EDMOND —
Let’s face an unpleasant fact of life. Every voter in America today is being targeted by a propaganda campaign. These campaigns are exploiting every available technique in a no-holds-barred effort to mold the opinions of gullible voters and expand voter rolls to include the largest numbers possible of sheep that can be counted on to follow the flock.
In a democracy, the greatest hope for good governance depends on an electorate that makes decisions based on rational, mature consideration of issues. To the extent voters are manipulated by liars and crafty propagandists, the government falls into the hands of villians.
Before I go further with this column, let me make a confession. I am notoriously gullible. It’s my nature to believe what people tell me. Consequently, unless I have reason to incline to the contrary, I take people at face value. This makes me fair game for skillful con men. For example, when Bill Clinton was president, I bit — hook, line and sinker — when he went on nationwide television, looked the American public in the eye and said, “I did not have sex with that woman.” He was every bit as persuasive then as he is now and I trustingly, took him at his word. Fool me once ….
It’s a credit to Mr. Clinton’s skill as a persuader that he is now the self-proclaimed “Secretary in charge of explaining stuff.” Maybe he is being perfectly honest now. Maybe a political skunk can change its stripes after all.
Sadly, I’ve learned that we can’t afford to be too trusting, too gullible when it comes to persuasive politicians. I have grandchildren now and the decision we’re about to make will have profound impacts on the country and the world they inherit.
So let’s talk about propaganda: “Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view.”
Hopefully American voters, rather than blindly tumble to the propagandists’ schemes, will carefully sift the bombardment of messages and tease out reliable information to serve as the basis for their votes.
Let’s take a moment to review some of the propagandists’ favorite techniques: ad hominem attack: concentrate on the opponent’s personality rather than address issues. Appeal to fear: trigger the fear response in hopes this will divert attention from the merits of an argument. Appeal to prejudice: we all know what this is. The lie: repeat a lie often enough and some portion of the target audience will believe it. Cognitive dissonance: If your candidate is weak, find a popular celebrity to endorse that candidate. If the audience likes the celebrity, they’ll want to like the candidate he or she endorses.
Demonizing the enemy: create the impression that your opponent is motivated by nefarious objectives and intends to do deliberate harm to the targets of your propaganda campaign. Disinformation: rewrite the history contained in public records making false claims about the truth of historical events. Flag-waving: justify any action, no matter how underhanded, by maintaining it’s necessary “for the good of the country.” Glittering generalities: make emotionally appealing statements that can’t necessarily be verified by reality. Half-truths: use statements that have some element of factual support, but use the statements in ways that deceive and distort the truth.
Labeling: persuading the target of your propaganda campaign to apply labels to the opposition. Once labels are successfully applied, the mind becomes immune to the merits of opposing argument. Managing the news: this technique speaks for itself. Obfuscation, intentional vagueness, confusion: again, this technique speaks for itself. Oversimplification: create the impression that complex economic, social, political and/or military problems can be easily solved if only we crossed the propagandists.
Quotes out of context: selectively edit quotes to create the impression the opponent is saying something damaging to his own campaign. Rationalization (making excuses): once again, this technique speaks for itself. Scapegoating: assigning unjustifiable blame to the opponent making it easier to vote against him/her. Transfer: this is also known as “Association.” By this technique, the propagandist projects the negative qualities of one person on to another in hopes of making the opponent less acceptable to the target audience.
These are just a few of the arrows in the propagandists’ quiver. The discerning voter will know these when he/she sees them. Once the technique has been spotted, and we realize that the propagandists are seeking to manipulate us, we will be careful to exercise our discipline and good judgment in order to base our vote on a rational determination about what is best for this country. The future of our children and grandchildren depend on it. I’m Hink and I’ll see ya.
MIKE HINKLE is an Edmond resident and retired attorney.
Opinion
It’s up to voters to make sure they’re not hoodwinked
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