Republican propaganda: focused, disciplined, aggressive and professional

Republican messaging

Over the last ~50 years, Republican messaging has greatly improved in its focus, discipline, aggressive presence and professionalism. It is now clearly anti-democratic and solidly authoritarian, arguably fascist. It is ruthless. It is devoid of any qualms about sweeping aside any facts, truths or sound reasoning that are inconvenient or contradictory. None of that is allowed to impede or complicate the GOP agenda and the propaganda used to advance it. Complexity weakens messaging greatly. Simplicity greatly aids it. 

Modern radical right propaganda is purely pragmatic and focused on only one thing, persuasion regardless of the means. Contrary facts and truths are irrelevant. They are denied, distorted and/or ignored. The unspoken goal is political and social power and wealth accumulation for elite donors and key supporters, while the publicly stated but contrary goals are prosperity, liberty and power for the little people. 

Disciplined GOP messaging always includes a frame that all of this sophisticated deceit is coming from “the people” or the “grassroots”, but in fact it is coming from extremely professional researchers and propaganda operatives that are funded by multi millionaires and billionaires, in particular the Koch propaganda Leviathan. That appears to be the case true even when the professionals are speaking to powerful insiders. That is an example of what I mean by discipline. 

It is military-grade: I now see that level of military-grade discipline as a key reason that RINOs, including people like Liz Cheney have been, or are still being, pushed out of the GOP by force. Dissent is simply not tolerated. Dissent is damaging to the power of GOP propaganda because it gives average people a reason(s) to question the message. With no dissenting counter message, most people usually see no reason to question a message, even if it is mostly or completely based on deceit, lies and slanders. That blindness is a well-known human trait. It is why tyrants, fascists and the like, almost always shut down dissent as much as they can, especially internal dissent. 

I made these some of points in a recent post that was based on a leaked 10-munite phone call among powerful Republicans.[1] The call was hosted by a Koch-funded operative doing research on ways to propagandize HR1 to get people to oppose it. HR1 is a democratic bill intended to defend voting rights. The GOP hates voting rights, except for Republicans. They have publicly stated will block its passage if they can. Right now, they can and are blocking it.

Attacking voting rights: A few days ago, Mother Jones (high fact accuracy rated) published an article based on a leaked video of a professional GOP propagandist discussing how fast, easy, quietly and effectively GOP elites were able to push forward laws in many states that are intended to limit voting by democrats and minorities. The frame in this messaging for deceiving the public is “election integrity.” The MJ article included this 3-minute video that summarized the talk to GOP insiders.

Yes, it can be that easy if you are dealing 

with an ideologically cleansed political party

The MJ article, Leaked Video: Dark Money Group Brags About Writing GOP Voter Suppression Bills Across the Country, includes this:

In a private meeting last month with big-money donors, the head of a top conservative group boasted that her outfit had crafted the new voter suppression law in Georgia and was doing the same with similar bills for Republican state legislators across the country. “In some cases, we actually draft them for them,” she said, “or we have a sentinel on our behalf give them the model legislation so it has that grassroots, from-the-bottom-up type of vibe.”

The Georgia law had “eight key provisions that Heritage recommended,” Jessica Anderson, the executive director of Heritage Action for America, a sister organization of the Heritage Foundation, told the foundation’s donors at an April 22 gathering in Tucson, in a recording obtained by the watchdog group Documented and shared with Mother Jones. Those included policies severely restricting mail ballot drop boxes, preventing election officials from sending absentee ballot request forms to voters, making it easier for partisan workers to monitor the polls, preventing the collection of mail ballots, and restricting the ability of counties to accept donations from nonprofit groups seeking to aid in election administration.

All of these recommendations came straight from Heritage’s list of “best practices” drafted in February. With Heritage’s help, Anderson said, Georgia became “the example for the rest of the country.”

