Asymmetric Warfare: Propaganda Has a Huge Advantage

“.... what Gilbert demonstrated is that if the brain is overloaded, it will accept lies as truth. The reason is that when the brain becomes taxed, it essentially shuts down. .... As Gilbert explained explains it, “when resource-depleted persons are exposed to .… propositions they would normally disbelieve, their ability to reject those propositions is markedly reduced. .... We wear helmets to protect our brains from physical injury but no such device exists to prevent us from mental entanglements [lies and manipulation]. Until then, the best we can do is to avoid shallow forms of information or anything that is likely to contain a lie.”

This general concept of an imbalance of power has been on my mind for at least 3-4 years. It seems timely and urgent now. Liars, emotional manipulators and purveyors of flawed reasoning are out in force on both the hard core left and right. We are absolutely awash in lies, deceit, manipulation and logic fallacies. People who support trump claim this true for people who oppose the president and essentially all of the mainstream media. They believe that extreme crackpot liar sources such as Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News are telling the truth. People on the hard core left rely on extreme crackpot liar sources such as Sputnik News and RT News because they are perceived as telling the truth.

Both sides absolutely rip mainstream sources such as the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, CBS and NPR as extremist liars and deceivers.[1] In my lifetime, I've never seen anything close to this kind of extreme polarization and bitter disagreement. Facts are subjective and personal, not objective. At present, there is probably no way to bridge the different perceptions of reality, possibly absent a massive shock accompanied by mass destruction and/or death. But maybe even a disaster won't help much. The liars are probably never going to go away. There is little or no penalty for lying and destroying civil society.

What does it all mean?

Obviously opinions will differ. In my opinion, it means we are in very serious trouble. Authoritarianism on the left and right is pressing hard to fill the power vacuum left as democracy recedes. Power flows from the government tasked with protecting the people and their liberties to powerful authoritarian ideologues, special interests and the politicians they can buy or coerce. The relentless attacks from the left and right and their lies and false realities clearly is slowly pushing democracy, truth and the rule of law aside.

Authoritarians the world over, including Putin, Trump and Xi, are rejoicing over the fall of truth for so many people. Their tyrant power increases in step with our ebbing democratic power.

What does it mean for political and broader discourse? It means that people who still believe in values like truth, democracy and the rule of law need to up their messaging game.[2] They need to do that because they are at a major disadvantage in messaging wars. Why? Because the messaging that people who rely on facts, truths and sound reasoning is far more constrained and significantly less persuasive than lies, emotional manipulation and bogus reasoning.

The human mind evolved to respond strongly to irrational emotional manipulation, especially fear, but also to other negative emotions such as anger, disgust, distrust, intolerance and bigotry. The best way to foment those things is to lie. Truth tends to have less emotional impact because reality is usually less awful and threatening than lies and irrational manipulation can easily make it seem. If truth and sound reason have X persuasive power, my estimate is that lies, deceit, manipulation and irrationality have about 3-5X persuasive power.

Why might that be? Because if the world of rhetoric truth and sound reason is Y big, the world of lies, deceit, manipulation and irrationality is at least about 30-50Y, and most useful stuff is at least 3-5Y. Just consider how freeing it is to just blow off facts, true truths and sound reasoning. Even I can make up some whoppers if I just blow off facts and reason.[3]

In other words, the good guys are fighting with one hand tied. The fight isn't fair. Maybe that just reflects the fact that politics isn't usually fair. Neither is life.


Footnotes:
1. The left and right attack and reject even the fact checkers as a pack of lying liars. No source is respectable any more except those that convey their own versions of reality, truth and reason. That's a huge win for things like actual and aspiring demagogues, tyrants, kleptocrats and liars. It is a huge loss for things like American democracy, the rule of law, truth, reason and civil society.

2. That assumes we are not going to engage in a full-blown civil war with tens of millions of deaths and mass destruction of infrastructure running in the tens of trillions.

3. For example, by blowing off facts I could argue this: The president demands that pro-military personnel interests buy at least $400 million per year from his commercial properties each year, even if the price is inflated two-fold for such special guests. In return for such "honest" business and the enhanced profits that would flow to the president, he has agreed to not cut military and veterans salaries and benefits by 50%.

Or, I could argue that the president secretly promised his supporters at least 25% lower taxes for voting for him, while taxes for Biden voters will be increased by 50%.

Well, at least I hope those are whoppers.

Where the Hell are the Russians?

It has now been about 24 hours since an article The Atlantic published, Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’, appeared. But so far, we have not seen a dump of disinformation, information and whatever other major public distractions the Russians are planning to release to smear Biden and save the president. I was expecting it today, but where is it?

