How Propaganda Trumps People
Exploring the landscape of political propaganda from face-to-face to Facebook
A few months ago I was overwhelmed by a realization. Many of my friends, family and colleagues weren’t seeing a dangerous emerging reality. Politicians can now control the full communication process, 100% end-to-end.
Political campaigns can engineer stories and push them through the social consciousness in a way that’s never been possible in all of human history (as far as I’m aware). This power is available to anyone with the means to afford it. This power coincides with another reality, that our current political system asks for direct money and influence from people, advocacy organizations and corporations. This is a perfect storm of corruption powered by a propaganda toolset that will cement a fixed class system that will grow apart over time.
So what is the solution? We must remove money from our political system. How might we do that? We could regulate the spaces available for politicians to spread their messages to an official government channel. This channel shouldn’t cost money, so politicians would be forced to play by the same rules. We must build this transparent and resilient communication system to supports the voice of the people. It should provide us priority access to our government. We need a platform to support direct interactions with our chosen representatives and genuine communication with our communities.
Contemporary American Propaganda
Let’s start by establishing this problem by walking through some of its features.
Campaign spending in the U.S.
It all amounts to influence, just imagine that your sway is really driven not by your vote but your direct money contributions as a percentage contributed to each candidates eventual appointment.
- The Donald J. Trump campaign tested more than a million ad variants at a cost of well over $100 million dollars on Facebook alone.
- The total cost of the 2020 election will nearly reach an unprecedented $14 billion, making it the most expensive election in history and twice as expensive as the previous presidential election cycle. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/10/cost-of-2020-election-14billion-update/
- More than $3.4 billion dollars was spent on the 2020 Presidential Candidates alone. Notably this includes $544,393,077 spent by President Trump and $777,714,036 spent by President Elect Biden and $1.1 billion spent by Democratic candidate Bloomberg. https://www.fec.gov/data/candidates/president/presidential-map/
Techniques of political propaganda in the free marketplace of messaging
- Scoring political points — Politicians want us to identify with them they are gifted at presenting themselves as having the correct answer.
- The “spin” machine — Politicians release statements and appear on media outlets to try to control an emerging narrative.
- Alter situational details — Politicians (and/or their agents) may bend and stretch situational details to build a more compelling version for their supporting argument.
- Alter artifacts to support narrative — Politicians (and/or their agents) might alter or fabricate supporting evidence in the form of photos, documents and videos to provide “proof” of their account. This may include everything from memes to fraudulent activity.
- Apply pressure and call in favors — Politicians use their network of supporters to influence public opinion.
- Rule by quid pro quo — When needed, they may call upon a favor for a past or future favor. This creates an exploitable situation where they are acting in the interest of an individual rather than their constituents.
- Divide and conquer — Gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into pieces that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy.
- Tit for tat — First cooperate, then subsequently replicate an opponent’s previous action.
- Mass Conflation of “Mainstream Media” — All media has bias, not all media bias benefits the same master.
- Mass Exploitation of Human Cognitive Bias — We all have exploits, sometimes politicians use these to motivate us against our best interests. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
The Politician’s Digital Toolbox
The modern politician with sufficient funding is given access to a complete suite of tools procured directly from Corporate America.
Broadcast Messaging 100 — Drive awareness with media attention
Building awareness is tricky, it often starts with sponsored events and broadcast messages (television, radio, cable, YouTube). These messages form the initial context you have for a candidate. If this awareness building is successful, you’ll be led to a point of digital engagement.
Direct Marketing 101 — Create Value Buckets for Captured Targets
One of the first steps in direct marketing is capturing a contact’s information. This is commonly done through some sort of web form. Capturing a contact’s information allows for future contact directly, through virtually unregulated spaces of phone, text and email. The contextual action around this capture event automatically sorts people into buckets (facebook, man, 30’s, likes guns) that were predefined based upon the attributes of the content being promoted.
Facebook is a source for acquiring new contacts. It has over 230 million users in the US.
For comparison: Only 110 million people voted in the 2018 election cycle. https://www.npr.org/2018/11/08/665197690/a-boatload-of-ballots-midterm-voter-turnout-hit-50-year-high
Omni-channel Marketing Strategy 102 — Connect people with an engaging story across time and space
Social media is the glue that binds the process. It drives people into the unseen “Value Buckets” and asks them to further contribute, or reinforces a popular belief the campaign might want to cultivate. Simple messages, repeated many ways, filling in more data about a person over time. Drive the known contacts into deeper content and increasingly more valuable actions. Things like pixel tracking and remarketing helps marketing professionals target you based upon previous online activities (even when you don’t fill out forms).
