Deflection and Deterrence

Bust of Themistocles 

Exiled from Athens via ostracism c. 471-2 BC, despite an impactful military career

by Brogi, licensed under Creative Commons CCO 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication {{PD-author}}

"No newis is bettir than evill newis."[1]

– King James I, 1616 

A politician who uses "strategies to achieve collaborative power" within a democratic system is very different to one who uses "strategies to grab coercive power for relatively naked or revolutionary political action."[2] The latter will ordinarily use propaganda to exploit narcissistic needs of both the propagandist and followers, who "consider themselves superior" to others.[3] 

It's commonly observed that this propagandist amplifies fears about others, along with claims that these others cause harm to collective wellbeing.[4] It's widely thought that a propagandist gathers followers among those who feel neglected and aggrieved by politicians or so-called elites. If so, what can we do to deal with fears in a propagandist's followers? If we look to theories of fear for guidance, we find that previous applications of fear theory to engage the public's support to counter terror activity or security threats had limited success. These theories were "largely developed through experimentation rather than in the field."[5]

And beyond fears, the wide-ranging motivations for aligning with propagandists include seeking fun,[6] attention, recognition, and belonging, or satisfying curiosity, greed, or graft. But what's certain is that, as with a viral pandemic, a virulent propagandist doesn't "just disappear." 

Debriefing ex-believers who journey in and out of conspiracy theories may offer useful clues to deal with the tribe-like devotion of a propagandist's followers.[7] What appears effective to reengage the propagandist's most polarized followers back with the real world is painstakingly systematic involvement through one-on-one or one-on-two discussions.[8] 

Ongoing are explorations to engage citizens in local decision-making in ways that strengthen democracy, including consideration of the potential applicability of the Swiss Cantonal Parliament model.[9] Other approaches designed around the principles of college programs that for decades have built "community literacy" in students may prove helpful.[10] A common thread is building cooperative efforts that tangibly benefit the community in which participants live. In contrast, the pseudo-democratic authoritarian is all about fabricating a parallel fantasy-reality.

Fighting Fabrication

Understanding and dealing with propaganda requires truth-seeking and "quality problem-solving conversations."[11] For dialogue that bolsters democracy, it's necessary to step outside established zones of comfort within institutions, professions, job descriptions, or allied socializations. Some activists, educators, journalists, judges, members of the media, or others do manage to begin the simple dialogue that causes propaganda to cease. By reasserting "political rationality," these individuals do much "to build, maintain and strengthen liberal democracy."[12]

They help deflect aspiring autocrats. Countering these propagandists' rude, contrarian antics is vital to deny the consolidation of power through the incitement of otherwise little-checked harms. Unimpeded, propagandists continuously undermine the rule of law and effective government. This accelerates democratic backsliding, most defined as: 

...deterioration of at least one of three pillars of democracy: free and fair elections, protection of broad political rights and personal freedoms, as well as the rule of law...[13]    

That propaganda is commonly a tool of presumed powerful political, commercial, religious, or military figures is disincentive to prosecution or legislation addressing the harms caused by these bad actors. Prosecutions of influential bad actors are much less than required–not least because of the limited resources of public prosecutors' offices.

Yet some prosecutors and judges, and even some legislators, manage to function beyond buggy-pace in a nanosecond world. Apparently unhampered by self-preserving caution or other presumptions so common in their professions, these individuals step beyond platitudes like The wheels of justice grind slowly, but exceedingly fine, to advance the contrary maxim Justice delayed is justice denied. 

Deterring Harm

These prosecutors and judges interpret imminent at something approaching the speed reality requires. Yet they seem only able to very slowly bring some perpetrators to account for more egregious harms, like defamation, fraud, or perjury. When gaming the rule of law is the rule of play, remedy is needed at a speed to meet the need.

Policymakers who can find any bipartisan alignment must likewise address the ever-present flood of harmful disinformation. Glimmers of hope mainly appear in the European Union, which systematically executes support and direction for stakeholders seeking to mitigate the impact of disinformation.[14] Policymakers and civic leaders must still be pushed well beyond their limited efforts to date to counter even obviously false information causing harm. For example, the action of United States attorneys-general against Internet platforms should have occurred long ago to address harms to children. And it's reasonable to push for state and federal action in similar ways to protect adults from harmful effects of social media. 

