Synopsis
The Guiding Principles section addresses the ways in which Republican politicians create a social and political environment that favors their preferred electoral tactics.
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Quick Navigation
- Manage Our Delicate Relationship with Voters
- Subvert Reality in Favor of Perception
- Degrade Expertise and Manipulate Experts
- Foster the Illusion of Freedom
- Dehumanize "Others" Whenever Possible
- Make the Media Dance to Your Tune
- Exploit the Central Flaw of Democracy
PART 1 — Guiding Principles
Your actions should be rooted in a set of fundamental principles, whether during an election or afterwards. These principles are the core to understanding the electorate and ensuring that they vote the right way.
Manage Our Delicate Relationship with Voters
[Violetta Tinari note: This phrase is beginning of the Preamble to the United States Constitution. Kavelli’s opposition to the sentiment here is the first example of the book’s advice to secretly undermine the spirit of the Constitution while hailing its virtues publicly.]
When Americans pull together and focus on a collective goal, the results are astounding. We threw off colonial rule more than a century before empires gave up the majority of their colonies, we won both World Wars and the Cold War, and along the way we built the most powerful economy the world has ever seen, powered by relentless innovation. In other words, we are ahead of our time, a military superpower, and a wealth-generating machine. Why should this be a problem?
The American people have fought and died for their country, toiled and died for their employers, dreamed of a better future for themselves and their children—and died disappointed. As it becomes clearer that their sacrifices have benefited a handful of wealthy elites rather than themselves, there is a real risk that they will unite once more as “we the people” in search of a “more perfect Union” that meets the needs of all its people. The losers in this scenario are the elites we seek to protect, so the obvious choice is to prevent the public from achieving unity on any subject, lest it lead to a shared ambition to change the current system. If Americans realize that the things they have in common outnumber their differences, they will become dangerous. Contrary to our highly effective marketing, a nation of rugged individuals is much more easily manipulated than a population that bands together to protect the weak. And under the current system, anyone outside the elite is a member of the “the weak,” whether they realize it or not.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to establish a more perfect Union” is one of the most powerful phrases ever written. Never let that level of unity emerge again.
In the early days when the U.S. population as a whole (excluding minorities, women, etc.) was able to vote, people had less access to real-time information and were harder to influence in large groups. The selection process for elected leaders took place at a more local level and relied on personal relationships. The individuals involved in the process were more likely to be highly engaged and at least moderately well-informed, albeit with high levels of racist, sexist, nativist, and similar opinions. The old system facilitated the election of some truly useless and unpleasant individuals, but it proved resilient against attempts to achieve full authoritarian control. Even the Confederacy’s attempted secession was a failure, and the governing infrastructure of the nation continued to grow in service to the people.
As time went on, information distribution networks grew and were immediately put to use for both political and commercial purposes. Campaigns sought to influence voters old and new through a combination of positive persuasion and personal smears against their opponents. The one feature they still had in common was the idea that a rational argument should be made for whatever political stance was being advocated.
Today’s information environment is vastly different. Voters have been trained by commercial information networks, both the media and social media, to have a short attention span accompanied by strong opinions. Voters’ inability to hold a thought long enough to examine whether it is part of a rational argument means that they are susceptible to irrational arguments presented with great conviction at a high volume. Almost every voter is accessible if you make use of the full set of networks that are available, no matter how trite or ephemeral the content may be. Even a few seconds can be enough to sway an opinion. Maintain at least an indirect presence on every network to maximize your ability to secure new followers.
[VT: For website purposes, I'm using this blue italic text to imitate the callout boxes in the original book. These are supposed to be the "quick takeaways" for busy politicians.]
We are living in a golden age that combines a high population of low-information voters with the ability to easily influence them.
If voters were well-informed and trusting of their fellow Americans, they would vote for Democratic policies that tend to benefit their own interests.
The way to avoid negative outcomes such as a unified public is to make sure that Americans are ignorant and suspicious of each other. Both elements are essential for success. Ignorance makes it easier to manipulate the information environment in favor of our desired narratives. Imagine how embarrassing it would be to have the audience immediately know you were misrepresenting the truth or making up alternative facts! Suspicion is also key, as it makes voters believe that there is an ulterior motive to policies that actually benefit them. For example, if policies that improve public health can be attributed to a hidden Democratic agenda for something nefarious (like mind-control microchips in vaccines), our voters will immediately rebel. Similarly, if they believe that a policy will benefit a disfavored group, they will reject it out of concern that it will give that group a competitive advantage and lead to a loss of their own status or security. The assumption that the enemy is always out for blood is a useful fiction for ensuring this behavior.
If voters understood how policymaking, lawmaking, regulations, and enforcement worked, they would be able to understand how government activities benefit them and their fellow Americans. If they trusted other Americans and did not fear the consequences of everyone benefiting from those government actions, then the logical choice would be to vote for the party whose policies benefit as many people as possible. Since this is obviously undesirable, ensure voters remain misinformed and mistrusting.
