I often ask myself why are conservatives so effective at propaganda and the manipulation of public opinion? Over the Christmas holidays, I had an insight I wanted to share.
One of the nice things about visiting with my parents is my father's library -- and by "library" I mean the many bookshelves scattered throughout the townhouse where I grew up in Reston, VA. Dad is a history buff and you literally can close your eyes and pick a book off a shelf and chances are you will sit for an hour reading.
So over Christmas I was visiting and grabbed a copy of Joseph Goebbles diaries, which were found by Russians in Berlin. It is an older version published perhaps in late 1940s by Lochner I think. Anyway, in the introduction to the diaries there is an astute analysis of Goebbels ideas about propaganda which I summarize below. In any case, reading at the time I was struck by how eerily familiar it all sounded.
Conservative/GOP Propaganda explained below.
Hitler and Goebbels were evil geniuses when it came to public manipulation and control. I don't know if they invented mass propaganda techniques, but they were highly effective. Some basic concepts:
- He who controls the streets -- ie. the workers and common people -- will control the nation.
- Simplify your message to slogans that speak to the heart and the imagination of the common people, not the mind. Public is mostly simpletons and sheep. Reinforce your simplistic slogan/messages with endless repetition. Don't worry about the truth, common people can't figure it out in a complex world. Try to avoid outright lies unless necessary, and if you lie, repeat it again and again. Always highlight aspects of the truth that tell your story. Never admit to lying.
- Forget the intellectuals, you can't win them, and they are a bunch of wussies anyway that will go along once you control the streets.
- Demonize and delegitimize your opposition with personal attacks.
- Find enemies both internal and external to blame and become targets for public anger and frustration.
Sound Familiar? The above is a summary of ideas presented in the Goebbels' diary referenced above. So then I Wiki'ed "Nazi Propaganda" and got some interesting quotes presented below from Hitler in "Mein Kampf".
And as you will see from the quotes from Mein Kampf I present below, there is a ring of familiarity to the strategies we see conservatives/GOP deploy in manipulating the public very effectively today. I am not saying that Conservative/GOP propagandists are NAZIs but I am saying it seems like Ailes/Rove etc. are deploying NAZI-like propaganda strategies.
This material was taken from a Wikipedia entry on Nazi Propaganda.
Mein Kampf contains the blueprint of later Nazi propaganda efforts. Assessing his audience, Hitler writes in chapter IV:
"Propaganda must always address itself to the broad masses of the people. (...) All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed. (...) The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses. The broad masses of the people are not made up of diplomats or professors of public jurisprudence nor simply of persons who are able to form reasoned judgment in given cases, but a vacillating crowd of human children who are constantly wavering between one idea and another. (...) The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood."[5]
As to the methods to be employed, he explains:
"Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favourable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice; yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favourable to its own side. (...) The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. (...) Every change that is made in the subject of a propagandist message must always emphasize the same conclusion. The leading slogan must of course be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula."
The point for progressives is not necessarily to copy this highly cynical strategy that holds the public in contempt and seeks to manipulate and mislead. Rather, we should understand conservative propaganda strategy for how and why it works, and then employ tactics to counteract it, undermine it and educate people to understand how they are being played. Perhaps easier said than done.