I collect Soviet newspapers. Years ago, I used to travel to Moscow's Izmailovsky flea market every few weeks, hooking up with a dealer who crisscrossed the country digging up front pages from the Cold War era. I have
Izvestia's celebration of Gagarin's flight, a
Pravda account of a 1938 show trial, even an ancient copy of
Ogonyek with Trotsky on the cover that someone must have taken a risk to keep.
These relics, with dramatic block fonts and red highlights, are cool pieces of history. Not so cool: the writing!
Soviet newspapers were wrought with such anvil shamelessness that it's difficult to imagine anyone ever read them without laughing. A good Soviet could write almost any
Pravda headline in advance. What else but "A Mighty Demonstration of the Union of the Party and the People" fit the day after Supreme Soviet elections? What news could come from the Spanish civil war but "Success of the Republican Fleet?" Who could earn an obit headline but a "Faithful Son of the Party"?
Reality in Soviet news was 100% binary, with all people either heroes or villains, and the villains all in league with one another (an SR was no better than a fascist or a "Right-Trotskyite Bandit," a kind of proto-horseshoe theory).
Other ideas were not represented, except to be attacked and deconstructed. Also, since anything good was all good,
politicians were not described as people at all but paragons of limitless virtue — 95% of most issues of
Pravda or
Izvestia were just names of party leaders surrounded by lists of applause-words, like "glittering," "full-hearted," "wise," "mighty," "courageous," "in complete moral-political union with the people," etc.
Comment: One would think a cursory fact check would be in order before saying something inflammatory.
The statement by Miller is disingenuous to say the least. Multiple compiled timelines show the crowd surrounding the Capitol were assembling before Trump finished his address. Given the 45-minute walk between the Ellipse and the Capitol, how could his speech be incitement? And for the theory that it was heard by cellphone? There is also multiple testimony that cell phone reception was poor to non-existent on that day.