Required Reassessment  

The proliferation of propaganda to incite insurrection or violence that harms democracy itself and our fellow citizens requires that we reassess the effectiveness of legal protections. 

Especially serious is that fully functioning propaganda controls the thought and actions of large population groups. Curiously, a clichéd story in the legal profession proffers that shouting Fire! in a crowded movie theater is not acceptable, yet propaganda immediately threatening democracy largely is? 

With bravado or defiance, autocrat-propagandists in the United States often falsely claim their speech is protected under The First Amendment–which does not apply for speech advancing particular illegal activity. This includes lies that: 

unambiguously have no or little social value...and also cause cognizable harms (as well as sometimes yielding undeserved benefits for the liar)... [which include] ...fraud, perjury, ...and making false statements to public officials.[15]

It's well past time for more action than scholars or pundits rightly pointing this out. 

Civic leaders must take the lead on actionable offenses, instead of dodging their responsibility to do so, sometimes by repeating incorrect platitudes about free speech. This just further empowers a propagandist's undermining of the rule of law. Likewise, pursuit of criminal or civil penalties on propagandists must be stepped up for violating public trust through perjury, tax evasion, espionage, and mail or wire fraud during fundraising or merchandise sales. 

Citizens theoretically can seek remedy for propagandists' criminal or civil wrongs, like defamation or fraud. But an individual mounting legal action against a propagandist incurs substantial financial and emotional burdens, on top of dealing with the ever-increasing threats of physical harm from a propagandist's followers.

Action Against Lies 

Unsurprisingly, scholars concerned about the adequacy of the civil tort system to provide redress for the harms caused by lies conclude that:

the criminal law delivers real sanctions; ...shame and stigma accompanying criminal punishment [is]...not dependent on a willing victim to pursue punishment...[and] ...a consequentialist approach that employs Feinberg's reasoning not only justifies, but demands the criminalization of certain egregious forms of lying.[16]

Following close examination of the main categories of lies, two scholars propose a new crime focused solely on the lies that harm another person or entity. Their sample clause for the new crime considers "that lies should only be criminalized if they are intended to cause serious harm and if said harm results,"[17] namely:

A person is guilty of egregious lying causing serious harm when...[she or] he knowingly lies to another person (1) with the intent to cause serious harm to that person; and (2) serious harm occurs as a result of the lie. As used in this section, a "lie" means a false statement made to another person in oral or written form.[18]

With ever-proliferating harms from disinformation, the pressure should and likely will mount on civic leaders to do something about the ongoing exploitation of snails-paced legal procedures, as well as to close the substantive and procedural loopholes in the law that propagandists exploit. Not even codification, however, may remedy the fictions surrounding "puffery," which judicial interpretations in commercial settings concurrently consider a "vague statement"[19] and "assumed not to work,"[20] yet, paradoxically, supposedly helps citizens by offering assurances to fulfill expectations.[21]

Changes to law, such as the provision in France that enabled "judges to order the removal of false information during electoral periods"[22] will spotlight tensions in the continuum between censorship and free speech principles in practice. 

What's Acceptable?

What's very clear is that neglecting to promptly hold autocrat-propagandists to account is unacceptably harmful. And unlike the infamous juggernaut that autocrat-propagandists try to resemble, propagandists do have weaknesses in common. Some of these may prove useful to deter behavior, beyond the financial penalties imposed through successful prosecutions. For example, the combination of narcissism and greed that drives torrents of "what-about-me-ism" in an autocrat is an Achilles heel. 

Firstly, there's the opportunity to increase media coverage of anyone other than this propagandist. An opportunity with similar effect is to further amplify the propagandist's declines in fundraising, without the usual, habitual use of photographs, video, or quotes of the propagandist.

Secondly, serious scrutiny of the dark effects of an autocrat's alleged criminality on the rest of us may help. Even though an autocrat-propagandist may commonly use corrupt practices for self-advancement, some veneer of legality is required until absolute power is secured.

