Some thoughts on propaganda

How not to reinforce the propaganda you’re trying to fight.

We are living through historic times right now, and I mean that in the worst possible way. We’re witnessing, in real time, a slow-motion coup against the United States government, one that may already have reached a point of no return.

We’re also seeing unparalleled propaganda, Soviet-state-level propaganda, become woven into the social discourse, which is terrifying but also fascinating to watch.

Some of the propaganda has historical parallels. Ssome of it does not. Unfortunately, those of us who care about the preservation of the Union tend to play into the propaganda. We reinforce it without intending to, without even knowing that’s what we’re doing.

O Canada

Image: edb3_16

The current Administration makes no secret of the fact it wants to annex Canada. The idea seems laughable on its face, but nearly every war, every act of atrocity in human history, starts with an idea that’s laughable on its face.

This is what propaganda is for: making the absurd seem inevitable.

It starts, of course, with demonizing the Other. That’s how atrocity works. You never go from zero to this:

Image: mikdam

without first passing through this:

Right here, right now, we get to see the start of the process.

Of course, I’m not comparing Trump’s rhetoric about Canada to anti-Jewish agitprop in WWII, but I am saying that the ideas, the fundamental process of propagandizing a society, are the same.

In both cases, the target is made out to be an enemy, inflicting ruin on the peaceful citizens of this great nation, without cause or pity — ruin that demands retaliatory action (in the name of self-defense, of course), ruin that constitutes a national emergency…and with it, emergency power.

The current Administration is in the process of declaring a national emergency against Canada on multiple fronts: there’s an emergency because Canada didn’t like Trump’s tariffs, there’s an emergency because fentanyl something something, there’s an emergency because Canada isn’t keen on selling electricity to the US after the Administration talked about conquering Canada to make it a state. I wish I could say this was all a South Park parody, but it’s not.

It’s fascinating, in a morbid kind of way, to watch this unfolding before our eyes, rather than reading about it in a history class.

Let’s talk about just one part of it: “We need to protect ourselves against Canada because they’re sending fentanyl into the US.”

This ticks all the ticky-boxes for effective propaganda:

✅ We have to protect our children from the evil scourge!

✅ They’re poisoning our people!

✅ The enemy is at the gates! They’re right at our border!

✅ We need to secure our border from the invasion!

The problem, of course, is the fact that less than 1% of the fentanyl coming into the US flows across the Canadian border; we send far more fentanyl to Canada than they send to us (though of course that doesn’t make us the bad guys; we’re the USA, everyone knows the USA is never the bad guys).

Liberals play into this propaganda

I’ve seen a lot of liberals try to push back against this narrative with information about fentanyl smuggling into the US, like the fact that almost all of the fentanyl coming into the US originates in China, or that the fentanyl that doesn’t originate from China tends to come in from Mexico and Central and South America. “Only 1% of the fentanyl that comes into the US crosses the border from Canada!” they say. “Canada is barely a rounding error on DEA statistics!”

Please stop doing that. It doesn’t work. It only reinforces the propaganda.

How?

When you say “Only 1% of the fentanyl that comes into the US crosses the border from Canada,” what you think you’re saying is “stop demonizing Canada. They aren’t the problem.”

That isn’t what die-hard MAGA hears.

What die-hard MAGA hears is something more like this:

See? Trump is right! Canada is the problem! Even the liberals agree! Oh, sure, the liberals want to argue about this percentage or that percentage or blah blah blah percentage, but they don’t deny Canada is sending us fentanyl that’s killing American children. They quibble over numbers, but they still admit he’s right. Fentanyl is coming from Canada. We have to defend ourselves from the Canadians poisoning our children.

And boom! By pointing out facts that you think prove Trump wrong, you have reinforced the propaganda.

This is about feelings, not fact. Feelings don’t care about your facts.

In fact, countering false narratives with facts is likely to make the false belief stronger, thanks to a psychological phenomenon called “entrenchment” or “the backfire effect.”

Put simply: When a person encounters a fact that contradicts a belief, that person is likely to rehearse — that is, to replay in his mind, over and over, all the reasons he believed that thing in the first place. Reinforcement strengthens the synaptic connections in the brain that correspond to that belief; it literally, not figuratively, reinforces the false belief.

The stronger the contradictory evidence, the more the person rehearses, and the stronger the false belief becomes.

What’s the answer, then?

Stop quibbling over facts and statistics. Facts and statistics don’t matter. Too many people don’t make decisions based on empirical reality.

The University of Pennsylvania has an excellent article on countering propaganda and entrenched narratives: bypass, don’t refute.

Instead of contradicting the false narrative with statistics that directly refute the false belief, find other avenues, other paths to the truth.

If people hold the false belief that GM food causes allergies — a common bit of misinformation among anti-GM circles — don’t talk about allergies. Find other ways to highlight the advantages of GM food.

If people hold the false belief that we need to retaliate against Canada for poisoning our children with fentanyl, don’t attack the idea that fentanyl is coming from Canada. Talk about the other sources of the drug problem. Talk about the reasons Canada, our largest trade partner, is vital to the US economy. Talk about the people who will suffer if Canadian trade breaks down.

Bypass the issue of “Canadian fentanyl.” The people who believe the narrative about “Canadian fentanyl” will only entrench in their false belief if you try to approach it head-on.

Don’t reinforce the propaganda you’re fighting against.