Segregation—of all kinds—wins elections. Stoke mistrust and fear of “others” among core voter demographic groups.
Segregation is not only about black and white or any other skin color. It is a basic principle for creating the right environment for success. The more the population can be divided, the more the different segments can be pitted against each other in a winner-take-all contest. Race, gender, language, sexual preferences, religion, rural vs. urban, political affiliation, age, homeowner vs. renter, educational attainment, music, art, sports, and culture—all these and more can be used as wedges to split the American public into factions. The differences can then be played up and used to stoke worry and suspicion, promoting the narrative that our voters’ very existence is at risk of diminishment or erasure by whichever faction is most different in any given context.
[VT: This tactic appears effective since Republican voters often poll strongly in favor of abolishing welfare programs that they believe help illegal immigrants (even if that is not the case) without realizing that they personally benefit from the same or similar programs.]
Liberals believe conservative ideology drives Republican policies that create misery in constituents’ lives. The reality is that misery is the goal—conservative ideology is the excuse.
When a new Republican policy is proposed that will obviously harm Americans, there is often a liberal outcry over how Republicans are prioritizing conservative ideology such as lower government spending or less regulation for business. “Don’t they understand the negative consequences these ideology-driven policies will create?” is the essence of the complaint. They fail to understand that we are able to use the misery created by those policies to increase the number of discontented voters we will rely on for the future. Since most voters do not understand how government works and how policies will affect them, it is easy to institute policies that sound good to the very people who will be affected negatively by them. For example, cutting food benefits for the poor will always receive positive coverage from right-leaning media and think tanks as an example of fiscal conservatism at its best, even though the most important function of those cuts is to ensure that voters are hungry, miserable, and more open to our messaging that Democrats, immigrants, and others are to blame for their problems.
Happy, productive, satisfied citizens are less likely to vote Republican. Keep their numbers as low as possible.
If voters are living a good life, they will be less open to our messaging that everything is terrible and others are to blame. They will instead be more likely to believe Democratic rhetoric about investing in the future and making the nation better than it already is. Whether you are campaigning or governing, focus on telling people they are miserable and taking actions to ensure it is true.
This principle is why you should talk about runaway inflation, surging crime, and other concerns even when those numbers are declining when measured objectively. In fact, you should talk about them especially when the national statistics are improving, in order to convince voters that (1) things are terrible and (2) the government is lying to protect its bureaucrats and its Democratic masters. Every voter you can convince to feel despair for the future is a voter who is more amenable to the rest of your message.
A vocal minority that claims to represent a silent majority… usually does not.
The reality is that Republican rule is minority rule, at least in terms of the percentage of the population. It absolutely does not mean that non-white minorities are, or should be, in charge. The flaws in the U.S. electoral system mean that our dominance of low-population regions that make up most of the country geographically translates to outsized influence in state and federal governments. Consistent gerrymandering over the years has further solidified our power at the state level, along with the increase in identity-driven voting patterns. As the number of “safe” Republican seats has risen, in which we are practically guaranteed a win, the only election that really matters is the Republican primary to see which candidate will win the guaranteed seat in the general election. If you end up representing one of these safe constituencies, continue to use rhetoric that implies you and your colleagues represent the majority of the population, even though that is untrue. However, remember for your own purposes that you were likely selected by a minority (primary voters) of a minority (Republican voters) and do your best to ensure that majority rule never actually happens.
Claim to be one of the people and proclaim contempt for your elite peers. Most of them have successfully insulated themselves (with our assistance) so the public and government are unable to take any meaningful action.
It may seem strange to verbally chase after the elites who are your peers. Whether Democrat or Republican, there is usually a unity among the upper classes that is simply a matter of sharing expensive tastes and access to exclusive goods and experiences. There is no need to worry that you will lose standing among your friends and associates, as they understand the political game and are unlikely to take your speeches personally unless you attack them by name.
The reason for this relaxed attitude is simple—there are rarely any real consequences for the elites in anything that the government does. Even Democrats who try to get the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes or otherwise impose regulations to discourage elite behavior that harms the nation immediately run up against legal challenges (which are accommodated by the judges we picked) and other barriers. If you play by the rules, as Democrats do, you are always at a disadvantage against people who do not play by the rules. At times when Republicans are in power, since the only thing our voters want is for the liberal elites to feel bad because we demolish progressive practices, there is even less cause for elites to worry. Can you imagine a progressive billionaire lying in bed in a multimillion-dollar mansion, sobbing under the covers and refusing to get on his helicopter to join his golf buddies because we passed a new law preventing government officials from using transgender people’s preferred pronouns? Momentary disappointment is quickly overcome by obscene luxury.
Even lower down the economic scale, the urban/suburban or coastal elites (all the way down to middle-class professionals) do not have much to fear from us in their daily lives. They likely have health insurance through their employers, educational options that fit their values, the ability to travel for family planning services, or as a last resort the option of relocating to a better state and finding a job that preserves their standard of living. The primary reason they do not want us in power is because they know we will eventually undermine their security through policies that destroy economic engines and social cohesion, but that is a long-term outcome that is competing against a multitude of short-term concerns, so the impact on voting behavior is low.