It's not yet routine in modern Western democracies to ostracize corrupt autocrats. Many who support insurrection remain effectively immune. Interestingly, ostracism originated as a process to protect democracy from threat in ancient Athens. Each year the assembly of citizens decided whether to hold an ostracism or not.[23] The process: 

...first emerged to protect the system, from those who intend to abolish democracy...[and]...can be considered an expression of the people's belief in democracy and their desire to protect their government."[24]

There was no need to prove the accusation or claim causing the exile of ostracism. The vote of citizens required an offender to leave Athens for ten years. This was also practice in some other Greek city-states.[25]

As naysayers attempt to downplay the impacts that propaganda and disinformation make on us all, now is the time to get ahead of propagandists.

 

References:

1. Proverb attributed to King James I, with equivalent expression in Italy; current version - No news is good news.

2. Körner, Robert, Jennifer R. Oberbeck, Erik Körner, and Astrid Schütz (2022), "How the Linguistic Styles of Donald Trump and Joe Biden Reflect Different Forms of Power," Journal of Language and Social Psychology, April 12, p. 22,

    https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0261927X221085309

3. Wollaeger, Mark (2013), "Propaganda and Pleasure: From Kracauer to Joyce," in Auerbach, Johathan and Russ Castronovo (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Propaganda Studies, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 280-281

4. Baines, Paul and Nigel Jones (2020), "Countering Fear in Propaganda," in Baines, Paul, Nicholas O'Shaughnessy, and Nancy Snow (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Propaganda, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, p. 336 

5. Baines and Jones, pp. 343-347; Tannenbaum, Melanie B., Justin Hepler, Rick S. Zimmerman, Lindsey Saul, Samantha Jacobs, Kristina Wilson, and Delores Albarracín (2015), "Appealing to Fear: A Meta-Analysis of Fear Appeal Effectiveness and Theories," Psychological Bulletin, 141(6), pp. 1178-1204,

     https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/bul-a0039729.pdf

6. Phillips, Whitney (2019), "It Wasn't Just the Trolls: Early Internet Culture, 'Fun,' and the Fires of Exclusionary Laughter," Social Media + Society, pp. 1-4,

  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2056305119849493; Ecker, Ullrich K. H., Stephan Lewandowsky, Olivia Fenton, and Kelsey Martin (2014), "Do People Keep Believing because They Want to? Preexisting Attitudes and Continued Influence of Misinformation," Memory and Cognition, 42(2), 

    https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13421-013-0358-x

7. Engel, Kristen, Shruti Phadke, and Tanushree Mitra (2023), "Learning from the Ex-Believers: Individuals' Journeys In and Out of Conspiracy Theories Online," Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 7(CSCW2), #285, October 4, pp. 1-37,

     https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3610076

8. _______ (2023), Morning Joe, MSNBC broadcast, December

9. Michels, Ank and Laurens De Graaf (2017), "Examining Citizen Participation: Local Participatory Policymaking and Democracy Revisited," Local Government Studies, 43(6), pp. 875-881, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03003930.2017.1365712; Federal Chancellery of Switzerland (2024), "Cantonal Parliament: Role and Composition," ch.ch website, 

    https://www.ch.ch/en/political-system/cantons/cantonal-parliament:-role-and-composition/#president-of-the-cantonal-parliament

10. Higgins, Lorraine, Elenore Long, and Linda Flower (2006), "Community Literacy: A Rhetorical Model for Personal and Public Inquiry," Community Literacy Journal, 1(1), p. 10,

     https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1383&context=communityliteracy

11. Robinson, Viviane, Frauke Meyer, Deidre Le Fevre, and Claire Sinnema (n.d.), "The Quality of Leaders's Problem-solving Conversations: Truth-seeking or Truth-claiming?"

 https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/2292/56563/Robinson%20et%20al%20(2020)%20truth-seeking_author%20copy.pdf?sequence=1

12. Zamęcki, Łukasz and Adam Szymański (2023), "Unintentional Democratic Backsliders. 'Evil Always Wins through the Strength of Its Splendid Dupes,'" Polish Political Science Review, 11(1), June 30, pp. 40-41,

    https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/ppsr-2023-0003

13. Zamęcki and Szymański, p. 25

14. European Commission (2022), Fighting Disinformation: 2022 Strengthened Code of Practice, June 16, Brussels: European Union, 

    https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/code-practice-disinformation