Where are they? Where is the Russian sleaze and lies?

Maybe the Atlantic article took those sneaky Russkies by surprise. Were they unprepared to respond as quickly as they did in 2016 after the release of the Hollywood Access tape?

Remember that? Trump boasted of grabbing them by the pussy because they liked it. Within a couple of hours, the Russians dumped a pile of stolen democratic emails to distract public attention from Trump's crude vulgarity and admission of sexual assaults.

Hand-to-hand combat today

Today, I spent about three hours engaging with Trump supporters. All of them believe the Atlantic article is just a pack of liberal lies and slanders. There were no exceptions among anyone I engaged with. One Trumpster referred to the author, Jeffery Goldberg, as a lying Jew. I gently but effectively defused that viciousness before it got out of hand. Well, defused it today. Tomorrow is a different day. Maybe it isn't as defused as I think at present.

Trump's supporters raised various reasons to reject the Atlantic article as a pack of lies, or something worse. One was based on John Bolton who was present. But he did not hear the president dump his sleazy contempt on US military personnel. Bolton said this: "I didn't hear that. I'm not saying he didn't say them later in the day or another time, but I was there for that discussion."

It took multiple attempts to explain why Bolton's comments meant that he could not debunk Goldberg's reporting. I think I finally got that across. Maybe. Then Sarah Sanders came out and said the reporting wasn't true because she was there. I pointed out that she, like her boss, is a chronic liar.

A few hours later came a blast from Trump's liar press secretary Kayleigh McEnany's assertion that she had 10 people who all claimed they never heard Trump say what he said. Then Fox News reported that and said those 10 people constituted proof that Goldberg's reporting was all lies. Then Fox News reported it had confirmed Goldberg's reporting. Then Rachael Maddow at MSNBC reported more confirmations of Goldberg's reporting, after NPR reported more confirmations of the original Goldberg reporting.

From what I can tell about how the media and former military personnel or their families have erupted, this bitterly disputed reporting just might cause a few folks to withdraw support for the president. That is not to say most or any will vote for Biden. They just will not vote out of disgust of the president.

It was a real poop storm of battling narratives out there today. The fragility of truth was so painfully obvious it sort of hurt.

The upshot

The Russians seem to have been caught flat-footed here. I did not expect that after how well they performed for the president in 2016. They saved his butt just a few hours after the Access Hollywood tape was released. Maybe this time, the Russians will not be able to put the president into the White House again. Maybe.

Where are those October surprises from the Russians? Or, has the US media actually learned a few lessons since their catastrophic failure in 2016 and decided to keep focus on what is important and real news? Maybe there is good reason for some hope after all.

Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’

The president ‘greets’ (deceives) families of the fallen 

Arlington National Cemetery, Memorial Day 2017

An article by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic, Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’, shows us in detail the true moral character of America's fake president.[1] What we are shown is beyond callous, despicable or disgusting. What we are shown is a combination of personal cowardice and evil. Goldberg writes:

“When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that “the helicopter couldn’t fly” and that the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true.

Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.

Belleau Wood is a consequential battle in American history, and the ground on which it was fought is venerated by the Marine Corps. America and its allies stopped the German advance toward Paris there in the spring of 1918. But Trump, on that same trip, asked aides, “Who were the good guys in this war?” He also said that he didn’t understand why the United States would intervene on the side of the Allies.

There was no precedent in American politics for the expression of this sort of contempt, but the performatively patriotic Trump did no damage to his candidacy by attacking McCain in this manner. Nor did he set his campaign back by attacking the parents of Humayun Khan, an Army captain who was killed in Iraq in 2004. 

Trump’s understanding of heroism has not evolved since he became president. According to sources with knowledge of the president’s views, he seems to genuinely not understand why Americans treat former prisoners of war with respect. Nor does he understand why pilots who are shot down in combat are honored by the military. On at least two occasions since becoming president, according to three sources with direct knowledge of his views, Trump referred to former President George H. W. Bush as a “loser” for being shot down by the Japanese as a Navy pilot in World War II. (Bush escaped capture, but eight other men shot down during the same mission were caught, tortured, and executed by Japanese soldiers.)

On Memorial Day 2017, Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery, a short drive from the White House. He was accompanied on this visit by John Kelly, who was then the secretary of homeland security, and who would, a short time later, be named the White House chief of staff. The two men were set to visit Section 60, the 14-acre area of the cemetery that is the burial ground for those killed in America’s most recent wars. Kelly’s son Robert is buried in Section 60. A first lieutenant in the Marine Corps, Robert Kelly was killed in 2010 in Afghanistan. He was 29. Trump was meant, on this visit, to join John Kelly in paying respects at his son’s grave, and to comfort the families of other fallen service members. But according to sources with knowledge of this visit, Trump, while standing by Robert Kelly’s grave, turned directly to his father and said, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” Kelly (who declined to comment for this story) initially believed, people close to him said, that Trump was making a ham-handed reference to the selflessness of America’s all-volunteer force. But later he came to realize that Trump simply does not understand non-transactional life choices.”

