Three Russian propaganda techniques being used by the Trump administration & how to fight them
Three Russian propaganda techniques being used by the Trump administration & how to fight them
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/8/20/1690714/-Three-Russian-propaganda-techniques-being-used-by-the-Trump-administration-and-how-to-fight-them
SNIP/
Tactic 1: Toxic cynicism
The idea behind toxic cynicism is discouragement.
If you believe that nothing you do is going to make a difference, you’re more likely to check out and not even vote.
We saw this in large doses in the last election: Everything is awful so f*ck it, why not vote for Trump? If everyone is lying, what difference does it make?
We’ve heard this for years from right-wing pundits in these forms:
You can’t trust the government
You can’t trust the media
You can’t trust science
You can’t trust academia
In the past, these narratives have been used to discredit traditional institutions while building up the organizations that corporate America wants us to trust: Big business.
We all know the marketing—We need to free some “markets.” We need tax cuts to unleash the power of our corporations. What’s good for business is what’s good for America. Markets regulate themselves. More consumer choice will fix all of our issues with government.
All of these narratives were designed by corporate special interest groups like the Chamber of Commerce to encourage one thing: Selling off government (organizations designed by and for people) to private industry (organizations with profit as the main goal).
We’ve heard so much of this over the years from our own propagandists that we were really susceptible to even greater levels of cynicism in this past election. Over and over again we were told that Hillary Clinton was just as bad.
Vanity Fair wrote about the goal of toxic cynicism in Russian propaganda:
At the heart of this mind-set is the idea that there is no such thing as objective truth or even facts, because everything is spun or disguised to reflect advantageously on one group or another. “The whole idea of values has been thoroughly debased [in Russia], to the extent that if you talk about Western values you’ll just get a laugh,” says Ben Nimmo, a research fellow at the Atlantic Council. This environment of toxic cynicism allows Putin’s word to be as good as anyone else’s, because according to Moscow’s worldview everyone, including and especially westerners, is a self-righteous hypocrite and a liar.
I hear this from conservatives all the time. They think that everything that comes from the left is some sort of spin. Therefore, any spin of their own is justified.
Tactics for fighting cynicism
Pointing out propaganda techniques is not the most effective way of fighting them. With this in mind, I like to talk about a few ways of countering them if you encounter them personally.
1. If you know folks who just like to dump on everything on social media, get rid of them. I call these commenters “seagull commenters” because they just like to take a shit on everything. This doesn’t mean conservatives. It means trolls.
2. Form groups of allies where the moderators can get rid of these people.
3. If you see people who are liberal getting down, pick them up. Tell them what they’re doing does matter. Talk about how it does make a difference. It takes psychological energy to fight movements and we need to pick people up, not tear them apart.
4. Work to establish trust with people.
5. Hold conversations at a values level rather than a policy level. If you can recognize when people you know have the same values as you do, it’s easier to see them as on your side even if you disagree about a candidate or a policy.
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