15. Chen, Alan K. and Justin Marceau (2018), "Developing a Taxonomy of Lies under The First Amendment," University of Colorado Law Review, 89, p. 703,

    https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1207&context=lawreview; for U.S. Federal law governing limits to free speech, as interpreted in the ruling from United States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 709 (2012), with discussion of the limited ability to restrict lies, see: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/567/709/

16. Druzin, Bryan H. and Jessica Li (2010), "The Criminalization of Lying: Under What Circumstances, If Any, Should Lies Be Made Criminal?" The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1973-), 101(2), pp. 571-572,

 https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?httpsredir=1&article=7396&context=jclc

17. Druzin and Li, p. 562

18. Druzin and Li, p. 563

19. Hoffman, David A. (2006), "The Best Puffery Article Ever," Legal Studies Research Paper Series, Research Paper No. 2006-11, 91 Iowa Law Review 1395, p. 103,

    https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=887720

20. Hoffman, p. 145

21. Hoffman, p. 133

22. Brown, Étienne (2019), "'Fake News' and Conceptual Ethics," Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 16(2), p. 147, 

    https://www.jesp.org/index.php/jesp/article/view/648

23. Mackie, Chris (2016), "Lessons from Ancient Athens: The Art of Exiling Your Enemies," The Conversation, November 22, 

    https://theconversation.com/lessons-from-ancient-athens-the-art-of-exiling-your-enemies-68983; [Note: Arguably, in the spirit of ostracism is the provision in some democracies for removal from elected office through a citizens' petition and conduct of a successful recall election.]

24. Oral, Uğur (2023), "'Ostracism,' The People's Way of Protecting Democracy from Tyrants in Ancient Athens," Electronic Journal of Social Sciences, April 22, 86, p. 659, 

    https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/2793784 

25. Oral, p. 657

Going Forward

"Sticks & stones may break my bones but SCIENCE helps to heal me" 

Minnesota March for Science, St Paul

by Lorie Shaull, licensed under Creative Commons-SA-2.0 Generic

"The only way to find a solution is to act."[1]

– Maria Ressa, 2022

Anyone who still believes the children's rhyme that closes with words will never hurt me[2] is either not paying attention, or more concerning, does not want to. Propaganda impacts what everyone thinks or does. In both autocratic and democratic states, people must deal with propaganda in endlessly engulfing waves. Inaction or inappropriate reactions to its impact empowers an autocrat. Autocrats and aspiring autocrats rely greatly on a population's self-censorship to manage dissent.[3]

Nicholas O'Shaughnessy has illuminated the strategy autocrats employ to develop pseudo-democracy. By using "the magnifying glass of TV and the Internet,"[4] they sow confusion, make pseudo-reality plausible, manage symbolism and perceptions of history, myth, or existential threat, then follow up with soft power in an evangelistic mode and with physical coercion. The objective is to secure acquiescence, not belief, to create "conformists." To secure and retain power, the autocrat propagandist "offers a worldview that is simple, coherent, and easily communicated...founded on some idea of a nationalist utopia."[5]

Resistance and Resilience

Fortunately, a propagandist's threat to freedoms also has an unintended consequence of fueling resistance and resilience in people who are allergic to such control. While lip-service to democracy may satisfy a propagandist's followers, democracy nurtures in many others a "fluid and many-sided" personality[6] with intuition and commitment for what it takes to expand "rights and liberties to everybody."[7] A wide range of such civic virtues nurture personal and group resilience and understandings of personal liberty, mutual respect, and tolerance as lived experiences–tangibly impacting citizenship, civil action, education, and other personal or social understandings and initiatives that protect and promote the autonomy of citizens.[8]

Common approaches used to resist propagandists are "speaking out, to humor, to avoiding confrontation, [which]...may not work as 'constructive resistances.'"[9] Much detection and dealing with propaganda focuses on revealing faulty reasoning, lies and part-truths, or appeals to audience emotions, to discredit the supposed intentions of a propagandist. But as long ago as 2018 in the United States at least, it was publicly acknowledged that multiple, dispersed warnings about intent, propaganda mechanisms, or various fact-checking approaches[10] via however intelligent and penetrating commentary, blistering advertisements, mockery, hype, or even legal probes are no match for an ongoing onslaught of unfettered propaganda.[11] 

