Very good stuff. Something I wonder about is the fact that algorithms operate in an evidence-free environment. Therefore, RW narratives can and do become more and more divorced from reality. When the narratives are about things which real people have real and present experience with those narratives actually destroy Republican credibility.
For instance, in Tarrant County in the special election for the Texas House, the Republican, Leigh Wambganss, was (is) a MAGA activist. She instigated many local school controversies which have had an extremely detrimental effect on school quality. Of course, parent will fight anyone who messes with their child's education. However, she ignored something near and dear to voters: their home values.
The problem for her is in Texas, home values are the foundation for people's wealth. That is, home values matter a great deal and those values plummet in lockstep with the quality of the local school. As we know, wealth protection is a fundamental value of Republicans. So, Leigh's rhetoric was not matching what people saw with their own eyes and ears at school board meetings.
And down she went. Her Democratic opponent was normal, steady, credible and drew the contrast. Then, the Tarrant County Democrats had an impressive ground game and we got our voters to the polls. If we can take Republican's broad narratives and lay them side by side with people's real experiences, then the algorithmic narratives collapse. They don't just collapse, they destroy credibility. There are many such issues right now in which Republicans are demanding their voters deny what they are seeing with their own eyes and ears.
Really appreciate the intelligent analysis. You keep highlighting how the Democratic and Progressive infrastructure is designed for yesterday, and not for today or tomorrow.
Definitely, need a massive shakeup, but really the creation of new institutions and funding to try different things, the creation of an ecosystem that isn’t captured by existing interests.
Not easy, but by highlighting the issues, you’re helping lay the groundwork, so thanks!
I have been thinking about this a lot. As a journalist who increasingly covers climate change and sustainability issues, it's always a challenge to reach those outside of your bubbles, and I'm noodling over how we apply the right's tactics to positive ends.
Gods, one day I hope to write as effortless and as eloquent as you.
Narrative attacks as a “network problem” of velocity, coordination, and discovery, not isolated pieces of content is such a good way to frame the issue.
Disinformation is indeed less about discrete lies and more as a continuous narrative environment built from repetition, emotional resonance, and identity-aligned stories. High-volume, multi-channel propaganda overwhelms through sheer speed and consistency rather than precision.
Unlike careful lies that crumble under scrutiny, firehose tactics don't demand truth. They weaponize doubt, familiarity through repetition, and in-group feels to embed before counters even load. Spot on for inoculation timing too. Prebunk the pattern, not just the claim.
I'm also so blessed to have you supporting my own substack. It really makes me write better as I must develop my writing to be this good!
I am grateful that you feel it is eloquent - but trust me this - does not come easy - what I found I do better after I do oral presentations on the material and then write it out.
All of those examples are things that have been features of right-wing radio going back to the 1980s. Now they can be spread much broader and more effectively, but the content of them never changes.
I posted this on Democratic Underground on June 9, 2024:
Disclaimer: This post reproduces right-wing propaganda for illustration and discussion only. My purpose is to describe some of the misinformation topics and methods in the spirit of “know your enemy”- and if you cherish liberal, inclusive democracy- these posters are enemy troops. I created a graphic which combines 6 separate TikTok posts. The disparate grouping of subjects and the inclusion of some laughably and obviously false “statistics” make the graphic useless in terms of the original propaganda purposes.
Why I am doing this: A too large segment of American voters pay little attention to current events and get much of their information in snippets: from the headline, not the story; from the chyron, not the reporting; from friends saying “I heard…”; and from short posts mixed in their social media feed.
This post focuses on TikTok posts. About my TikTok account- when I set up the account I lied about my age- I shaved off about 20 years with the thought that they are not entitled to accurate demographic information, and I also didn’t want an age-adjusted feed. The 20-year adjustment makes me middle-aged. That was 2 or 3 years ago.