The deceit in this GOP messaging tactic is blatant. It speaks for itself. Nowhere in the video is there any mention of exactly how the new laws that limit non-Republican voting would reduce voter fraud. That is because the point is for Republicans to win elections, not to deal with almost non-existent vote fraud. The speaker noted about how the elites quietly influenced Iowa’s voter suppression law: “We did it quickly and we did it quietly. Honestly, nobody noticed.” 

The GOP elites, multi-millionaires and billionaires want their messaging against voting rights to “have that grassroots, bottom-up vibe.” This propaganda is pure deceit. GOP propagandists pay attention to professionalism of the messaging to falsely make it look like the urge to suppress votes comes from grassroots people, when instead the urge comes from quiet multi-millionaires and billionaires.

Democratic messaging: at a big disadvantage

By contrast with the GOP, Democratic messaging is not as nearly as dependent on deceit, lies and slanders. That put the Democrats at a big disadvantage in messaging. The world of messaging mostly based on deceit, lies, slanders and irrational emotional manipulation is vastly larger than the world mostly based on honesty, truths, respect and rational appeals to reason. Think about that for a moment. For a given issue, there are multiple way that deceit, lies, slanders and irrational emotional manipulation can be packaged for messaging. But there are far fewer ways to message honesty, truths, respect and rational appeals to reason. 

In other words, there are usually many lies and fantasies about an issue and many ways to deceive and disrespect, but usually (always?) far fewer defensible realities and ways to speak honestly and respectfully.

Look at how the GOP approached building opposition to HR1 and defense of voting rights. They relentlessly looked for angles based on their professional empirical research on public opinion responses to various test lines of messaging, true or not, rational or not, democratic or not. The GOP wanted to know how to persuade people into opposing HR1, regardless of what means the persuasion employed. Any angle that worked would be used. 

If one believes that the Democrats are at a disadvantage inherent in limits imposed by honesty, truths, respect and rational appeals to reason, then what does that says about what they need to do when it comes to messaging? It tells me that they need to get a lot more focused, disciplined, aggressive and professional than they are now. 

I listen carefully to messaging coming from both sides. I hear and see a great difference in focus, discipline, aggressive presence and professionalism. With the Republicans, talking points usually come from the top to the bottom, e.g., “the election was stolen,” Christians are persecuted, taxation is theft, government is evil tyranny, death tax, abortion is murder, etc. With the Democrats, messages seem to mostly come from the bottom, e.g., Black Lives Matter. Sometimes they are counterproductive, e.g., “defund the police.” Because the Democrats do not engage in DINO hunts and are ideologically far broader than the GOP, they don't speak with one voice. Most dems do not want to defund the police. So the dems have all kinds of dissenting voices in their messaging and that undermines all Democratic messages. 

In my opinion, and based mostly on my read of cognitive biology, social behavior, history and recent political events, the Democrats fight the messaging war with one hand tied behind their back. They have to somehow up their messaging game. If they don't, we just might lose democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law to some kind of a corrupt American fascism.

Questions: Is it even possible for the Democratic party to professionalize its messaging given the breadth and ideologies and associated internal divisions that diversity generates? 

Does it matter if persuasion is by any means necessary, or should persuasion be morally or otherwise constrained, e.g.  limited to truth, etc.? 

Is there an inherent major disadvantage to messaging based mostly on honesty, truths, respect and rational appeals to reason compared to the alternative?

Is the difference in focus, discipline and professionalism that I see mostly reality, mostly self-delusion, or is this so subjective that it's pointless to try to make such distinctions?  If it is pointless, then does that give a green light to the kind of messaging the GOP routinely employs? 

Footnote: 

1. The New Yorker article the leaked phone call is embedded in includes this opening paragraph:

In public, Republicans have denounced Democrats’ ambitious electoral-reform bill, the For the People Act, as an unpopular partisan ploy. In a contentious Senate committee hearing last week, Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas, slammed the proposal, which aims to expand voting rights and curb the influence of money in politics, as “a brazen and shameless power grab by Democrats.” But behind closed doors Republicans speak differently about the legislation, which is also known as House Resolution 1 and Senate Bill 1. They admit the lesser-known provisions in the bill that limit secret campaign spending are overwhelmingly popular across the political spectrum. In private, they concede their own polling shows that no message they can devise effectively counters the argument that billionaires should be prevented from buying elections.