It's surely important to ferret out "the tactics and hidden interests of persuasive campaigns,"[12] but to motivate action it's necessary to visualize what's significant to people's lives–focusing on just a relatively few, digestible concerns to stimulate action and encourage new habits.[13] For motivation against propaganda to be useful, communication efforts must occur at a scale that energizes meaningfully large population groups to actively resist autocrats.[14] 

Differently nuanced methods are required to tackle different types of propaganda, or different phases in a propagandist's efforts, especially in different cultures. For example, although "political rhetoric in Scandinavia is generally less hostile and polarised than in many other European countries – and especially the US – the last 20 years have shown right-wing movements using increasingly hostile and aggressive rhetoric."[15] Perceptions and expectations concerning power, individualism, competition, security, norms, or restraint vary greatly among cultural groups,[16] within and beyond national boundaries. Certainly though, much more than emotion-charged inaction is needed to deal with insurgency,[17] including when dealing with terrorists against democracy.

Get Ready

Some researchers suggest forewarning or prebunking as a particularly effective approach to blunt misinformation,[18] which requires anticipating a propagandist's disruptive actions and hubris. Both immediately and longer term, a priority must be to continuously monitor, detect, and draw attention to the specific harms inherent in the claims or presumptions of propaganda. 

Mostly, a propagandist's contrarian behaviors become very predictable. Slogans or specific wordings and actions are commonly recycled in copy-cat from other places or earlier times. For example, among the many occasions that a propagandist's "reality" imitates fiction or vice-versa is a representation of events in 1946 within an episode of the British television series, Foyle's War, first broadcast in 2015. A propagandist's public speech is scripted with the eerily familiar catchwords of today's propagandists, including "stuck in hell holes," "illegal aliens," "stolen jobs," "take back our streets," and "Make Britain great again."[19] 

With a bit of creativity, it's quite straightforward to anticipate many claims or actions of a propagandist and then to brainstorm effective strategies, to be ready for strategic response. Compiling an "issues file" of draft media releases or pre-drafted outlines for news stories or other materials ahead of time provides a good resource for pre-emptively blocking or quickly deflecting most claims and antics. These materials may be especially effective when developed to address anti-democracy insurgencies, like the ten areas listed at the conclusion of my January 21 blog post, "Counter Anti-democracy."  

Undercutting a propagandist's presumptions, claims, and actions is done simply enough by drawing attention to how these will impact the lives of family, friends, neighbors, or workmates. Individually and collectively, we should progressively expect and request similar forethought more often from aspiring and elected legislators, the media, judiciary, tech platform executives, and any other individuals or groups engaged in the public sphere. 

Stand Up

What most empowers a propagandist are reactions. Instead of reactively taking to social media, or devising that media exposé of this or that propagandist, or feeling threatened, or otherwise responding to impulses for fight or flight when our raw nerves are touched off by a propagandist's emotive nonsense, it's surely time to take a pause. And much more is needed than switching off media and tech devices, although at least occasionally this could help gain some perspective. Push back requires concerted effort that motivates additional purposeful efforts.

Our preference for what's "free and easy" prioritizes daily living. And putting time and effort into critically assessing public assertions, proposals, policies, events, and actions can be challenging. Ever-increasing amounts of data, along with propaganda designed to discredit its reliability, prevent people from making judgments and forming opinions.[20]

Also working against thoughtfulness and analytical approaches are human capacities for self-delusion.[21] People most interested in a matter are prone to mistakenly believe themselves best able to discriminate the falsity of claims. Ironically, the more vigorously that we scrutinize propagandist drivel, the more likely we'll accept at least some propaganda, since it's often based on plausible presumptions. High repetition and frequent exposure enhance how plausibly even an outrageous lie is perceived.

Individually and as a society, it's especially important to stand up to the now too common, virulent propaganda that abuses or threatens people's personality or safety. It's hard to figure why such behavior is tolerated and not called out more at community gatherings, such as school board meetings, or legislatures, or the supermarket checkout! Propaganda directed against people in this way constitutes abuse and monopolizes the mind.[22] Another insidious effect is to stifle the dialogue, debate, and participation essential to democracy. 