I recently noticed that I was getting a torrent of Trump/MAGA/ Russian posts on my mobile device, but not on my laptop. My guess is that laptop use suggests old skeptic while mobile devices are happy hunting grounds for young suckers. Over a 10-day period (end of May, early June) I saved about 80 posts which I reviewed before selecting 6 to serve as examples. An important point is that I don’t seek these posts out and I am not a compulsive TikTok user. TikTok is a time-killer for me- 10 minutes waiting in the doctor’s office, 15 minutes over my afternoon coffee. I think I’m a typical user. I find the propaganda posts are mixed in with the usual assortment of sports posts, comedy videos, animal videos, top 10 lists, food and painting videos, etc. If I scroll through 30 posts, I am likely to encounter 2 or 3 right-wing propaganda posts. I also see some from our side, including from accounts I follow, but not nearly as many.
<image>
Based on my limited sample, I see several themes repeated over and over:
Trump as victim of political prosecutions.
The stolen 2020 election.
The wondrous Trump economy. Trump is heroic.
Corrupt Democrats.
Ukrainian corruption.
Immigration and non-white people.
Obama, Clintons, Pelosi, Bidens, etc. are corrupt.
A couple things that really stand out for me are the use of obviously made up “statistics” and the amount of overt racism. As I became aware of the trends I tried reporting posts as abusive. The reporting process was not easy to navigate and offered only a generic complaint option. The actual policy is obviously tolerance/complicity. Next, I tried commenting on posts. When comments were not disabled, I found the top comment was often something like “Thanks, comrade” with 70 or 100 likes. It made little difference. The post itself would have thousands of likes. Most people don’t take the time to read comments.
I don’t want to encourage people to engage with this stuff- if you do you will be mostly ignored. At best it’s a recipe for indigestion, On the other hand, I do think it’s important to know what kinds of lies and propaganda disengaged voters are being exposed to. Narratives that are dismissed as inconsequential and obviously fraudulent by Democrats are demonstrably important to persuading the inattentive. These recurring themes include “the stolen election” and the “political prosecution and persecution of Trump.” These are lies that die quickly in the sunshine, and we can help with that disinfection process.
Very good stuff. Something I wonder about is the fact that algorithms operate in an evidence-free environment. Therefore, RW narratives can and do become more and more divorced from reality. When the narratives are about things which real people have real and present experience with those narratives actually destroy Republican credibility.
For instance, in Tarrant County in the special election for the Texas House, the Republican, Leigh Wambganss, was (is) a MAGA activist. She instigated many local school controversies which have had an extremely detrimental effect on school quality. Of course, parent will fight anyone who messes with their child's education. However, she ignored something near and dear to voters: their home values.
The problem for her is in Texas, home values are the foundation for people's wealth. That is, home values matter a great deal and those values plummet in lockstep with the quality of the local school. As we know, wealth protection is a fundamental value of Republicans. So, Leigh's rhetoric was not matching what people saw with their own eyes and ears at school board meetings.
And down she went. Her Democratic opponent was normal, steady, credible and drew the contrast. Then, the Tarrant County Democrats had an impressive ground game and we got our voters to the polls. If we can take Republican's broad narratives and lay them side by side with people's real experiences, then the algorithmic narratives collapse. They don't just collapse, they destroy credibility. There are many such issues right now in which Republicans are demanding their voters deny what they are seeing with their own eyes and ears.
Thanks!
Really appreciate the intelligent analysis. You keep highlighting how the Democratic and Progressive infrastructure is designed for yesterday, and not for today or tomorrow.
Definitely, need a massive shakeup, but really the creation of new institutions and funding to try different things, the creation of an ecosystem that isn’t captured by existing interests.
Not easy, but by highlighting the issues, you’re helping lay the groundwork, so thanks!
I’ll keep pushing! We can’t fall more behind!
Keep it up.
I have been thinking about this a lot. As a journalist who increasingly covers climate change and sustainability issues, it's always a challenge to reach those outside of your bubbles, and I'm noodling over how we apply the right's tactics to positive ends.
Gods, one day I hope to write as effortless and as eloquent as you.
Narrative attacks as a “network problem” of velocity, coordination, and discovery, not isolated pieces of content is such a good way to frame the issue.