It is a great irony that the working classes who support us should fear our policies the most, and the middle-class elites who oppose us have the least to fear (at least in the short term). Meanwhile, the truly wealthy soar above it all in their private jets, laughing at our pretense and Democrats’ genuine efforts to bring them down to earth.
Subvert Reality in Favor of Perception
Avoid engaging political opponents on the basis of reality. Deny, deflect, and distract instead.
The only reality that matters is the one you choose to create. You could engage your opponents in rational debate about the merits of various policies based on a shared understanding of the facts at hand, but the resulting conversation would be too complex or boring for your followers to comprehend. You would sound too much like a politician, or worse, a Democratic politician. What Republican voters want is for someone to speak/shout on their behalf, representing their perspectives on the national stage. Since most of those opinions are irrational or self-contradictory, the only way to do so is to embrace the madness and abandon reality.
When debating an opponent, whether a politician, a member of the media, or anyone else, disagree with them on every point of fact that does not fit the position you have taken. Deny the credibility of their sources, question their motives, rewrite your personal history if needed—anything to avoid acknowledging reality. Despite years of exposure to these techniques, your counterpart will probably find it disconcerting to have the truth assaulted so consistently and energetically. It will put them on the defensive, which in turn makes you sound dominant and pleases our voters.
Deflection is another useful technique, particularly when it lets you change the subject from a real problem involving you or another Republican to an imaginary version of a problem invented to tarnish the Democrats. Take whatever awkward subject has been brought up, dismiss it as overblown or a Democratic smear campaign, and in the same breath transition to "the real scandal of [fill in the blank]."
When all else fails, or if you feel like having fun, simply ignore the topic and start talking about something completely random. The wilder the better. Even if your counterpart knows it is a distraction, the standard rules of conversation and basic human interaction are so ingrained that they will probably try to hold up their side of the new discussion rather than attempt to go back to the original topic.
[VT: This would explain some of the strange things certain politicians bring up during interviews when asked about issues they don't want to address.]
Our voters have been taught that their perception of reality is more important than facts. Reinforce this by speaking on behalf of all the patriotic, upstanding Americans who believe [X]. Never acknowledge that even someone who loves our country may be a fool.
Flatter your followers by referring to them as “good people,” or praising their patriotism, loyalty, and intelligence (hah!). You can make up things they supposedly told you when it’s convenient to do so. For example, you can claim to speak on behalf of the many good people who hate to see this country being overrun by drug-dealing immigrants, or lots of smart people who know that an election was stolen by the Democrats. This legitimizes your position because our voters have been told time and again that their opinion is more valuable than that of experts with actual knowledge, simply because they are “good, honest people.”
Reinforcing this belief has two useful effects. It endears you to the voters who believe you are listening to them rather than experts they view with contempt. The second effect is that it enables you to attack experts in a way that most are ill-prepared to handle. Telling a distinguished scientist that “a lot of good people, smart people, believe that climate change is a hoax” leaves them with few options. They are used to arguing with facts, not opinions, and if they lack political training then their reply may be some form of “the data shows that’s a ridiculous conclusion” or a more neutral “those people are wrong.” Such a misstep is easily exploited to convince your followers that the expert is out-of-touch and more interested in appearing clever to their own peers rather than doing anything to help regular folks.
Degrade Expertise and Manipulate Experts
Always undermine experts, even conservative ones. The goal is to ensure that you become the sole source of authority for your followers.
It is obvious why you would want to denigrate experts whose positions run contrary to your own, but it is surprisingly useful to question those who are on our side as well. Unlike the direct attacks used for the opposition, you need to be subtle. For example, during a media event you could begin by agreeing with a conservative expert’s unfounded assertion that Democrats are underreporting crime, but suggest that the scale of the problem is even worse than the expert claims. This endears you to voters by playing to whatever biases we have cultivated previously, while also making it clear that you know better than any expert regardless of their conservative credentials. This reinforces your positioning as the sole source of truth on the subject, and the conservative expert will likely nod and play along because if they try to correct you it will seem like they’re suddenly switching sides and playing devil’s (Democrat’s) advocate.
[VT: This is a surprising approach but it makes sense. Liberal researchers have done a lot of research since the 2016 elections to understand the behavior of Republican voters who support politicians and policies that are not in their best interests. I wonder how many of those researchers realize that the same politicians (who they presumably dislike) can use that research to increase their influence over Republican voters.]
Study the work of liberal/progressive researchers if you want to learn about the world and ways to exploit it. Conservative research is only useful if you need a
pseudo-authoritative talking point.
You will likely be too busy to spend time reading research papers or even their summaries, so this guidance is primarily for your staff. It does not apply as much in sciences or sub-fields with low political relevance, as the ideology of researchers has relatively little impact on their work. For anything that affects voters in a way they notice, whether it is economics, psychology, climate science, or the biological factors behind sex and gender, you are better off studying the (summarized) version of the liberal/progressive research. The purpose is not to consider whether their positions have merit, but to find useful vulnerabilities.