Such verbal abuse is no longer tolerated elsewhere in the community, like the home or workplace. But due to a mix of being taken by surprise, trying to be polite, or avoiding confrontation, or the financial and emotional demands of tackling the more egregious of these events legally, the propagandist in the public arena rolls on, somewhat like a juggernaut, too long immune. Ways to remedy related inadequacies in the law will be considered in a future blog post. At the time of occurrence of some abuse, individuals or chairpersons of meetings or groups are increasingly objecting to and moderating that behavior. This ordinarily requires some verbal, Whac-A-Mole skills. Mastery of the quick come-back and the ability to partner polemic with humor can be valuable to advance serious matters.

Media Change

The tabloid-based, sensational outrage and antics of a propagandist deliver a daily spigot of potential "news." For decades, media presenters, journalists, and media management have navigated restrictive aspects of company policy, diminishing budgets, limited time, talent migration, and other limits on efforts to sustain audiences. Unsurprisingly, the hyperbole, and even milder exaggeration of autocrat-propagandists, combined with provocative ambiguity, seem to fulfill a headline-writer's dream for attracting audience attention, whether connected to reality or not. No one has all the answers for dealing with this de facto power of a propagandist over the media. 

But some members of the media are exploring ways to lessen the impact of propaganda, such as through paraphrase, or otherwise truly editing a propagandist's drivel. It should be fine for moderators on broadcast media or editors in the print media to use different words than the propagandist's bad words, distorted truth (and lies) again, and again, and again–and to challenge it as propaganda. After all, this is little different than the responsibility to prevent dissemination of libel and slander–and unchecked, propaganda is at least as harmful.

And ever since the televised presidential debates in the United States in 1960, we've known that pundits who soon afterwards comment on what public figures say have more power than the original remarks. A variation for dealing with a propagandist that one thoughtful television anchor developed is to present a propagandist's comments split screen, alongside the anchor's reactions. This is just one approach to handle a propagandist's avoidance of interviews or cross-questioning to cynically use the media as a megaphone.

News managers could take up more of the many suggestions long available to address such concerns. At the very least, directly and regularly "ask the public [...including former followers...] what they think of your news coverage–and listen to what they say."[23] Media audiences do expect journalism to be more solutions based[24] and less obsessed with news as conflict, celebrity, disaster, sex, crime, or violence.[25] It would be helpful, for example, to roll back breaking news so that it is only what is truly urgent or directly impacts most of us.[26] 

Likewise, some diligence calling out false dichotomy would be a good move. Mostly unchallenged in the media is one of the propagandist's oldest rhetorical tricks of claiming to protect a freedom by leaving decision on a matter to "free decision" as a "local or state option." As far back as 1854, Abraham Lincoln showed how to powerfully deflect this trick, by calling out the inhumanity of making good people choose between self-interest and what is moral.[27] But this propagandist's rhetorical trick is still given unmoderated airplay on many so-called states-rights issues. It deserves to be called out as advocacy of self-interest, as Lincoln did. 

Serious efforts more widely are needed in the media to "bring back into the fold those who have shunned the news for the intolerably trivial circus it has become."[28] Ongoing handwringing in the media and in journalism education circles to "regain" audiences requires better innovation based on truly listening to audiences, many of whom share fears of what happens to press freedom in autocracies. Immediate actions to meet immediate needs are required of the media and each of us.

Community Engagement

How else might you bring value and encourage young, savvy individuals who have the chops to execute needed change? If you're a joiner, join and recruit others to join an action group that puts pressure and expects results from civic officials on matters you care about. Whether by interrogating, cooperating with, or operating alongside the efforts of civic leaders, the judiciary, activists, and the media, it is open to each of us to stand up to a propagandist's polemic by joining or commencing efforts that make a difference. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, even in nations where volunteerism is strong, the participation in political organizations or causes tends to be just a small fraction of other volunteering.[29] A few strong and organized voices can make a real difference relatively quickly to the tenor and direction of politics, especially locally and regionally. Each of us must find ways to participate. Failure to do so enables pseudo-populists to infiltrate the selection of candidates for political office who are less than suitable.

Whether within a political organization or separately, it's also effective to invite four to six other "doers" to come together face-to-face or online, say weekly or as you can, for brainstorming about ways to help advance real community needs. After inviting aspiring or elected representatives, regulators, and administrators to brief your group on their plans, proposals, or ideas, your follow-on actions can include interrogating, monitoring, or supporting some suggestions or initiatives. Or you may commit support to personal advocacy.