As usual, the White House dismisses the article as false, claiming: “This report is false. President Trump holds the military in the highest regard. He’s demonstrated his commitment to them at every turn: delivering on his promise to give our troops a much needed pay raise, increasing military spending, signing critical veterans reforms, and supporting military spouses. This has no basis in fact.”

This article was discussed at length last night by Rachael Maddow on MSNBC. The article was based on Goldberg’s conversations with multiple sources with direct knowledge of what is alleged. Maddow interviewed a former marine who reports on military affairs. That reporter said he immediately started calling his military contacts to confirm what he could not believe he read in The Atlantic article. His contacts with knowledge confirmed the content of the article.

One of the sources for Goldberg’s article, a retired four star general said about the incident with general Kelly at Arlington cemetery: “He can’t fathom the idea of doing something for someone other than himself. He just thinks that anyone who does anything when there’s no direct personal gain to be had is a sucker. There’s no money in serving the nation. Trump can’t imagine anyone else’s pain. That’s why he would say this to the father of a fallen marine on Memorial Day in the cemetery where he’s buried.”

Goldberg asked various officers about why they thought the president would hold the military in such deep contempt. Some said that believe the president wants the military must be loyal to him personally, not the constitution or the rule of law. Others offered the explanation that the president believes that nothing is worth doing without the promise of money. People who don’t pursue wealth are simply “losers.” People who fight for their country are “suckers.” Several said that the president greatly fears looking like a sucker himself and he very much fears death and disfigurement, hence the fake bone spurs for our fake president.

I am not aware of any law or rule of ethics that forces people in the government or military who witness such evil to keep it secret from the American people. It would be good if general Kelly would publicly confirm what he can comment on from his personal experience with the president. Doing that would be painful for him and subject him to the deranged monster’s wrath. Arguably that is not just his duty. It is the decent and moral thing to do. The same applies to other members of the US military who have direct knowledge.

Some people will continue to support the president in view of things like this. That reveals an aspect of the human condition and mind that could lead to destruction of modern civilization and maybe even total self-annihilation. Apparently, most of those people can see enough good when there is in fact nothing but self-interest and evil to be seen.


Footnote:
1. Fake because, in my opinion, he won the electoral college with the necessary help of Russian interference in the 2016 election (~95% personal confidence level).

I’m calling it…

… more “trying to explain the problem” than just “looking to place blame.”  But you can decide yourself what to call it.

*          *          *  

I believe Donald Trump makes us all worse people.  His constant divisiveness has very effectively played on our dark side.  His mendacity has been proven out by 20,000+ lies and misleading statements.  His “only the best people” have turned out to just be selfish Capitalists buddies looking to take advantage of an opportunistic system.  Oh… I could go on.

As a result, Trump has created two kinds of us “worse people” type "victims"; those of us who love where he has mentally taken them, and those of us who hate where he has mentally taken them.  I personally hate where he has taken me.  That’s right, I said “hate.”  And I’m very angry where he has managed to take all of us, collectively.  “God(s) forbid” that he should get re-elected.  It depresses me to even think about it.

Other than some psychological struggling in my early 20’s (many of you already know that story), I can say I’ve been a rather positive, upbeat kind of person most of my adult life.  And why not?!  There is much good in my personal life to be appreciative of.  I want for nothing, materially.  I can actually remember a time in my life where I got mad about something maybe once a year.  It’s true!  In other words, I was not easily riled up.  That’s not so true today.  I guess my fuse has grown short, and has been accelerated under the inept administration of one Donald J. Trump.  I see what’s happening, and it scares me.  It makes me mad, and I can’t stop the anger.

These days, Trump has me living an emotionally bipolar life (that’s a self-diagnosis).  At least it seems that way to me.  It’s like living with those proverbial “angel and devil characters” on your shoulder, each trying to sway me, day to day, in their direction.  There are days when one character is more convincing than the other.  I feel schizoid, and it’s like I no longer have any control over myself.  And I don’t like it.

Well, that’s my “bad” story.  Any suggestions??

Question: Has Donald Trump made you a better or worse person?  Or are you one of the (emotionally) unaffected ones?  Tell us your good/bad/or indifferent story.

Thanks for posting and recommending.