Posted on December 2, 2016

It’s Official: AmRen is Russian Propaganda

Jared Taylor, American Renaissance, December 2, 2016

Over the years, American Renaissance has been called many things, but name-calling has reached a new level of absurdity. Last week, the Washington Post introduced to its readers a website called PropOrNot.com that calls AmRen.com–along with some 200 other websites–“Russian propaganda outlets.” As the so-far anonymous people who run PropOrNot explain, these sites display “a pattern of behavior, by consistently, uncritically, and one-sidedly echoing, repeating, being used by, and redirecting their audiences to Russian official and semi-official state media.”

These miscreant websites reportedly appeal to “U.S. military veterans, Wall St. insiders and finance specialists, natural-food and health enthusiasts, racists, homophobes, peace activists, and politically-active Americans on both the right and left.” Liberals love what they call “intersectionality” and can find it most anywhere. What do AmRen and HealthNutNews.com and GangsterGovernment.com have in common? We’re all tools of the Kremlin. PropOrNot generously notes that we may only be what they call “useful idiots” and not outright traitors: “Some people involved seem genuinely unaware that they are being used by Russia to produce propaganda, but many others seem to know full well.”

Just as we were scratching our heads over this, we got a call from Bill Boyarsky of Truthdig.com, which is also on the list. Truthdig is openly “progressive,” and its editors are just as puzzled as we are to be called Putin propagandists. Mr. Boyarsky, a veteran journalist with decades of experience at the Los Angeles Times, is investigating PropOrNot, and wanted to hear our views. In a cordial conversation, in which we agreed to disagree on just about everything else, we had a good laugh over PropOrNot’s zany accusations. We should expect an in-depth report from Truthdig sometime early next week.

One of the joys of the Trump victory is watching lefties squirm. They were so sure of a Hillary victory, so sure they were on the triumphant side of history, that they are grasping for anything–and I mean anything–to explain defeat. The loons at PropOrNot actually think that sites such as AmRen and Truthdig, along with Vdare.com, ZeroHedge.com, Truth-Out.org, the Drudge Report, and Gaia.com were part of “Russia’s attempts to influence the US election.” We were all circulating Russian-made anti-Hillary “fake news” to tip the election into the lap of Donald Trump, notorious Putin admirer. Defeat seems to have so unhinged some of the “fake news” sleuths that they have started cooking it up themselves.

What do we care? Thanks to these cranks, we have been getting an extra 40 or 50 clicks at AmRen.com every day. We look forward to being fingered for our key role in the conspiracy to ban aspirin, make Zoroastrianism the state religion, and move the Capital to Dubuque.