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'Facts don't matter': How Trump uses one of Putin's favorite propaganda tools

It seems clear that the main goal of 'whataboutism' is to 'destroy the democratic values of the truth,' one analyst said.

President Donald Trump speaks before bestowing the nation's highest military honor, the Medal of Honor, to retired Army medic James McCloughan during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Monday, July 31, 2017, at Washington.
  • President Donald Trump and his allies frequently use "whataboutism," an age-old Russian propaganda tool.
  • Experts say it allows the user to deflect criticism by drawing false equivalencies and shifting the narrative.
  • At its core, the main purpose of "whataboutism" is to "destroy the democratic values of the truth," one analyst said.

A few weeks ago, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to slam Attorney General Jeff Sessions and special counsel Robert Mueller as the FBI's counterintelligence investigation over whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow in 2016 gained traction.

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The logic behind it went something like this: Russia isn't that bad — what about all the misdeeds other countries have committed?

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Another classic example occurred more recently when NBC host Megyn Kelly interviewed Putin in June. In response to questions about Russia's interference in the 2016 election, Putin replied: "Put your finger anywhere on a map of the world, and everywhere you will hear complaints that American officials are interfering in internal election processes."

"Whataboutism" appears to serve Putin by enabling him to take the position that it's not America's role to "lecture Russia on democracy when it has had such a poor track record of establishing them on its own watch," said Vadim Nikitin, a Russia analyst and freelance journalist. Most of all, Putin's finger-pointing at the US' own foibles is done in an effort to force others to "accept all sides as morally flawed," he added.

During a 2015 interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," co-host Joe Scarborough pressed Trump about Putin's crackdowns.

During an interview with then-Fox News host Bill O'Reilly shortly after being sworn in, Trump said he respected Putin.

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When Trump and his loyalists turn to "whataboutism," they wield it to shift the narrative when deflecting criticism over a number of issues, like Trump's divisive rhetoric and, most notably, the ongoing controversy over whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow to tilt the 2016 election in his favor.

Three days after the former FBI director's testimony, Trump tweeted, "The Democrats have no message, not on economics, not on taxes, not on jobs, not on failing Obamacare. They are only OBSTRUCTIONISTS!"

A method in which "you're always blaming someone else," often reflects back on the accuser, David-Fox said.

However, Russia was a "pioneer of this global shift in narrative," Dubrovsky added.

He elaborated on the phenomenon in an interview with USA Today, saying:

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"The thing is that when you think it's your mission to make him [Putin] admit a lie, or an inconsistency in his previous statements, when you try to point out those inconsistences or catch him red-handed lying, there's no point because he'll evade your question, he knows that he can just drown you in meaningless factoids or false moral equivalencies..."

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