Awaiting civil war in the USA. Russian Media Monitoring Report, July 8–14, 2024
Over the past week, Russian media have devoted considerable attention to Biden's health and attempts to discredit him, as well as the assassination attempt on Trump, which they see as "evidence of internal tensions in the US" and a "harbinger of civil war".
At the same time, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Moscow is presented as a sign of the failure of Western policies to isolate Russia and as confirmation of its growing influence on the international stage.
Read about this and more in the new issue of our monitoring of Russian state media and manipulative sites that specifically spread Russian disinformation.
"Sleepy Joe" and shot Trump
Internal politics in the USA often fall into the category of topics that are intensely covered by Russian media. Even during the so-called presidential election campaign in Russia, propagandists paid great attention to American internal political affairs.
Last week was no exception. The focus was on Biden's health and the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
When mentioning the US president, Russian propaganda always emphasizes his psychological and physical state. Joe Biden is referred to in Russian media by the nickname "Sleepy Joe," which was originally coined by Donald Trump. The nickname has become so popular among disinformers that they can no longer mention Biden without it. News headlines are written as follows: "Sleepy Joe Personally Buries His Political Career," "Why 'Sleepy Joe' is So Tired," "Biden Sinks into the Abyss: Sleepy Joe Can't Stay Out of Scandals."
After the unsuccessful debates for the current US president with Donald Trump on June 28, global and Russian media have focused more on his physical condition. This is a kind of proof of the correctness of Russian propaganda—they have always written that Biden is not in shape, and now global media and politicians share this opinion.
If news appears that Biden is fine: "The Elderly US President Has No Symptoms of Parkinson's Disease," it must be discredited: "Officials Found a Business Connection Between the Doctor and the President's Brother."
Russian experts support the conclusions of Biden's opponents and inform their audience that Biden has dementia: "Crimean psychologist Roman Bilyk assessed Biden's health. He noted that the US president shows signs of dementia."
According to propagandists, the too-old Biden wants to die in the presidential chair. He doesn't want to leave office. And this, of course, will lead to a new civil war: "The US is expecting a civil war if both Donald Trump and Joe Biden survive until the elections," "The Anglo-Saxons have historically been insane in internal conflicts. Now this charge has only multiplied. Civil war in the US has received another serious impetus and inevitability."
Russian disinformers already see the first signs of military confrontation in the USA.
On July 13, there was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump. The former US president was shot during an election rally in the town of Connoquenessing, Pennsylvania.
The Kremlin's information service has found the culprits.
The Left
"The shooter was a 20-year-old guy, an activist of the leftist organization Antifa, the same one that, along with BLM (Black Lives Matter - an international anti-racist movement of activists fighting against violence towards black people. - Ed.) four years ago staged unpunished terror on the streets of US cities to intimidate pro-Trump people."
Propagandists claim that Trump is an enemy of leftist movements. He is a conservative and therefore a target for the leftists. And they will not stop until they eliminate Trump: "Surely, dozens of leftist activists are now preparing a new assassination attempt on Trump. They saw the example. They are upset that the assassination attempt failed. Their hatred for Trump remains. The way is indicated to them - an assassination attempt."
Globalists
"The assassination attempt on Trump is quite predictable. There is no doubt that everything was organized by globalists with the support of that part of the Deep State (deep state, this term refers to the ideology of radical Trump supporters who believe there is a deeply conspired network of officials running the US. - Ed.) that supports them."
According to the disinformers, Trump is trying to destroy the "deep state of the USA," which advocates the liberal transformation of the world. The Deep State focuses on global affairs, defends America's right to be an empire, and interferes in other countries' affairs.
Trump wants to focus on US domestic affairs and promote traditional values, so the globalists want him dead: "Globalists don't care about the USA any more than they care about everyone else. They need planetary power, absolute power of supranational capital. And all countries, including America and Europe, are just tools in the creation of a World Government. Trump is for America and against the World Government."
Here, Russian disinformation repeats the theses of radical Trumpists.
Anti-Trump Republicans
"Killing Trump before the convention would give Republican Party leaders, most of whom do not share Trump's populism and anti-establishment stance, a chance to nominate their candidate."
Russian media also honestly report that part of the Republican Party is against Trump. But, as always, they distort reality in their interpretations. For example, they say that Trump wants to reform the party, and anti-Trump Republicans do not want to lose their positions. So they attempted to assassinate him to nominate a Republican representative of the old elites in the elections: "The most likely candidate would be Nikki Haley, who is completely close to the establishment and the Deep State."
It is worth noting that such an accusation against Nikki Haley is not accidental. Competing in the primaries for the right to become the Republican Party's presidential candidate, she actively supported Ukraine and advocated for further assistance to Kyiv.
US Law Enforcement
"Ordinary people warned the police about a man with a rifle on the roof, the police brushed it off."
According to Russian media, US intelligence and police knew about the assassination attempt on Trump but did not want to prevent it.
The reason is that Donald Trump wanted to reform these agencies: "And, most conveniently, there was a leak of the supposedly secret Trump 'Strategy 2025.' A document of hundreds of pages, in which the future president plans a complete restructuring of the American state, including the dispersal and abolition of such Deep State monsters as the FBI and NSA."
Propagandists raised an old conspiracy theory that in 1963, it was the FBI that killed President John Kennedy. And this is a similar situation.
"The assassination attempt on Trump was organized almost the same way as on John Kennedy. Few believe it was a lone wolf, since a huge part of the establishment hated Kennedy/Trump, feared his policies."
Democrats
"There is no doubt that the responsibility for the attempted murder of Trump, the leader of the presidential race in the US, lies with the Obama, Blinken, Hillary Clinton, and the completely insane Biden faction."
