Selling lies

We are in an era of disinformation. That term is thrown around by all political persuasions to accuse their opponents of not being truthful. The systematic dissemination of disinformation, however, is more than just lying. It is a political strategy in a war to take control of public power. Its intended purpose is to create confusion, which leads to rejecting government institutions entrusted to deliberate over verifiable facts.

There is a significant difference between lying about a particular action or product and a disinformation campaign to undermine public trust in a democratic republic. A classic example of the former is how the tobacco industry lied or created doubt about scientific findings that demonstrated that smoking caused lung and cardiac diseases. Up to the mid-Fifties, the tobacco industry had succeeded in elevating smoking to be one of the most popular, successful, and widely used items of the early 20th century.

In response to the mounting evidence that smoking cigarettes damaged one’s health, the tobacco industry hired the nation’s leading public relations firm. The industry followed the consultant’s advice and focused its efforts on disrupting the usual processes of knowledge production in medicine, science, and public health. Consequently, the leading tobacco companies embraced the scientific discourse that assumes there is always more to know. The tobacco industry’s strategy was to exaggerate that principle in order to spread doubt and uncertainty about the known facts. The tobacco industry’s campaign did not attack the validity of scientific institutions to analyze the facts; instead, they accused scientists of not wanting to find the correct data.

Eventually, the tobacco industry lost its battle by paying over $206 billion through a court settlement. However, that punishment was only achievable because it was delivered by an independent court system that fairly weighed the facts.

Borrowing a page from the tobacco playbook, Donald Trump has not directly attacked the concept of democracy; instead, he undermines the creditability of democratic institutions by accusing them of not treating him and his supporters fairly. For example, he attacked Congress for not throwing out Biden’s electoral votes, and he condemned the courts for them tossing out his 60 cases challenging the outcome of the election. His repeated message was that the election was rigged.

All politicians and political parties can be justly accused of lying from time to time about their accomplishments or their intent to accomplish things they have no power to do. However, past efforts from major political players have stayed within a sandbox of playing with democratic institutions.

Trump stepped outside that sandbox on the night of the 2012 presidential election when he tweeted, “This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy!” He mistakenly thought that Obama had won the election without the majority popular vote.

Four years later, Trump won his presidential election without winning the popular vote, but he didn’t mention that fact. Instead, when the polls indicated that he might lose the 2016 election to Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton, he claimed it would have been rigged if she had won. Then, even after winning, Trump made the unfounded accusation that millions of illegal votes were cast for her. That claim never received any factual support from his supporters.

Excerpted: ‘A Political Disinformation Campaign is Threatening Our Democracy’.

Courtesy: Counterpunch.org