turn. But the messaging isn’t hitting the cult, most of whom don’t know that they’re supporting a patsy, a desperate despot’s best boy.

And that’s the thing, Putin’s desperate. His popularity in Russia is waning, and he’s making some bad moves. Thousands of Russians are rioting in the streets, turning on him en masse over his pension age increases. A pension office was just bombed two days ago. Three Russian journalists in Central Africa were murdered last week as they investigated Russian military contractors directly linked to the Kremlin. U.K. intelligence officials believe recent poisonings in the U.K. were carried out by Russian agents. A nationalist biker gang, under U.S. sanctions for its role in aiding pro-Russian militants in the Ukraine, just showed up unwelcomed in Slovakia, a member of NATO and the EU. It’s the same biker group that helped Russia seize Crimea. Putin’s ramping up militant nationalism, while preventing millions from leaving the country. Greece expelled two Russian diplomats last month, in retaliation for Russia meddling with a Macedonian deal; Russia’s power continues to erode in southeastern Europe, as the EU and NATO expand into the Balkans. And a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers are doubling down on sanctions, loudly breaking with Trump, as U.S. intelligence beats the drum louder about Russian interference in the American election of 2016 and the 2018 mid-terms. Anyone paying attention to Russia’s hybrid war in the Ukraine, which included unmarked militants and a cyber disinformation campaign, could have predicted, note for note, what the Kremlin would pull in the U.S. Even down to the hacking of our power grids. As Russian bank profits drop and the economy continues to rise and fall on the price of oil, nothing is a given. And former Russia investor, Bill Browder, just keeps getting louder, the pain of the death of his brave attorney leading to the Magnitsky Act, allowing the U.S. to freeze assets and bar human rights violators from entering the country. But perhaps the biggest looming shadow being cast on Putin is coming from his fanboy in the White House. By using cyber stunts and cheap intimidation to tilt the election away from his foe, Hillary Clinton, and toward the oily charlatan, Putin’s now stuck with him. And stuck with the scrutiny by U.S. intelligence, which is coming down hard on Kremlin operatives, as noted in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s indictments.

As lonely as it can feel being a pusher of truth in an era where liars get free facetime, it’s even lonelier being the guy keeping the secrets of the guilty.

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Author Heidi Siegmund Cuda is an investigative producer, filmmaker and activist. She curates the best global reporting on the truth of the Trump-Russia scandal on Twitter @foxycuda.