Splitsville WHAT'S SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE IS SAUCE FOR THE PROPAGANDA

The Not-New-But-Still-Young-At-Heart Newsletter for Readers of THE SPLIT

We’re back! Did you miss us? Oh shut up, you did so.

See what we did there? We a) told you, with an air of authority, to ignore and devalue your true reaction; b) told you what you “really” felt, which just happened to c) serve our interests.

Neat, huh? With that kind of skill, we could make big bucks working for the vast, effective, loathsome Republican propaganda machine that has, for 45 years, turned half the population of the U.S.A. into a seething army of drooling, brain-dead orcs who happily vote for politicians who will destroy their world—indeed, who are in the process of destroying it right now.

It's yet another facet, or version, or incarnation, of Splitsville, i.e., our current national condition in which two politically disparate nations share the same geo-political border. Although maybe, in this formulation, it’s actually three disparate nations: As revealed in the last election, one voted for a sensible, centrist, kind-hearted woman of real accomplishments who intended to continue her predecessor’s largely successful policies; another, for a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist, a pathological liar, a mentally-deteriorating con man and a lifelong cheat; and the third didn’t vote at all. Instead, unaware of or indifferent to the threat posed by the second, Nation Number Three thought “fuck it” and stayed home.

The motives of the first and the third cadres pose no mystery. What seems at least superficially baffling is, what went on behind Door Number Two? What prompted so many tens of millions of people who, by most appearances, are capable of dressing themselves, to vote for the obviously monstrous Trump?

It’s a vexation to many. However, one person it’s not a vexation to is Karl Bode, who, in a stinging essay in DAME, reviews the right-wing project, since the 1970’s, of replacing legitimate news and an acknowledgment of objective reality with propaganda, lies, and bullshit—what he rightly calls “a global assault on reason and informed consensus,” of which “corporations and authoritarian bullies like Donald Trump are both architects and benefactors.”

Not, he cautions, that the poor, manipulated MAGAts are innocent victims.

To be clear, millions of Americans adore the racism, sexism, and authoritarianism Donald Trump is selling. They applaud the vitriol, mockery, and trolling of their ideological enemies. Millions of Americans signed up for Trumpism with clear eyes about the vast horrors to come. Trump supporters should, in no way, be declared free of agency.

But to be just as clear: Untold millions of Americans voted for Trump with a violently distorted understanding of who the candidate is, what he supports, what his policies will actually accomplish, and how severely his second term will hurt them and those they love.

The problem does not reside in failing to comprehend the problem. We know—all too well—what has contributed to the creation of an electorate, a third (if not a half) of which cheers for politicians who will literally give nothing to their voters, and jeers at politicians who would work in the interest of voters. The list of causes includes but is not limited to:

· Unchecked media mergers

· The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine

· The rise of hate radio (Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, etc.)

· Fox News

· The consolidation of hundreds of local tv stations by Sinclair Broadcasting

· Big Social Media owned by Trump-ass-kissing billionaires

· Iron message discipline among Republicans at the national and local level

· Simpleminded, demagogic messages of hate, endlessly repeated

· The co-ordination of right-wing media, think tanks, influencers, publishers, and foundations

· Lavish funding for all of the above.

Rather, the problem is that the left, or even the center, has almost no equivalent of any of these. People who say, “MSNBC is the liberal version of Fox News” seem to think that truth and lies are two equal-but-opposite versions of the same thing. (Insert here our previous tirade on the mis-use of “polarization” to describe our current political situation.) While Democrats have been offering what they think of as a superior product in the Marketplace of Ideas, Republicans since Reagan have been roaming the aisles with flame-throwers, torching the very idea of “ideas,” incinerating trust in science and facts, and seeking to destroy liberal democracy itself. That their main motivations are as obvious and base as they come (greed; ego; Christian hubris) seems to have been no deterrent to their success.

But that’s not all. As Bode notes:

Authoritarian propaganda isn’t just designed to mislead. It’s designed to pour lemon juice in the wounds of cultural divisions, distract from corruption and unchecked corporate power, and construct a permission culture for cruelty. It’s designed to confuse and disorient, making it impossible for the average voter to locate true north in a tsunami of information overload.

It is tempting to think that, when Trump fails to deliver anything his voters expect (whatever that could possibly be—price controls at the supermarket? Statehood for Greenland?), when various things that are expensive today (eggs; health care; houses; education) stay that way, when polio makes a comeback or a new virus sweeps through unvaccinated communities, when contraception becomes illegal in certain states, when the public sphere becomes trashier when the homeless population blows up, when Republican governance leads (as it always does) to the next economic disaster… When life undeniably gets worse for them, it’s tempting to think that at least then the MAGA millions will wake up. They’ll realize, as most victims of a swindle do sooner or later, that they’ve been betrayed. And they’ll know whom to blame.

But why should they? Donald Trump had four disastrous years in office that should have defined him forever more as box office poison. But now look.

Unless the Democrats drastically alter their message and their means of delivering it, the orc army of Trumpians will be told—by Trump, and Fox News, and the usual disinformation outlets—whose fault it is (immigrants; minorities; women; Jews; commie-fascist vermin), and what the solution is (end all taxes; privatize everything; make unions illegal; reverse everything accomplished by the New Deal and the Great Society; declare Christianity the official America religion and, if at all possible, restore slavery. Plantation owners were the original job creators, weren’t they?).

Democrats have to get it through their thick, gerontocratic skulls that they are not in a marketplace hoping to make a sale. They’re on a battlefield. Republicans are not the competition. They’re Democrats’ mortal enemies. The way to counter right-wing propaganda is not with the truth. It’s with left-wing propaganda that happens to be true. Being on the side of the angels is no help if there are no angels, and being in the right is no guarantee of victory. As the Mikado says to Koko after informing him of his impending execution, “I’m really very sorry for you. But virtue is triumphant only in theatrical performances.”