Time to Solve Our Propaganda Problems as the Military Do during War
In the November elections, Biden won, making many of us happy. However, Republicans won far more down ballot elections than Democrats. They are now using that power to try to pass voter suppression laws in 47 states. In 2022, Republicans gained control of the House. Democrats did win the Senate by a hair. However, the narrow win gave Republicans the ability to filibuster legislation that Democrats wanted to pass.
In 2022, we lost the House of Represeantatives to the GOP and are hanging onto the Senate by a hair. How could that happen, after all the destruction Republicans have committed? It happened because of propaganda lies and fear/hate/grievance mongering by Right Wing media and social media. These get Republicans elected — even though they’d win nothing if voters knew the truth.
I know — We’ve suffered through four years of Trump. Most of us want to relax and forget about politics. We can still relax some of the time. But we can’t afford to relax for very long, with the imminent threat of future rule by the party that encouraged the violent insurrection — the party where 147 House of Representatives members voted to overturn Biden’s election.
Why are Republicans winning so many Congressional and lower level elections? Of course gerrymandering helps them. But how did they win the elections that gave them the power to gerrymander? One big reason is that a large percentage of our nation’s voters are immersed in Right Wing propaganda.
What can we do about it? We should solve the problem the same way the military does during war time.
Below is a part I just added to a previous article I wrote. Since few people read an article a second time, after a few months have gone by, I’m putting the added part here also, in addition to adding it to that article.
I retitled that article after I wrote it. The current title is this one:
Right Wing Domination of Media & Politics Keeps Us Stuck in Disinformation and Right Wing Government
Standard texts on disinformation or propaganda, such as Linebarger’s Psychological Warfare, a World War II era reprint, point to counterpropaganda as the remedy.
Civilians too — if we ever expect to solve the problem — need to stop expecting that individuals are going to start solving it any day now — by using critical thinking or by persuading Right Wing neighbors or relatives to become lovers of facts.
Instead we should use the same solution the military uses — counterpropaganda. The military doesn’t fool around with timid “solutions” like talking about how individual soldiers ought to learn critical thinking, or waiting for the next generation of soldiers to get better educated so they can avoid being conned, or hoping that soldiers’ family members will talk soldiers out of being conned.
When the military decides to fight propaganda, they don’t believe protestations by groups or organizations running radio stations that spread propaganda — protestations by groups that are enemies of democracy, but who claim their intentions are benevolent. The military doesn’t ask or toothlessly “demand” of outside groups spreading lies, that they regulate themselves so as to stop the spread of propaganda.
The military doesn’t practice the strange idea of “objectivity” practiced by many journalists today — the idea that “both sides do it” — that both pro-democracy forces and anti-democracy forces are equally credible and equally corrupt. This odd but common view in mainstream media, holds that truth is to be found “somewhere in the middle” — by reporting both pro-democracy and anti-democracy sides and treating them as if they were similar in intentions and impact.
When faced with propaganda, the military spreads counterpropaganda at scale — at the same scale and to the same audience that is being targeted with the lies.
In response to civilian propaganda, we should spread the truth at scale — at the same scale and to the same audience that is being targeted with the lies.
That means we need truth-spreading radio, TV, newspapers, news web sites and social media “troll farms.” The truth needs to be expertly aimed at the same audience that consume Right Wing disinformation on TV, radio, newspapers, news sites and social media right now. How would that be financed? Nonprofit organizations could fund them.
Here is a list of liberal donors and organizations we can all contact, to request help for Democrats on this issue:
For further ideas about this subject, see the article I cited previously.
Here are some people and organizations proposing to do something remotely like what I am suggesting:
@RachelBitecofer on Twitter
Strikepac.com
https://www.anotheracronym.org/ — on Twitter at @anotheracronym
Meidastouch.com
DonWinslow.com
@WaytoWinAF on Twitter
Dems for Action
@reallyAmerican1 on Twitter
realityteam.org
This last one is an organization made up of Never Trumper Republicans, so their values and ideas are quite a bit different than those of Democrats. They have also had some organizational scandals. Still, their work shows that they are trying to spread the truth to conservatives — something not many people are attempting.
Time will tell exactly what approach they will take and how effective they will be. For example, it’s not clear yet what Another Acronym is intending to do — and whether it will be mostly more ineffective debunking/preaching to the choir, rather than spreading truth to the same audience to whom the lies are targeted.
It will be a challenge for the organization that takes on this project to target the same audience that is targeted by Right Wing lies. The organization will have to do research on how to best reach that audience — perhaps hosting country music concerts, rodeos and/or other events of interest to the target audience. Research will also be needed on how to most effectively deliver messages.
Targeting an audience and getting messages out to them effectively is a complex undertaking. Below is an article on how the Right Wing does this successfully. Some of their methods, pro-democracy groups can use, though some are not appropriate. We certainly don’t want to lie or to create imaginary events for people to fear, as the Right Wing does.
People want to know what they can do as individuals. Here are a couple of ways to help the spread of truth around.
If you have House of Representatives members or Senators, phone them and write them. You can get their contact information by googling their name and “offices.”
If you are represented by only Republicans, then contact the DNC.
https://democrats.org/contact-us/
Ask them all to use talking points. Republicans use them. Democrats don’t. People remember what is repeated — and that is Republican talking points.
Here is my article on that subject.
How Democrats Can Get Better Media Coverage to Help Us Move Forward & Defeat More Republicans
Another thing members of the public can do is phone and/or write the news rooms of the New York Times, Washington Post and other mainstream media publishers, and also TV stations, to complain, whenever they do “both sides” coverage. This means that they treat both political sides as equally credible and/or equally corrupt, even when the facts prove that they are not equal in credibility or corruption. @jayrosen_nyu @froomkin and @ericboehlert on Twitter often point out articles and TV clips where this problem is occurring.
Here is my article describing that problem.
A number of people have asked me for one or more examples of how good messaging would look. So I’ve written an article with such examples.
