The latest: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologist said, “This is the first time I’ve felt pressure from above to not say what truly is the forecast.” Yes, Trump told the NOAA to back up his lie–and someone there did it.
George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four showed us why Trump is doing this.
“Without truth, we can’t speak truth to power, so there is only power.” Yale Prof. Jason Stanley.
Shared truth makes rule of law—and democracy—possible.
This Rand Study explains how to fight Trump’s effort to torpedo truth.
The Firehose of Falsehood is a Russian technique that builds on Soviet methods— but modern tools make it more effective: The Internet, social media, and amateur journalism outlets.
The Firehose of Falsehoods is “rapid and continuous” stream of lies.
Here’s the part that’s key: The liar has a “shameless willingness” to tell outrageous lies that everyone knows are lies.
The liar doesn’t care about consistency. He doesn’t care if it’s obvious he’s lying.
In fact, that’s the whole point. The more shameless the better.
Timothy Snyder tells how reporters were often so astonished by Putin’s outrageous (and deliberate) lies, that they focused on the lies instead of Putin’s latest atrocities.
The lies became the news. The actual news was pushed off the stage.
The goal is the “disruption of truthful reporting and messaging.”
From Snyder: The 20th century method replaced the truth with myth.
The modern day variation is to replace the truth with cynicism: People eventually give up trying to sort out truth from lies.
The method goes with the “You’re the Puppet” technique.
Putin tells the people, “Yes, your leaders lie. But all the others also lie. So you may as well stay with your liar, instead of the enemy liar.”
Notice how this creates tribalism. He’s a liar, but he’s OUR liar.
How do I know Trump is doing it on purpose?
Because Steve Bannon has been in Brazil coaching Bolsonaro (the Brazilian Trump) to do the same thing.
They’re all buddies and learn from each other.
Bannon explains it this way:
Trump is a natural at the Firehose of Falsehoods method. He’s been lying all his life.
From the Rand study: The Firehose of Falsehood technique “entertains, confuses and overwhelms the audience.”
Notice “entertains.” Trump’s supporters cheer the constant chaos.
OK, so how to we combat this? From the Rand study: While we must refute the falsehoods, “retractions and refutations are seldom effective.”
“Don’t expect to counter the Firehose of Falsehood with a squirt gun of truth.”(p.9)
Instead put on raincoats.
If people expect to be drenched in lies, they can better withstand the effects.
The next step is to counter the effects of the lies.
The effect of Trump’s lies is to undermine and destroy democracy. So we move quickly to strengthen democracy.
The worst thing we can do is become cynical—because Trump is trying to draw you in to cynicism.
“It’s too late!” Or “there’s nothing we can do” are the death knells of democracy. The whole point of Active Measures is to get people to lose faith in democracy.
Jeremy asked:
538’s aggregate keeps me from getting distracted by outlier polls. Nate Silver explains his methods, if you’re not familiar with his aggregate.)
The GOP leadership who haven’t jumped ship yet aren’t likely to jump over a new set of lies.
In the end, the only thing that will hurt Trump is a bloodbath in Nov. 2020.
The signs point toward a GOP drubbing in 2020. The GOP demographics are shrinking. The GOP is splintering into conservatives v. reactionaries.
So we need to:
- fight the cynicism that can come from the NOAA staff altering the truth to suit the president,
- expect more shameless and outrageous lies, and
- get busy strengthening democracy
How? Click here for ideas.
[View here as a Twitter thread]
