The New Propaganda War
www.theatlantic.com
Autocrats in China, Russia, and elsewhere are now making common cause with MAGA Republicans to discredit liberalism and freedom around the world.

Here is the archived version.

If people are naturally drawn to human rights, democracy, and freedom, then those concepts have to be poisoned.

The American extreme right and (more rarely) the extreme left benefit from the spread of antidemocratic narratives, they have an interest in silencing or hobbling any group that wants to stop, or even identify, foreign campaigns.

Senator Mark Warner, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that “we are actually less prepared today than we were four years ago” for foreign attempts to influence the 2024 election. This is not only because authoritarian propaganda campaigns have become more sophisticated as they begin to use AI, or because “you obviously have a political environment here where there’s a lot more Americans who are more distrustful of all institutions.” It’s also because the lawsuits, threats, and smear tactics have chilled government, academic, and tech-company responses.

One could call this a secret authoritarian “plot” to preserve the ability to spread antidemocratic conspiracy theories, except that it’s not a secret. It’s all visible, right on the surface. Russia, China, and sometimes other state actors—Venezuela, Iran, Hungary—work with Americans to discredit democracy, to undermine the credibility of democratic leaders, to mock the rule of law. They do so with the goal of electing Trump, whose second presidency would damage the image of democracy around the world, as well as the stability of democracy in America, even further.

  • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
    9·
    7 months ago

    This tactic—the so-called fire hose of falsehoods—ultimately produces not outrage but nihilism. Given so many explanations, how can you know what actually happened? What if you just can’t know? If you don’t know what happened, you’re not likely to join a great movement for democracy, or to listen when anyone speaks about positive political change. Instead, you are not going to participate in any politics at all.

  • jarfil@beehaw.org
    6·
    7 months ago

    That’s a very long article to decry some echo chambers and manipulations… from inside a different echo chamber and manipulation.

    Yes, China, Russia, and friends, are playing dirty to subvert the international influence of the USA.

    No, Ukraine is not free of Nazis, and Israel is not free of genocidal fanatics.

    Unfortunately, insisting on calling “democratic” or “free”, countries that are not, does a gross disservice to democracy and freedom as a concept. Acting like there is no more work to do, gives a wedge for unfriendly regimes to pull quasi-democracies apart.

    • KillingAndKindess
      6·
      7 months ago

      I mean, its not really. Unless you consider MBA’s to be clever… incredibly shortsighted regardless of how conservative a person is if you ask me.

      • PaddleMaster@beehaw.org
        5·
        7 months ago

        It’s clever enough to show success in many countries and latch on to MAGA. They’ll use those countries as the experiment and use the successful methods in the countries they oppose.

        I found it interesting that these programs are trying to unite the extreme right and extreme left together.

        Being on the defense of these ever changing methods will exhaust us, and they will be successful if they keep at it long enough.

        • KillingAndKindess
          5·
          7 months ago

          I mean, its effective in its spread and ability to gain momentum at every opportunity, so its benefiting a select few at the moment, but…

          Just like cutting costs and underfunding upkeep of a business “makes” money until there is nothing left, if conservativism reaches a broad enough population like it intends to, it will eventually backfire. Cause unlike a company you can just leave/divest from, you can’t just up and leave the world (yet) for greener pastures.

          Hopefully we don’t have to wait until the earth has nothing left to give, and instead finally eat enough of the rich that they can’t make a comeback… hopefully