The more work that left-leaning researchers put into characterizing and studying the minds of right-wing voters who act against their own interests, the more you can learn. The researchers may approach the subject with a view to deprogramming voters who succumbed to propaganda and helping them make better decisions, but you can treat it as a manual for how to improve your effectiveness when influencing your followers. A conservative academic would likely argue that those voters are already making rational decisions and that “the system” is wrong for trying to make them think otherwise, so there is very little to learn from such “research.”
As a general principle, any source of knowledge can be twisted to fit your purposes. The study of liberal/progressive/fact-based research provides insight into the vulnerabilities in your opponents’ thinking. Whatever they express concern about—unethical business practices, vulnerable demographic groups, flaws in the judicial system—can be targeted with renewed emphasis to ensure the problem remains. Any internal debates between researchers regarding nuances and details can be leveraged as a source of division, pitting one group against another while explaining to your followers that Democrats cannot even agree on which lie to tell. “The science isn’t settled” is a wonderful line to use even when all credible researchers agree on the main points but the details are still being refined. Climate change is a perfect example due to the incredibly complex task of modeling the future of the entire planet. Even though the core science is settled and the primary remaining question is the degree of impending disaster, the breadth of possible outcomes can be used to tell ignorant voters that the whole concept of climate change is so uncertain that the motivation for Democrats’ push for climate action is either a scam to get voters’ money or a nefarious plot to control their lives.
On the subjects of ethics, law, and morality, exploit the absence of effective leadership from academia.
The ongoing battle to define and interpret the U.S. Constitution and its subsequent body of law and regulation would seem to be a natural arena for academic experts to debate each other and produce genuine insights to guide the political process. Fortunately, there are relatively few who are equipped to do so, and even fewer who possess the required combination of knowledge, wisdom, and the ability to make themselves heard.
One of the reasons that academics, whether liberal or conservative, have difficulty understanding the real lessons of their forebears is that they have been taught to consider the historical context. When they study texts from previous generations, particularly those that touch upon morality or law, the question of whether the author is saying something true does not even enter consideration. The academic will ask instead who influenced the writer, how far the statement is consistent with what he said in other books, and what phase in the writer’s development it illustrates. Moving beyond the writer, the academic will ponder how the text affected later writers, how often it has been misunderstood (particularly by the academic’s peers), what the general critical consensus has been for the past decade, and what is the present state of the question being addressed. To regard the writer as a possible source of knowledge—to anticipate that what he said could possibly modify your thoughts or your behavior—this would be rejected as unutterably simple-minded.
The outcome of this approach is that academics are largely confined to the present in their outlook, while laboring under the illusion that they have captured some valuable insight from the past. This ensures that the characteristic errors of one age (past or present) are not at risk of being corrected by the characteristic truths recognized by the other. Our greatest scholars reap as little benefit from the past as the most ignorant conspiracy theorist who believes that history is all made up by the hidden cabals that govern society.
For our purposes, this state of affairs benefits us in both liberal and conservative academia. Liberal academics are so obsessed with understanding the historical context that they cannot grasp the simple truths found in core religious texts and their subsequent application by the great thinkers of the past. This hinders their understanding of human nature and allows us to exploit basic aspects such as sin for political purposes without being called out on it (discussed in detail in Part 2). On the conservative side, the carefully cultivated obsession with the writings and historical context of the Founding Fathers means that the characteristic errors of that age are to be protected against the shining truths of every other age before or since. This notion is utterly ridiculous if given a moment’s rational thought, but so many distinguished careers have been built around it that it is treated with utter solemnity. For our purposes, as the era of the Founding Fathers slips ever-farther into the past, the ability of conservative academics to find whatever we want them to find in the historical context of that era will only increase, serving our political objectives perfectly. The best part is that they will think they are doing it all themselves—do not disabuse them of that idea, and absolutely do not let slip the many ways our partisans influence their interpretation of the texts in casual social conversations as friends who happen to have a shared interest in history.
[VT: The plagiarism in this section caught me by surprise, mostly because of the source and not because Kavelli was willing to plagiarize. Since this book was not intended for a wide audience, he may have decided not to cite his sources for convenience or to avoid appearing to be one of the academics he ridicules elsewhere. Another possibility is that he did not want his readers to know where some of the material was coming from. In this section, and in other parts of the book, I noticed he was borrowing heavily from The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. This lesser-known book by the author of the Chronicles of Narnia was written in the form of correspondence from a senior demon (Screwtape) to a junior demon in the United Kingdom during World War II, advising him on how to corrupt the human to whom he had been assigned. Although the advice is directly applicable to the American political situation today, it is understandable that Kavelli would wish to avoid calling attention to the fact that he is literally offering (fictional) demonic advice to his readers.]
Foster the Illusion of Freedom
When you want to institute detrimental policies, make ample use of the words “freedom” and “liberty.”