Citizens, members of the media, civic officials, or whistleblowers who develop clear aims in pursuing an overall plan can help defeat political subversion.[30] In a democracy, beyond voting and working to help ensure that effective, democratic leaders are elected, individuals can help make democracy thrive in other ways. Just by writing a letter (not a tweet or email) to your elected representative requesting action on something you care about denies the acquiescence that the autocrat seeks. Ask for and expect a reply, and follow up if you do not get one, until you do get a satisfactory (not a mealy-mouthed) reply.

For push back against autocrats in autocratic states, developing democracies, or established democracies that are resisting back-sliding, well-planned strategic use of social media may allow people to share information, grow group cohesion, resist dominance, and fight for freedom. Maria Ressa's inspiring efforts to stand up to a dictator in the Philippines is one example. She focuses four layers of action to "help shorten the time it takes to correct the lies...[and] ...have civil society act... [with] ...three goals: scale, impact and deterrence."[31] 

In both democratic and autocratic states, analogous efforts with goals suited to local conditions can focus an activist group's efforts to mesh with appropriate coalitions, such as "civil society groups, business organizations, and religious groups." Follow-on efforts then link with university and other educational efforts, and engage other key professionals, like lawyers and journalists.[32]

Unaddressed, propaganda redefines what's considered important, diverting attention from policy and governance that matters. Effectively countering the propaganda that seeks pseudo-democracy requires each of us to decide how to take action.

What can you do? What more will you do? 

References:

1. Ressa, Maria (2022), How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future, New York: Harper, p. 257 and pp. 267-268

2. Galer, Sophia Smith (2023), "The Harm Caused by Dehumanizing Language," BBC online, October 23, https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20231030-the-real-life-harm-caused-by-dehumanising-language

3. Druzin, Bryan H. and Gregory Gordon (2018), "Authoritarianism and the Internet," Law & Social Inquiry, 43(4), p. 27 [pp. 1-31]; Ressa, p. 43

4. O'Shaughnessy, Nicholas (2017), "Putin, Xi, and Hitler - Propaganda and the Paternity of Pseudo Democracy," Defense Strategic Communications: The Official Journal of the NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence, 2, Spring, p. 115,

     https://stratcomcoe.org/cuploads/pfiles/full_academic_journal_vol2_issuu_07-03-2017.pdf

5. O'Shaughnessy (2017), pp. 115-130

6. Lifton, Robert Jay (1983), The Protean Self: Human Resilience in an Age of Fragmentation, New York: Basic Books, p. 1

7. Snow, Nancy (2020), Unmasking the Virus: Public Diplomacy and the Pandemic, Public Diplomacy Council, the Public Diplomacy Association of America, and the USC Annenberg Center for Communications Leadership & Policy, June 9, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6jA_JaSefc

8. Snow, Nancy E. (Ed.) (2024), The Self, Civic Virtue, and Public Life, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 1-8, https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/87406/1/9781040016800.pdf

9. Higgins, Lorraine, Elenore Long, and Linda Flower (2006), "Community Literacy: A Rhetorical Model for Personal and Public Inquiry," Community Literacy Journal, 1(1), pp. 8-43

10. Salaverría, Ramón and Gustavo Cardoso (2023), "Future of Disinformation Studies: Emerging Research Fields," Professional de la Información, 32(5), e320525, pp. 1-7, https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2023.sep.25; Çela, Erlis (2023), "Examining Journalist's Perception of Fake News and Their Attitude toward Debunking Disinformation," Studies in Media and Communication, 11(6), September, pp. 385-397; Farkas, Johan (2022), "News on Fake News: Logics of Media Discourses on Disinformation," Journal of Language and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.22020.far; Farkas, Johan (2023), "Fake News in Metajournalistic Discourse," Journalism Studies, January 6,

     https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2023.2167106

11. Brooks, David (2018), "Opinion: The Failures of Anti-Trumpism," The New York Times, April 10, p. 27; Lakoff, George (2016), Understanding Trump, August, excerpt from Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, (3rd edn), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, https://press.uchicago.edu/books/excerpt/2016/lakoff_trump.html; Pinker, Steven (2006), "Block That Metaphor!" The New Republic, October 8,

     https://newrepublic.com/article/77730/block-metaphor-steven-pinker-whose-freedom-george-lakoff,  Pinker observes in relation to Lakoff's approach to "conceptual analysis" that by claiming "conservatives think in terms of direct rather than systemic causation... [he] ...seems unaware that conservatives have been making exactly this accusation against progressives for centuries."     

