As a former writer, creative director and owner of ad agencies, I could be considered somewhat of an expert on propaganda. So, despite being appalled by the Republican Party’s policies and utter cruelty, I have long been impressed by its mastery of propaganda.
In advertising and marketing, we are taught that the best way to attack competitors who have failed to articulate and promote a clear and positive brand is to simply rebrand them. To portray the brand as too expensive, too weak, too out of step with the times.
In essence, that is what the Republican Party and its propaganda outlets have done to Democrats. And the Democratic Party made it easy. For much too long, Democrats have embraced the Will Rogers quote: “I’m not a member of an organized political party. I’m a Democrat.” That may have been humorous and harmless when the party was at its peak in the days following FDR’s New Deal. But it’s toxic today.
Sure, the Democratic Party offers a big tent with room for lots of disparate groups and minorities. That’s good. But for decades, the Party has failed to articulate its core beliefs of equality and fairness; of establishing a government that serves all Americans, especially workers.
That made things easy for Republicans, their billionaire benefactors, and their propaganda machine.
For example, by embracing the Moral Majority and rebranding anti-abortionists as pro-life, Republicans were able to successfully portray Ronald Reagan, a Hollywood actor, as morally superior and more religious than President Jimmy Carter, a Baptist preacher. Republicans also took advantage of Reagan’s repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, which freed electronic media to conflate opinion with news, by embracing Rush Limbaugh and his golden microphone. Recognizing that emotions – particularly anger, hatred and fear – are good for ratings, Limbaugh and his Republican sponsors began hammering Democrats with a continuous stream of propaganda that would have made Nazi Germany’s Goebbels envious.
A seemingly endless stream of Rush imitators followed suit. And they were soon joined by Fox News Channel, which hired Republican media consultant, Roger Ailes, as CEO. While operating under the ironic slogan “Fair and Balanced”, Fox became the nation’s most powerful megaphone praising Republican ideologies and spreading disinformation.
More recently, websites, social media, and podcasts have caused the viewers, readers, and listeners to be further separated into ideological silos where unbiased reporters and factcheckers are unwelcome.
For decades, the ratings and readership of these propaganda outlets have soared as they have blamed gays, immigrants, transexuals and Democrats for all of our nation’s ills. The attacks on minorities, taxes, an over-reaching federal government, the courts, and education are particularly effective in rural areas where the population is mostly comprised of straight, white Christians…all of it is aided by our nation’s abysmal literacy record. (21 percent of U.S. adults are illiterate and 54 percent of U.S. adults are literate at a 6th grade level or below.)
The propaganda’s impact on rural areas has led to Republican control of the South and much of the Midwest as well as the U.S. Senate. It also greatly impacts presidential races as a result of the Electoral College.
Republican propaganda in the form of disinformation and misinformation has given us Q-anon, Pizzagate, and the January 6 insurrection. It has convinced a majority to believe that vaccines are more dangerous than guns, that politicians know more about healthcare than doctors, that the climate crisis is a hoax, and that white people are the victims of racism. More worrisome, it has given us a second Trump administration headed by a thrice-married, twice-impeached charlatan who should be serving time for 34 felonies, for trying to rig an election, for inspiring an insurrection and for mishandling highly classified national intelligence.
Now all of that hatred and cruelty has been unleashed to detain, arrest, deport and brutalize ordinary people whose only crime is to seek safety, a job, and a better life for their children. And they’re not the only victims. We all are.
If our ever-so-fragile democracy survives this moment, the Republican propaganda machine will be a case study in mass media, marketing, and political science classes for decades to come. Hopefully, those studying it will also find a way to better implement the antidote for propaganda – truth.