What can Donald Trump hope to accomplish with a blizzard of misinformation? Just ask Josef Stalin.

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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/01/a_lesson_for_trump_from_stalin_lies_work_up_to_a_point.html

Jan. 18 2017 5:50 AM
In a Regime of Lies
What can Donald Trump hope to accomplish with a blizzard of misinformation? Just ask Josef Stalin.
By M. T. Anderson

Donald Trump shares several important traits with his ally Vladimir Putin—foremost among them, the deployment of outrageous lies as a political tool. Putin is a master of disinformation. After Russian troops and aircraft invaded Ukraine in 2014, for example, he simply denied they were there, which slowed and destabilized Western response. The deployment of falsehood by Putin’s regime is right out of the old Soviet playbook. It was, in particular, a specialty of Josef Stalin’s, who projected a similar strongman image and whose constant flood of lies was central to Communist rule for decades.

Trump comes by his carnival-barker falsehoods through a different lineage, via the red-blooded capitalist traditions of the American salesman. But it’s worth giving a comparative look at the effectiveness of a regime of lies in Stalin’s Russia, especially given the surprising penetration of Russian interests in our incoming American regime.

Of course, it is hyperbolic to compare Trump’s lies to Stalin’s. The differences between the two figures are many. (For one thing, Stalin actually read his intelligence briefings.) Trump and some of his Cabinet appointees are dazzled, even seduced, by the Russians, but their interest is clearly more in the culture of the current oligarchs than the drab, murderous Soviet functionaries who trained Putin and his ilk. Nonetheless, it’s worth following just one strand of comparison between these self-declared strongmen: the use of lies as a principle of control. As we struggle through the muck of ludicrous but toxic disinformation that currently infests our political swamp, we should look to the past to remind ourselves of both the potency of rampant political dishonesty at the highest levels of government and the ultimate limits of its effectiveness.

One of the things that worries observers most about Trump’s falsehoods is his particular reliance on conspiracy theory. His pick for national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, has made them somewhat of a specialty, endorsing even ones as ludicrously bizarre as the tale of the Satanic Democratic pederast pizzeria, a concoction that almost ended in tragedy when an armed man went to verify the rumors. It is bizarre to hear adults, especially ones who will likely soon be in charge of national security, discussing these fairy tales as if they should be taken seriously.