Q. In a recent bulletin on Rookie Propaganda Mistakes, you emphasised that the would-be propagandist should never assume his target to be a fool, or more delicately crafted words to a similar effect. I can't help but feel that there is a counter strategy hiding in there somewhere. Care to weigh in, in your own inimitable way?
A. There is indeed a direct counter strategy, which among intellectual equals on a fair playing field would be to "Never let your opponent believe that you are their intellectual superior".
Of course, in 21st Century social and political discourse in the western world, few are charitable enough to ever believe that they could possibly be on the wrong side of the debate, which allows the stakes to be set a little lower, so it is sufficient to merely "Never let your opponent believe that you are anything more than a simple buffoon."
And if you wish to see this strategy in action, one need look no further than the newly elected President of the United States, Donald J Trump.
While he implies that his primary social media account is his tool for bypassing the dishonest media who have a proven track record of misrepresenting him at every turn, it is also one of the chief tools of his counter strategy. Why? Because 140 characters eliminates nuance of meaning, so whatever people read into his posts reveals more about them than him. And because they already think him a simple buffoon, this is confirmed to them 3 or 4 times a day. The rest of us don't put too much weight into any given post, preferring to wait and see, so it is an extremely targeted strategy.
So with the press perpetually convinced that he is a simple buffoon, what do they do? They let their guard down, and end up doing exactly what he wants them to do.
Case in point, he made the (paraphrased) claim that many Americans did not support his travel restriction order because the media refused to report on all the terrorist attacks going on all over the world, so the threat of terror did not seem real. How did the media respond? Report after report after report about all the terrorist attacks going on in the world that they totally reported on. "Oh no, we totally did report on this terror attack last week that killed X many people, and we certainly reported on the terror attack two days ago. In fact, here's a fully detailed list of all the terrorist attacks over the past year that we reported on, in gory horrific detail." The media is now so awash with talk of terrorist attacks, that support for his order has subsequently increased, just as he intended.
Trump 1, Media 0.
What is more fun though is to watch how he plays the longer game. Even from before the election, he has frequently alluded to mass election fraud taking place in certain States, and how it subsequently cost him the popular vote. He never produced any evidence though—which means that we can be sure that absolutely no evidence exists, if one assumes him to be a simple buffoon, as the mainstream media constantly does. Still he keeps reasserting the claim though; what a silly man, worried more about his ego than running a country.
Of course, there's no evidence of his lack of evidence either—that much was only assumed because he didn't elaborate on it. An intelligent person would keep that hand close to their chests until it could be used effectively, but we all know that he's not that clever, don't we?
So what evidence could he possibly have? Well, I'll bet that Scott Foval—the disgruntled ex-employee of the DNC, who was fired after bragging on a leaked tape that he had been rigging elections for decades—has plenty that he could provide to the President and any investigative committee, if he was sufficiently motivated to do so, say, by being hung out to dry by his former employers.
Time will tell how this pans out, but I'm sure that long before (if ever) the mainstream media realise that it was never about his ego, he will have exactly what he wanted.
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