Five (new) signs propaganda works
Aaaagh, eeeeooow ack, ugh ugh mmp agh, aeek
Jeffrey Denny
“No hypnosis like a mass hypnosis/’Cause a mass hypnosis isn’t happening.”
So goes the They Might Be Giants song “Lake Monsters” about scary things that only exist if most people decide they do.
Some interpret the song by the normally apolitical Brooklyn band as a sly reference to Trump’s first election (“they’re looking for polling places … their voices will be counted”). Which like his second more triumphant crowning was inspired by hilarious lies, hoaxes, hacks, myths and folklore passed down from today’s prehistoric voters.
A certain monster is rolling in Loch Ness laughing at how this bottom-feeder muck is keeping “their” and other myths alive among the proverbial fools born every minute who now captain America.
But suppose you get all your preferred news, views and “research” sources from deliberate, shameless, bootlicking Trump propagandists such as Fox, Newsmax, One America Network and even more personally curated internet and social media feeds that are free of lying fact-checkers. You might believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast as Alice did in Wonderland.
I completely understand. As a teen, a steady diet of Mad magazine made me swear that fleedle leddle flork laflatch doodle gloodle phlakfffa bbblplast! was the actual sound of a doctor playing a human organ like a bagpipe because cartoonist Don Martin said so.
Also, I didn’t worry about bupkis because Alfred E. Newman didn’t and I identified as a person suffering from birth-control face and diastema.
For the sake of discussion, let’s stipulate that propaganda works on people who like it.
MAGAs surely agree, since they claim the libs are stupid sheep brainwashed by professional journalist mainstream media socialist communist woke hater pedophile propaganda against America. MAGAs declare they’re too smart for propaganda, which suggests maybe not. There are many different kinds of smart.
The effectiveness of propaganda is the only way I can understand why Trump voters cast their ballots on so many issues on which they have little to zero personal experience or suffer any harm. For just five:
1. Illegal immigration is a national crisis
Ask any Trump voter, “Have you, or anyone you know, been hurt by any ‘illegals,’ criminal or innocent?” Especially if they live thousands of miles from the Southern border and their states and communities have relatively few, if any, immigrants at all, let alone possibly illegal.
Funny how the whitest states with the fewest immigrants (except for their European grandparents) went all-in for Trump. West Virginia — 90% white and rock-bottom 1.8% immigrant — is 1,700 miles from the Rio Grande and voted 70% for Trump.
2. DEI is racial discrimination
Forget the Orwellian oxymoronic war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength. Just for giggles, ask any decent Trump voter if they’ve faced or lost anything or been affected whatsoever by the so-called reverse discrimination against white people.
Smart Trump voters surely know this anti-DEI thing is a millionaire-funded, white male, right-wing, sickly slick political jiu-jitsu backlash playing on hate against uppity minorities, women and LGBTQ Americans they’ve always tried to hold back.
3. Egg and gas prices are killing hardworking Americans
Sure, for those barely making ends meet.
But aside from sounding like an ignorant propaganda sap if you blame Biden, are commodity prices really a problem for anyone living in a nice home and community, driving 15 mpg luxury SUVs, spending up on holidays, vacations, restaurants and food delivery, sending kids to college and feeling rich from Biden’s stock market?
4. “Woke” is a social disease
Yes, even many Democrats are irritated by progressive moral policing. Especially how they/them/their tossed a fat softball pitch across the plate for Trump Republicans to Shohei Ohtani out of the park.
But ask Trump voters if they’ve ever been “canceled” for saying stupid, hurtful things or felt stifled from expressing their dumbest, meanest thoughts and feelings. Or for failing to use sensitive people-first language. Like calling a convicted felon a “criminal” instead of “justice-involved” when referring to an urban or immigrant gang member or the President of the United States and his pardoned thugs.
5. Trump is the greatest president ever
If anyone really truly believes this and can explain why with a straight face without regurgitating Trump/GOP/right-wing propaganda rhetoric, hyperbole, talking points and “facts” without sounding like a North Korean political prisoner or craven Trump cabinet nominee, then get them to the nearest cult detox center. They need help, stat.
To quote Don Martin, “Bleegh yaaugh rawgh braaghk sprop blop blok gukguk bwaughk gwaaught blobble splog blap blap breaugh guwk splapple plap splorple blapple,” the sound of a bulimia meeting vomiting. This was pre-woke.
Jeffrey Denny is a Washington writer.