The deceit just gushes from this GOP messaging. GOP billionaires wants billionaires to have the liberty to buy elections. Period. The rank and file don't like that idea, so the GOP needs to trick or deceive them into giving the billionaires the power they lust for and are paying the GOP to get for themselves.

Where are the independents in power?

https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx

In recent months, more Americans have been identifying as independents than Democrats or Republicans. Despite that, independents are not in power anywhere. There are very few independents in elected offices at any level of any government in the US. When only Democrats and Republicans are in power, gridlock and dysfunction is the now normal result. Republicans have sworn off compromise and belief in democracy and the rule of law, which is leading the US into actual fascism.

Given the constant state of dysfunction, it should be the case that where possible, independents should have more power than Democrats or Republicans. For example, the now completely dysfunctional Federal Election Commission is composed of 2 dems, 1 independent and 3 repubs. It should be composed of 3-4 independents, 1-2 dems and 1-2 repubs. 

Another example is the House finally being able to move forward with a commission[1] to investigate the 1/6 Republican coup attempt. Months of wrangling about this in the House has been bitter and highly partisan. House repubs want to muddy the waters to create confusion and deflect from  Republican party responsibility for the violence and intent to subvert the 2020 election. The proposed commission will be chaired by a dem and vice-chaired by a repub. That's a recipe for failure. The end result will probably be two reports, one dem and one repub. Each side will point to their report as authentic and accurate.

That is not acceptable. The commission should be dominated by independents with minorities of dems and repubs. There should be only one final report and if either side wants to dissent, they do it on their own and without commission authority. Absent that, two reports would just be seen by partisans as propaganda documents, even if one of the two was reasonably sound, not just partisan spin and lies.

Regime change and overthrow of the two-party system in America is long overdue. A pox on the Democratic and Republican Parties and their refusal to accommodate the fact that they are both minorities compared to independents. Both had many chances to govern intelligently and responsibly. They failed[2] and deserve no more chances.

Questions: Are both parties equally responsible for the dysfunction and deep distrust and hate American governance and society are hopelessly mired in? Or is one side more responsible than the other? For example, it looks to me that the fascist GOP is about 85% responsible and dems are about 15% responsible. Most conservatives will probably see it differently, e.g., dems and liberals are ~95% responsible, while repubs and conservatives are ~5% responsible. 

Or, since there are so few independents in elected office, do they deserve no place at the table of power? Does it matter that both the Democratic and Republican Parties have always fought dagger, tooth and claw to block (i) the rise of a third party, and (ii) power for independents?

Footnote: 

1. Whether the final commission report will lead to anything meaningful is highly doubtful. Official commissions, blue ribbon panels, major investigations, expert white papers and all the rest have often or usually been used to make politically unfixable problems go away. That happened after major race riots in the US since the 1800s. All the commissions came to the same conclusions. And the result was always the same: Nothing was done, nothing changed and predictable race riots occurred for known reasons. What we have with 1/6 coup attempt commission and inquiry clearly is a politically unfixable problem. The GOP is openly moving toward anti-democratic fascism and deep corruption, while the dems are still stumbling, fumbling and bumbling with eroding democracy and a weakening rule of law. That divergence is not fixable. The GOP has the power and will use it to make damn sure it doesn't get fixed.

2. Democrats had power for years, but never defended democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties, including voting rights, by passing laws with real teeth. That failure was colossal and still is unforgivable. They were content to rely on norms, ethics recommendations and other toothless guard rails to protect liberties and rights that Americans used to have but are now losing. From Jan. 2017 through Jan. 2021, the ex-president and fascist GOP acted together to finish blowing the guard rails and all respect for truth and the rule of law to smithereens. Now with our broken, corrupted government, it isn't possible to pass laws to defend what average Americans are on the verge of losing to fascism and corruption.

