November 13, 2020

Right wing propaganda in Romania: the lipstick on a pig strategy

An interesting dynamics encompasses the agitprop routine of Adrian Papahagi, a Romanian right-wing influencer waving a doctoral degree (certainly the degree is an asset in his PR strategy). 

The strategy is simple: alternate sticks and carrots. 

The `sticks' are pieces of lame, yucky right-wing apologetics, like trump and bannon BS stuff. The `carrots' are `cultural' pieces, periodically inserted to sweeten the `show' (feeding them art, history, religion and the `wonder' of `good old religious times', you know, as opposed to how bad it is now 😒 with sexo-marxism taking over the world). 

The immediate impression is of that of a con-man attempting to play a dual confidence trick on the audience: on one side the constant attempt to convince them that he is an accomplished academic (may not really be the case, but it works well on some types with a BS-alert organ anesthetized when they hear about prestige claims). On the other hand, inoculating the right-wing propaganda, at appropriate moments (and in controlled amounts - following the model of slow boiling the frog's water), in the approving brains of the participants (some unsuspecting and otherwise of good faith) in the show. 

Ultimately it's the impression (between sad and grotesque) of a lipstick on a pig technique to disseminate right wing ideological cliches to Romania, by coupling them with 'feel-good' cultural additives.

In fairness, Papahagi is not the only Romanian right-winger playing this game. There are worse nutcases - such as the so-called "Prof. Dr." Mihail Neamtu or the "self-employed Dr." Ovidiu Hurduzeu shamelessly spreading QAnon nonsensical propaganda (the difference may be due to context: for now Papahagi is employed by an university, while Neamtu and Hurduzeu are not).

Conservatism and democracy (particularly relevant in today's context)

Via @BillKristol : 

"If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.”—David Frum