Branding and marketing are key skills to master. Since your goal is to ensure that the U.S. population is kept under corporate control, your public rhetoric and policies should make ample use of terms such as freedom, liberty, and related concepts. These terms have gradually been co-opted by our voters to mean “liberty from government control” and “freedom from the social requirement to treat certain people with basic human respect.”
The first type of freedom is easy to achieve because most government rules and regulations are designed to protect individual citizens. Reducing government influence in people’s lives aligns with our objective to remove barriers preventing companies and wealthy elites from running roughshod over regular people. Deregulation is almost always a win for corporate freedom and a loss for the population’s wellbeing. The other category of regulations that are useful to remove are the ones that affect the health and prosperity of voters. You can tell voters with a straight face that you have removed onerous government regulations and given them back their liberty… to make dumb choices that will shorten their lives and increase the likelihood of losing their assets. Only say the first part out loud.
Freedom and choice are key concepts to master. For practical purposes, the ideal freedom is one that diminishes the freedom of the greatest number of people possible, and the ideal choice is one that is determined by forces beyond the chooser’s control.
The COVID-19 pandemic is a perfect example of how freedom can be used to ruin lives. When officials pushed back against commonsense mitigation measures such as masks and vaccines, the justification was freedom of each individual to adopt their own approach to dealing with the pandemic. If matters had been left at this level, it would have been simply a matter of allowing voters to increase their personal chances of dying early. However, Republican-led states took it to the next level with bans on mandates for masks or vaccines, whether instituted by lower levels of government (such as cities and school districts) or even private businesses. This approach, supported by conservative judges, allowed the freedom of a small number of individuals to override the collective freedom of the population at large to avoid negative health outcomes.
The negative effects of freedom-based pandemic management were useful, but the approach had another critical component. When business owners had the ability to create their own health policies to protect their workers, many of them did so, in part to ensure that workers who had valid health concerns still turned up for work. This was an unacceptable development that had to be cut short as quickly as possible. If workers believe they can group together to demand better working conditions of one kind, they may choose to do so for other conditions. This is a slippery slope toward unionization or simply a better work environment that improves quality of life overall. By preventing businesses from catering to worker demands, we undermined the growth of worker solidarity and collective bargaining. And we did it all in the name of freedom.
The best approach to the subject of “choice” is similar to that of freedom. Citizens should be given the illusion of choice while their ability to choose is undermined. The ability of consumers to choose environmentally friendly products is a good example, as we oppose or roll back regulations that would improve corporate honesty and transparency, which would enable customers to choose according to their preference. This means that consumers are forced to choose on the basis of incomplete information, and they can only choose among the products that companies decide to offer. When Bisphenol A (BPA) was identified as a hormone-disrupting health hazard in food packaging and other products, consumers demanded BPA-free goods and the industry slowly responded. Policymakers and regulators gradually got on board and the use of BPA is increasingly restricted. But here’s the catch—instead of a single alternative to BPA, industry has produced multiple options, any of which could be better or worse than BPA and whose effects will not be known for years or decades. So consumers can exercise their choice not to have something, but they have no information and thus no ability to choose the replacement that comes closest to the goal of not being harmed by food and other purchases. The essence of it comes down to giving the choice to companies while telling consumers that they are the decision-makers and are responsible for their own outcomes. Most will buy products without thinking about it and will suffer the consequences, but those consumers who care about their well-being will feel increased stress and will expend time and energy trying to figure out the best option from the limited information available. This is ideal, as this is the consumer profile most likely to have the personality and inclination to oppose our efforts on other fronts, so it is useful to keep them occupied with other tasks.
It is easier to convince people to oppress themselves than to liberate themselves, especially where social media is concerned.
When all voices are treated equally, people will emerge who delight in using their freedom of expression to tear down others rather than to band together and accomplish something useful. This leads to a highly vocal minority creating such a toxic discourse that it removes the freedom of others to disagree without risking nonstop targeted harassment. This is why social media should be as unfettered as possible—we can count on individual users to maximize their damage output while reducing the risk of voters banding together to demand positive change. This results in a net loss of actual freedom (to exist without being subjected to constant denigration) by promoting the freedom to share malicious opinions without suffering any personal consequences.
[VT: This certainly would explain why a certain billionaire spent an absurd sum to buy a certain social media site.]
Dehumanize “Others” Whenever Possible
Use emotionally charged adjectives wherever possible: corrupt Democratic prosecutor, drug-dealing illegal immigrant, job-killing socialist Democratic policy
A noun must never stand alone. Always pair it with at least one adjective to shape your audience’s opinions on a subject, and make sure that your tone of voice conveys exactly what that opinion should be. The goal is to train your followers to react a certain way to particular ideas or groups by putting them in an unfavorable context. For example, repetitively pairing “corrupt” with “Democratic prosecutor” teaches them to instinctively think of “corrupt Democrat” in a more general sense, which colors their opinion of all other Democrats. This ability to generalize from a specific example is critical, which is why the word “immigrant” must always be accompanied by “illegal” or some other negative term. We want to ensure that every single immigrant is viewed with suspicion and contempt. This is important because immigration is a core part of electoral strategy, and because we cannot risk allowing our voters to see immigrants as people. To call them asylum seekers, economic or political refugees, or forcibly displaced people would be to recognize their humanity and could cause voters to view them with a degree of sympathy.