Disinformation is indeed less about discrete lies and more as a continuous narrative environment built from repetition, emotional resonance, and identity-aligned stories. High-volume, multi-channel propaganda overwhelms through sheer speed and consistency rather than precision.
Unlike careful lies that crumble under scrutiny, firehose tactics don't demand truth. They weaponize doubt, familiarity through repetition, and in-group feels to embed before counters even load. Spot on for inoculation timing too. Prebunk the pattern, not just the claim.
I'm also so blessed to have you supporting my own substack. It really makes me write better as I must develop my writing to be this good!
I am grateful that you feel it is eloquent - but trust me this - does not come easy - what I found I do better after I do oral presentations on the material and then write it out.
Nothing easy is worth doing! And it shows with your persistence and for me as the reader, its very frictionless.
All of those examples are things that have been features of right-wing radio going back to the 1980s. Now they can be spread much broader and more effectively, but the content of them never changes.
And amplified on line in thousands of directions
Thanks for your informative
Deep dives”
I posted this on Democratic Underground on June 9, 2024:
Disclaimer: This post reproduces right-wing propaganda for illustration and discussion only. My purpose is to describe some of the misinformation topics and methods in the spirit of “know your enemy”- and if you cherish liberal, inclusive democracy- these posters are enemy troops. I created a graphic which combines 6 separate TikTok posts. The disparate grouping of subjects and the inclusion of some laughably and obviously false “statistics” make the graphic useless in terms of the original propaganda purposes.
Why I am doing this: A too large segment of American voters pay little attention to current events and get much of their information in snippets: from the headline, not the story; from the chyron, not the reporting; from friends saying “I heard…”; and from short posts mixed in their social media feed.
This post focuses on TikTok posts. About my TikTok account- when I set up the account I lied about my age- I shaved off about 20 years with the thought that they are not entitled to accurate demographic information, and I also didn’t want an age-adjusted feed. The 20-year adjustment makes me middle-aged. That was 2 or 3 years ago.
I recently noticed that I was getting a torrent of Trump/MAGA/ Russian posts on my mobile device, but not on my laptop. My guess is that laptop use suggests old skeptic while mobile devices are happy hunting grounds for young suckers. Over a 10-day period (end of May, early June) I saved about 80 posts which I reviewed before selecting 6 to serve as examples. An important point is that I don’t seek these posts out and I am not a compulsive TikTok user. TikTok is a time-killer for me- 10 minutes waiting in the doctor’s office, 15 minutes over my afternoon coffee. I think I’m a typical user. I find the propaganda posts are mixed in with the usual assortment of sports posts, comedy videos, animal videos, top 10 lists, food and painting videos, etc. If I scroll through 30 posts, I am likely to encounter 2 or 3 right-wing propaganda posts. I also see some from our side, including from accounts I follow, but not nearly as many.
<image>
Based on my limited sample, I see several themes repeated over and over:
Trump as victim of political prosecutions.
The stolen 2020 election.
The wondrous Trump economy. Trump is heroic.
Corrupt Democrats.
Ukrainian corruption.
Immigration and non-white people.
Obama, Clintons, Pelosi, Bidens, etc. are corrupt.
A couple things that really stand out for me are the use of obviously made up “statistics” and the amount of overt racism. As I became aware of the trends I tried reporting posts as abusive. The reporting process was not easy to navigate and offered only a generic complaint option. The actual policy is obviously tolerance/complicity. Next, I tried commenting on posts. When comments were not disabled, I found the top comment was often something like “Thanks, comrade” with 70 or 100 likes. It made little difference. The post itself would have thousands of likes. Most people don’t take the time to read comments.
I don’t want to encourage people to engage with this stuff- if you do you will be mostly ignored. At best it’s a recipe for indigestion, On the other hand, I do think it’s important to know what kinds of lies and propaganda disengaged voters are being exposed to. Narratives that are dismissed as inconsequential and obviously fraudulent by Democrats are demonstrably important to persuading the inattentive. These recurring themes include “the stolen election” and the “political prosecution and persecution of Trump.” These are lies that die quickly in the sunshine, and we can help with that disinfection process.