Democrats are the main suspects in Russian media. They cannot stop Trump legally, so they decided to do it lethally: "The only way to keep the demented grandpa in power is to kill Trump."
Propagandists write that Biden could order the assassination of Trump: "Did Biden order the assassination of Trump? On moral grounds, Biden could. Biden is a war criminal. Biden hates Trump. Biden was elected as a result of election fraud (another repeated thesis of Trumpists. - Ed.). Biden has a huge personal interest."
As proof, they cite the appearance of the hashtag #howdoyoumiss: "Calls to kill Trump continue to be actively promoted by supporters of the Democratic Party. Now they are pushing the hashtag Howdoyoumiss. #howdoyoumiss. Promoting such a hashtag is a crime. And it has already gained millions."
Media
"This assassination attempt is the result of the hatred fueled by MSM, mainstream media."
Blaming popular media for all sins is an old Trump tactic adopted by Russians. Disinformers assure that American media had a hand in the assassination attempt. They are against Trump, they write about Trump's views that do not meet their standards, so these articles undoubtedly influenced the shooter.
"A new technology of political terror has been used against Trump.
- An absolute dominance in the media and mass communications is formed.
- A powerful campaign to demonize a politician is conducted across the media and mass communications coalition.
- An image of a fiend is created, against which all means are permissible, including murder."
Ukraine
"The shooter who shot Trump was a great supporter of the Ukrainian regime."
It would be strange if they did not claim this. But to involve Ukraine in the crime, propagandists have to come up with original logical constructions. There is no evidence of Kyiv's involvement in the assassination attempt, so they just accuse Ukraine of its existence. Allegedly, Ukraine constantly creates problems and political crises, fights against Russia, and the need for the West to support Ukraine already leads to the spread of political murders in the West.
"Ukraine is the West's elites legitimizing murders, law violations, and injustice under the loud propaganda that it is for democracy and law. The West's Ukrainian policy kills Russians, Ukrainians, and Americans and Europeans themselves. Ukrainian policy is killing America and Europe."
Propagandists claim that the shooter was a supporter of Ukraine, while Trump was an opponent: "Who killed Fico, who killed Trump, who kills us - one face, one network, this is a single knot where Ukrainian Nazism is inseparably connected with liberalism and cultural Marxism - with the LGBT community. It's no coincidence that Crook's social networks are full of pro-Ukrainian propaganda (we checked, there are no posts about Ukraine in his social networks - ed.). This is a single front of world killers. And if this scum kills Trump, it means he is on the right side."
A civil war in the USA is a long-standing dream of Russian disinformers. And now they (unfortunately, not entirely without reason) rejoice in anticipation of these events. It is clear that in their worldview, the assassination attempt on Trump is vivid evidence that the US is approaching a civil war. It will be a war over values.
On one side, Trump with traditional, similar to Russian, and therefore, correct values. His opponents are globalists and democrats who push the wrong agenda. Following their old principle of exacerbating divisions in hostile societies, the Russians publicly outline these lines of confrontation:
"1. Middle Republican America against Democratic America of both coastal oceans.
- Deep Republican America of small towns against Globalist Democratic America of million-plus metropolises.
- God-believing Republican America against Atheist Democratic America.
- White Republican America against colored Democratic America.
The divisions have already occurred, and in case of a move to violence, it will be like this:
5. The state and security forces will be for the Deep State and the Democratic Party. But almost all civilians with weapons, police unions, and military veterans will be for the Republicans."
It can be expected that all the forces of Russian propaganda and Kremlin agents in the USA will be aimed at radicalizing opposing sides and deepening the confrontation.
Visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Moscow
The Kremlin has once again broken through the diplomatic blockade. On July 8, Modi visited Russia. Kremlin propagandists presented this visit as a defeat of the West's policy of isolating Putin: "India is just laughing in the face of the USA."
Russian media highlight that India and China are the main players of the so-called Global South and that their policies are changing the world order. Washington understands this, so in the future, it will have to adapt to their policies or become a global outcast: "India, like much of the Global South, embraces strategic ambiguity and multipolarity. The USA has a choice: either join this new and peaceful multipolar world, or become an embittered and isolated hegemon."
Modi's visit proves that Russia is on the right path and that Moscow's partners consider its interests: "Modi's visit to Moscow was largely ceremonial and aimed at convincing the Russian leadership that India is not abandoning Russia and remains interested in partnership."
This is also supposedly evidence that the Russian economy will develop. After losing the European market for energy resources, Moscow is looking for other economic partners. And India is an exemplary partner that prioritizes the economic interests of its people over ethical values: "For Russia, this meant not only economic benefits but also maintaining its status among leading global players and avoiding dependence on a single partner... India faces colossal tasks: solving healthcare problems, mass poverty, and inadequate education. These, of course, are the top priorities for Modi's government."
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The Methodology
To monitor the information published on disinformation websites, we analyzed approximately 500,000 news reports collected from ~ 1,000 Russian websites. The data for the analysis was collected and provided by SemanticForce.
Each paragraph was processed using an algorithm which defines its topic automatically. The resulting topics (i.e. groups with similar content) were short-listed by the topics relating to the war or its consequences for Russia. The number of mentions of a certain topic was then counted for each publication. Our conclusions are based on the respective findings and the quotes from paragraphs referring to each topic.
This article was originally written in Ukrainian. It has been translated into English using AI tools such as DeepL, ChatGPT, and Grammarly. If you encounter an error that requires immediate attention, please inform us via Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Your understanding and support are appreciated.