The beauty of the adjective-based manipulation of voter opinions is that it is additive in nature. You can take an established negative adjective, pair it with a neutral one, toss in a noun and begin the process of forever tainting the previously neutral terms. In the phrase “job-killing socialist Democratic policy,” there is really only one negative term but we have taught our followers to hate all the others by association. If we and our conservative media colleagues had not put in the work over the years, our voters would likely appreciate having the benefits enjoyed by citizens in socialist-governed countries, they would understand that Democrats are working to protect their interests, and they would not express an immediate distrust of new policies.
When you speak, the terms you use do not even have to make sense or have a coherent connection with each other. If you say that “we will root out the communists, Marxist, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country,” never mind that several of these are antithetical to each other and it is unlikely that most of them pose any threat. While liberal commentators pick the statement apart as either sheer nonsense or dangerously dictatorial in tone, what your followers will actually hear is “we will stop the bad, bad, baddity-bad Democrats who are trying to get you.” If you have cultivated your followers well, you could just as easily toss in a completely irrelevant term like “artistic” in that sentence and soon it would be considered an insult among them. Conservative media thrives on this shorthand, where new terms are constantly added to the lexicon of threats against America. The ultimate goal, however, is to have your followers only think about the adjective, never the noun. Focus on the feeling and the fear in the adjectives but never on the living, breathing human behind the noun who has hopes and dreams like anyone else. Democrats, immigrants, women, LGBT, minorities—we choose how to define them, and our language makes it clear that they are less than human, in contrast with our followers and voters.
[VT: Apologies for the lead-in slides and closing slide on this video. I simply haven't had time to make a version of this for people who are already on the site. Please share with your network!]
[VT: The "Marxist, fascist" comment sounded familiar... it appears to have come from a 2023 Veterans Day speech by Mr. Trump.]
Make the Media Dance to Your Tune
“Access journalism” means interviewers will not challenge you because they need future ratings and need to avoid being shunned by political guests.
Media manipulation is an essential skill, so you need to understand the different types of media that exist and how to target their vulnerabilities. The root of their weakness is that all the big players are businesses whose owners expect financial returns, and even nonprofit media companies have to bring in enough money to pay their staff even if they do not have shareholders. Access to reliable information and analysis should be a public good in any thriving democracy, but we are fortunate to live in America instead.
Stick with American interviewers when possible, as they are more pliable than others due to the media environment here. Reporters who came up through the ranks in other countries where there are fewer dominant networks—some of which are government-supported rather than commercial businesses—are more likely to continue pressing you on uncomfortable topics or details. They are accustomed to politicians putting up with this treatment because the media platforms enable access to the voters. In America, we have so many media options, particularly between (supposedly) conservative and liberal networks, high-profile politicians can always threaten to never appear again with interviewers who are “rude” or “disrespectful.” The business imperative for the network to maintain access to high-profile guests places pressure on the interviewers to pull their punches and avoid holding you accountable in ways that are inconvenient. Threatening to withdraw access is one of the most significant weapons available to you for securing favorable treatment.
Conservative media is essentially dead, and its closest successor is the mainstream media that we call liberal fake news. Previously conservative outlets are now almost entirely right-wing propaganda units.
Setting written media aside for a moment, consider which outlets are likely to press you for actual details or potentially challenge your preferred set of “facts.” In times past, conservative media would work with you to present the case for whatever conservative policy was under discussion. It was generally considered useful to dig into the details because there was a shared belief that the American public would understand and appreciate the thought that went into those policies. When you appear on a “conservative” outlet today, you can get away with a mixture of grand pronouncements that are light on detail (build a wall, round up the immigrants, ban schools from teaching about racism, etc.) along with some generalized bashing of progressives and Democrats. The role of your interviewer is not to be a seeker of truth or an intellectual partner in explaining an important concept. Instead, they serve as a representative of our voters, egging you on to even more extreme statements while amplifying and validating those statements on behalf of the voters. This is why conservative media consumers are generally less-informed (and more misinformed) than someone who consumes no media at all, which is a remarkable feat on our part.
The mainstream liberal media is more likely to still try to fulfill the truth-seeking and explanatory role as they always have. Despite the occasional fawning interview over a progressive darling, they largely operate under the assumption that their viewers wish to be informed about reality. This means they will press you for details, like how a border wall will help reduce illegal immigration when so many migrants enter the nation at authorized points of entry instead of attempting to sneak across. Do not fall for this trick and engage them in an actual discussion. Keep the interview at a high level, remember your talking points, and simply move on to the next topic you want to talk about.