Blog update: Warning about Dissident Politics phishing threat

I just got a notice from Google alleging that my site is dangerous due to a phishing threat(s). I have no idea what Google is talking about. I ban spammers, trolls and anything that looks fishy. I sent Google a complaint and will wait to see what response, if any comes back. As far as I know, there is no phishing threat here. I do not know what triggered Google's response.

Please don't click on any links here that seem out of place. Something may be going on that I am not aware of.

A perpetual disinformation motion machine

Maybe. But maybe there is both power and persistence 

in propaganda and lies

In an article, ‘A Perpetual Motion Machine’: How Disinformation Drives Voting Laws, the New York Times describes the obvious.[1] Even if it is obvious, it helps to mention it.

The machine incorporates the former president's lies about a stolen election. That undermines some (minority) public confidence in elections. In response to a minority of voters concerns, Republican lawmakers pass voter suppression laws to limit democratic and minority voters. Republican politicians and blowhards cite a lack of public confidence based on the original lie as the reason for an urgent need to suppress voting. Some even have the guts to state that there was was no evidence of massive vote fraud in the 2020 election, but they are merely responding to voter's expressed fears of a fraudulent vote. Lack of evidence of massive vote fraud is irrelevant. Only unfounded complaints from a minority of Republican voters, fomented by the most mendacious liar president in US history, counts as the "rational" basis for Republican voter suppression by government force.

All complaints from even more democratic voters, when that is the case, that there are too many voting restrictions are ignored as lies, irrelevant, non-existent and/or nonsense. 

The disinformation perpetual motion machine

Clearly, this tactic can be used for any authoritarian ends. For example, if the former president claims that there are too many gun laws, and his supporters complain about excessive gun laws, Republicans can pass laws to repeal all gun laws to respond to voter concerns. Same for abortion. Same for tolerance of the free press, political opposition, laws against white collar crime and corruption, laws that apply to a president or his supporters or donors, tax obligations for the president and his donors, etc.

There are many targets for this misinformation and disinformation tactic, so it can be used to crush democracy, the rule of law, pluralism and etc., to build a single party kleptocratic dictatorship. It is fun, mindless and easy. And, for the elite winners, it is vastly rewarding in terms of both power, e.g., re-election, and wealth. Lots of wealth. The non-elite winners (rank & file voters) get satisfying bragging rights and a deep psychological satisfaction from screwing the hated opposition into oblivion, even if their own civil liberties are eventually also undermined.

Questions: Does anyone recall any reporting where an involved Republican lawmaker working to suppress voting in recent years explained clearly why vote suppression law(s) they backed or wrote would decrease voter suppression? The best rationalization I can come up with is this: Conservative White Republican party voters and vote counters are honest and do not commit vote fraud. Everyone else is bad, a crook and a fraud. Bad people votes need to be suppressed, even if it means suppressing a few honest good people votes as unfortunate collateral damage. Or, is that over the top motivated reasoning?

Footnote: 

1. The NYT writes: 

“The ultimate voter suppression is a very large swath of the electorate not having faith in our election systems,” Mr. Kaufmann, a Republican, said in defense of his bill, which was signed into law in March. “And for whatever reason, political or not, there are thousands upon thousands of Iowans that do not have faith in our election systems.”  

The bills demonstrate how disinformation can take on a life of its own, forming a feedback loop that shapes policy for years to come. When promoted with sufficient intensity, falsehoods — whether about election security or the coronavirus or other topics — can shape voters’ attitudes toward policies, and lawmakers can cite those attitudes as the basis for major changes.

There you have it. For whatever reason, political or not, reality-based or not, rational or not, there are thousands of voters who choose to drink the ex-president's Koolaid and Republican disinformation to create a machine of political destruction. Whatever is under attack gets obliterated or at least attacked with intent to obliterate. And, as we all know, destruction of democracy and inconvenient truth are usually fun, easy and psychologically quite satisfying. 

Some folks are just born dividers and destroyers, mostly authoritarians in America. Others are uniters and builders, mostly democrats. At present, the former group is dominant. The uniters and builders are in deadly serious trouble.