12. Wood, Tim (2021), "Propaganda, Obviously: How Propaganda Analysis Fixates on the Hidden and Misses the Conspicuous," Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, 2(1), April 8, 

    https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/propaganda-obviously-how-propaganda-analysis-fixates-on-the-hidden-and-misses-the-conspicuous/

13. McGee, John A. (1929), Persuasive Speaking, New York: Scribner's, pp. 268-269 (Appendix C), https://archive.org/details/persuasivespeaki00mcge

14. Rosenberg, Justus (2020), The Art of Resistance: My Four Years in the French Underground, a Memoir, New York: Harper Collins

15. Kjeldsen, Jens E., Christian Kock, and Orla Vigsø (2021), "Political Rhetoric in Scandinavia," in Skorgerbø, E., Ø. Ihlen, N.N. Kristensen, and L. Nord (Eds.), Power, Communication, and Politics in the Nordic Countries, Gothenburg: Nordicom, University of Gothenburg, pp. 368-369, 

https://bora.uib.no/bora-xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/2763090/Kjeldsen%252C%2BKock%2B%2526%2BVigs%25C3%25B8_Political%2Brhetoric%2Bin%2BScandinavia.pdf?sequence=2

16. Kjeldsen, Jens E. (2023), "The Practice and Pragmatics of Scandinavian Research in Rhetoric. Audience Studies in Scandinavian Rhetorical Scholarship," Res Rhetorica, 10(4), pp. 12-13,

 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/377069911_The_practice_and_pragmatics_of_Scandinavian_research_in_rhetoric_Audience_studies_in_Scandinavian_rhetorical_scholarship

17. Briant, Emma Louise (2015), Propaganda and Counter-terrorism: Strategies for Global Change, Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, p. 27

18. Lewandowsky, Stephan and John Cook (2020), The Conspiracy Theory Handbook, https://cssn.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Conspiracy-Theory-Handbook-Stephan-Lewandowsky.pdf; Neylan, Julian, Mikey Biddlestone, Jon Roozenbeek, and Sander van der Linden (2023), "How to 'Innoculate' against Multimodal Misinformation: A Conceptual Replication of Roozenbeek and van der Linden (2020) Scientific Reports, 13, 18273, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-43885-2; van der Linden, Sander (2023), Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity, New York: W.W. Norton

19. Orme, Stuart (Director)/Michael Horowitz/IMDbPro (2015), "Trespass," Foyle's War, Season 9, Episode 2,  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3474572/ 

20. Ellul, Jacques (1965), Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes, New York: Vintage, p. 87

21. Ashinoff, Brandon K., Nicholas M. Singletary, Seth C. Baker, and Guillermo Horga (2022), "Rethinking Delusions: A Selective Review of Delusion Research through a Computational Lens," Schizophr Res., July, 245, pp. 23-41,

     https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8413395/; Ariely, Dan (2023), Misbelief: What Makes Rational People Believe Irrational Things, New York: Harper Collins, pp. 139-164

22. Briant (2015), p. 6, citing Ellul, pp. 238-242

23. Zada, John (2021), Veils of Distortion: How the News Media Warps Our Minds, Toronto: Terra Incognito, pp. 130-131

24. Zada, p. 126

25. Andersen, Robin and Jonathan Gray (Eds.) (2008), Battleground the Media, Volume 2 (O-Z), Westport, CT: Greenwood, p. 477

26. Zada, pp. 127-128

27. Wilson, Douglas L. (2007), Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words, New York: Vintage, pp. 38-39

28. Zada, p. 125, pp. 10-12 and pp. 125-136

29. Gardiner, Cait, Abby Kiesa, and Alberto Medina (2020), Youth Volunteering on Political Campaigns, Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/youth-volunteering-political-campaigns 

30. Briant (2015), p. 27

31. Ressa, p. 255

32. Ressa, pp. 253-258