Returning to the subject of the written word, there is still a relatively healthy conservative media ecosystem of journals, columnists, bloggers, and think tank publications. These are useful even if they sometimes (or often) take issue with the nonsense you feed your followers on. Conservative writers provide a sense of comfort for old-school Republican voters who want to believe that the party still cares about real issues, governance, and policymaking, even if the conservative ideas of the past have been discredited by events or discarded in favor of new priorities. The illusion that the Republican party could return to these principles is necessary for conservative or moderate Republican voters to continue to vote for Republicans as a way to keep Democrats out of power until the party returns to its conservative roots. This is unlikely to happen because of the shift in our core voting demographics and our techniques for managing them, but we still need the extra votes for now, so it is useful to feed the fantasy.
Conservative publications also provide a pathway to convert genuine conservatives into members of our core voting group, as they often offer a blend of conservative and extremist commentary in an effort to appeal to a larger audience. A reader who is interested in conservative fiscal policy, for example, could easily be lured into reading an adjacent article about government overreach with respect to vaccines, and before they know it they are neck-deep in conspiracy theories. This works best for online publications, with the added benefit of easy sharing on social media to convert the reader’s like-minded peers, but even print publications can achieve the desired results.
The funny thing about mainstream media is that they must still appear to take you at face value since their business model is based on their employees being serious people talking about serious things. If you make the claim—even to the face of a reporter or host—that they and their organization are biased against you, they cannot summarily dismiss the allegation because that would confirm the bias you claim is present. The best they can do is politely disagree (making it a matter of opinion rather than fact, which is an automatic win for you) or try to move on to the next topic themselves. This can be a useful technique to deflect an interview away from a subject you want to avoid.
Beyond the world of traditional media, this is a useful allegation to level at social media and other big tech companies. The reality is that the type of emotionally charged content we create is more compatible with their engagement-driven algorithms, so an angry rant travels around the world more swiftly than a nuanced debate. The benefit of claiming bias is that it hinders efforts to fact-check obvious falsehoods or tweak the algorithm to slow certain types of content from going viral. Even when they publicly chafe against the allegations of bias, the companies appreciate the cover it gives them to allow us free rein. The mutual benefit is obvious—we drive engagement and consequently advertising revenue for them, while they provide a useful foil for us to denounce even as they provide the tools for reaching our followers and enriching the technology investors who back our campaigns. This is also why you should use the freedom-of-speech argument to fight any government attempts to either regulate or collaborate with social media companies to clean up their act. After all, it is not the role of government to deny the people what they crave, or to deny the wealthy the right to profit off them.
Keep accusing the media of anti-conservative bias. Even when it is demonstrably untrue, it keeps them off-balance and more inclined to give you leeway in the interest of “fairness.”
Have campaign staff feed reporters a story about things you are supposedly about to do. If you do something close enough, they will likely run with the original story they drafted.
Most journalists work under constant pressure to get their story out before other outlets do. The 24/7 media cycle is incredibly unforgiving, so you can manipulate their haste to your advantage. Constantly feed them favorable stories, ideally with a core of truth wrapped up in whatever propaganda message is most useful. For things that have yet to happen, provide enough details for reporters to write a story in advance, and there is a good chance it will run without corrections. This technique is particularly helpful for times when you want to offer counter-programming for something your opponent is doing, but without the effort of arranging something comparable. Since a competitive race is more exciting for the audience, reporters are incentivized to create drama and parallels where none exist. Simply saying that you are going to compete for a particular demographic in a specific location can generate nearly as much favorable publicity as actually doing so.
[VT: A possible example of this tactic is the time Mr. Trump and President Biden both visited auto workers during the UAW strikes in 2023. Publicity indicated that they would both visit striking workers and support their efforts. The president did so, but Mr. Trump visited a non-union workshop and was generally dismissive of unions. Media outlets mostly presented the two as comparable worker-solidarity events, due to a combination of advance publicity from the Trump campaign and a desire to hype the electoral rivalry.]
Exploit the Central Flaw of Democracy
"Democracy" is a malleable term that you can twist to mean whatever is most convenient for your purposes.
It is a stroke of luck that our opposition party is called the Democrats, thereby linking itself to the idea of democracy. The word “democracy” has been so abused over the centuries that it can have any number of meanings, which is exactly what we need to render it toothless. We call the American system of government a democratic one because that is the marketing brand the people want, and we can get a great deal of mileage shouting down the academics and political agents who question how democratic the constitution or electoral system actually are. The malleability of the term democracy means that we can call out Democrats for being undemocratic whenever they suggest changes to the current system. One of the keys for achieving this is to avoid the question that Aristotle raised: whether “democratic behavior” means the behavior that democracies like or the behavior that will preserve a democracy. A casual inspection shows that these are not at all the same thing, and the difference is critical.
[VT: This would explain why Republican politicians shrug and say "that's democracy" when the political system values the votes of white rural voters more than diverse urban voters due to the Electoral College and the way Senators are allocated equally among the 50 states despite huge population differences. And also why they cry "undemocratic" whenever there's a part of the system that resists efforts to skew results in favor of the rich and powerful.]
The word “democracy” should be used purely for marketing purposes, specifically in connection with the ideal that people should be treated equally. From there, we can make a stealthy transition from this political ideal to a factual belief among your followers that they are all equal (except in situations where they are superior). Under the guise of democracy, you can get them to practice, not only without shame but with a positive glow of self-approval, behavior that would be universally mocked if were not defended by that magic word. The behavior in question is the firm statement that “I’m as good as you” in all its many variations. The immediate benefit of your followers adopting this position is that it induces them to enthrone a good, solid resounding lie at the center of their lives. The lie of equality is not the obvious one—that no individual is any more equal to another in intellect, kindness, honesty, and good sense than they are in hair color or muscle strength. The lie is that your followers do not believe it themselves. No man who says “I’m as good as you” truly believes it, otherwise he would not say it. The German Shepherd never says it to the Chihuahua, nor the graduate to the dropout, nor the salaried employee to the homeless opioid addict, nor the supermodel to the pajama-clad sleep-deprived mother buying diapers at a convenience store in the middle of the night. What it expresses is precisely the itching, stinging, writhing awareness of an inferiority which the speaker refuses to accept.
As a consequence, they resent every kind of superiority in others, denigrate it, and wish for its annihilation. Soon they come to suspect every mere difference of being a claim to superiority. No one must be different in voice, clothes, culture, or food. This is how we so easily turn our followers against their fellow Americans. Look at the urbanites with their different employment opportunities, they don’t know the value of a hard day of physical work like us. See those vegans who won’t eat hot dogs, they think they’re too good for that and look down on us for enjoying our simple pleasures. Listen to the liberal scholars with their fancy education, they’re just showing off for each other and sneering at us from their ivory towers. If they were the right sort of people they’d be like me. They’ve no business to be different. It’s undemocratic.
It will be obvious to you that this behavior is a manifestation of envy, which is explored further in Part 2. In the past, those who were aware of feeling it had a sense of shame at doing so, while those around them were willing to call it out. The beauty of the current environment is that you can sanction it—make it respectable and even praiseworthy—by use of the word "democratic."
Under the influence of this word, those who are in any or every way inferior will work more wholeheartedly and successfully than ever before to pull everyone else down to their own level. Social media is a marvelous tool for this, elevating such voices and even amplifying them above those with actual merit. But that is is not all. Under the same influence, those who could achieve great things or add value to the national discourse actually draw back from it for fear of being undemocratic. To some extent, this is self-preservation because of the unending vitriol that your followers will unleash on their chosen targets to punish superior qualities wherever they arise. The rest comes down to carefully cultivated self-censorship. Americans who have the potential to rise above the rest, whether through work, art, or notable acts of charity, suppress these instincts for fear that they might become different, might lose their place among the herd. They might even (horror of horrors!) become thriving, fully-realized individuals of the kind that American culture idealizes in theory but usually punishes in practice.
This in turn pushes the other side to a different extreme. Those who do achieve greatness in a particular field, particularly in academia, so easily play into the roles that are created for them. Suspicion often creates what it suspects. If the rabble are going to throw stones to punish presumed contempt among their superiors, than why bother to hide any actual contempt that does exist? Call them a basket of deplorables and ignore them in favor of soliciting support from better Americans. Of course, this plays right into our hands, but never let the Democrats figure that one out.
Ultimately, the goal is to move your followers, and the nation as a whole, toward the discrediting and finally the elimination of every kind of human excellence—moral, cultural, social, or intellectual. The incantation of “democracy” is far more effective than the tactics of dictators who preserve their power by killing or imprisoning any of their subjects who gain pre-eminence and a voice along with it, whether in a serious field such as politics or a trivial one such as music. Cut them all down to the same level—all slaves, all nobodies, all equals. In this sense, a dictator in another country is practicing “democracy,” but we have achieved it here more easily by letting the people do the work themselves. The nobodies decapitate those who would rise above, and those with potential to rise are ducking low in their desire to be an invisible part of the crowd.
The subversion of Democracy, in the sense of the political system, is a fine objective that will further buttress the defenses of the wealthy and powerful in this country. The funny thing is that democracy as an incantation (I’m as good as you, being like regular folk, group cohesion) is the finest instrument we could possibly create for destroying the safeguards that preserve Democracy itself. It ensures that the democratic spirit (as we call it) will result in a nation without great men or women, a nation of subliterates, morally lacking from lack of discipline and training, full of the confidence which flattery breeds on ignorance, and too blinded by hatred to see the real threat before it is too late. Our success on these fronts has had the useful side-effect of creating a self-sustaining mode of thought. “I’m as good as you” as a state of mind inevitably consumes the speaker’s very core, excluding humility, charity, contentment, and all the pleasures of gratitude or admiration, isolating them from almost every means by which they might accidentally find common ground with their fellow Americans and do something to make the nation a better place to live. Once you set your followers on the desired path, they are bound to follow it to the very end.
[VT: Most of this Democracy section is also drawn from The Screwtape Letters, with some updates to suit a modern American context. It's a rather disturbing thought that the goal is to diminish the ability of Americans to excel, but I can see how it would be politically useful.]
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