Event Marketing 103 — Build Affirming Experiences
Fill up the building, no matter what it takes. This builds credibility, engagement, excitement… people want to do what others do. When you create large gatherings the energy is fun, powerful and reinforcing. When your goal is influence centered, you can give away tickets or even hire extras to fill out the experience.
Crowds on Demand is an American publicity firm that provides clients with hired actors to pose as fans, paparazzi, security guards, unpaid protesters and professional paid protesters. Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowds_on_Demand
Deep dive
Let’s take a look at some of these techniques as deployed by the President Trump’s campaign.
It’s true that many of these techniques were first notice in use during President Obama’s campaign. We are arguing that these techniques are bad (and embedded in the current system), no matter who the President may be.
In July I decided I started documenting the official messaging being used by the Trump Campaign on Facebook (@trumpfaceads) on Twitter. I’ll attempt to use some of the information I captured to explain these strategies, though they are quite sprawling.
America as a whole really doesn’t understand this funnel. Partly it’s because the invisible information workflow is identical to the corporate one we are used to consuming. It’s essentially the same funnel and technology that large business uses. Ad traffic from Facebook (and other “free” channels supported by ads) fill the Direct Marketing Funnel through a form based capture event. Even more frightening is that the candidates share information (two-way sync) with political parties (exactly like small companies sometimes share with their parent companies).
“The idea was compelling: If state and national party committees and campaigns fed information into one place, it could create a deeper understanding of voters. If that place were outside the party, fund-raising limits would not apply. Contractors were fired, and much of the R.N.C.’s data staff was moved into Data Trust, which effectively became an off-campus arm of the party.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/09/us/trump-campaign-brad-parscale.html
The basic process is pretty simple.
Step 1.) Engage. Create emotionally relevant statement to trigger an action and promote it.
Facebook and other social media outlets are a great starting point. They provide this service for corporations too (their primary funding mechanism is advertising revenue). Media outlets (broadcast, cable and even YouTube) are another place to insert your contextual and emotionally relevant messages.
To learn more about Facebook Ads, check out my reference article: https://augustdeluge.medium.com/for-context-dive-into-facebook-ads-ed2bd38ba680
Let’s look at an example as we step through the process:
Ad Copy: CHOOSE FREEDOM OVER OPPRESSION!
President Trump is fighting the forces of ANARCHY and COMMUNISM. Joe Biden and D.C. Swamp will hand over the country to those dangerous forces.
Check out our Twitter feed to follow the links to the ads and landing pages.
Step 2.) Capture. Create a pathway to push emotional target to a landing page, and get them to take action (sign up, purchase, commit).
If you click on the ad, you’ll be taken to a landing page with a form for capturing your information.
Landing Page: https://forms.donaldjtrump.com/landing/wrong-for-arizona/?utm_medium=ad
3.) Nurture. Message this target through multiple direct channels, nurturing them further towards an ask to take a small next step (donate, purchase, volunteer).
- Send a direct email.
- Send a direct text message.
- Get directly on a phone call.
4.) Big Action. Get the target to “commit” to a target action. This happens by building trust slowly and nurturing loyalty. It’s like a hypnotist that needs you to deepen your trust. Usually this is a purchase, or a personal ask.
Purchase a Trump Product
Make a Large Contribution
Attend a Trump Rally
The Unfair Advantage
This same communication model is inherently less effective for local or independent candidates that are not attached to powerful funding mechanisms.
It is costly and time consuming to manage interlocking content funnels, ad management, email marketing, text messaging, and social media marketing messaging. That burden is bad for all of us because it is an anti-competitive force. It reduces the chance a local hero can get traction, because the money powered noise makes it harder to hear and appreciate the little voice.
If instead you have great access to resources, you control the outcome:
Conclusion
Why do we need something different? This methodology can be used by anyone, regardless of message so long as they have sufficient money.
Why is President Donald J. Trump the example here? The Trump campaign used this model to tell a very divisive and dangerous story. One where our radical neighbors want to take away what is best in life. One that continued away from social media, to own the libs in your life by defending your freedom to be an asshole. This story is a story all on its own, this article seeks only to explain the method.
And what next? Let’s advocate for a transparent digital communication system for our political system that requires no funding, and provides no advantage for it. Let’s give real power to the people with tools for a more direct democracy.
Credentialed independent journalism must be supported. Some independent, social funding mechanism must be created so we can have faith in an independent network of journalism that investigates both government and corporate influences. We can’t afford for the media to be seen as “fake”.
Power and money can control narratives like never before. These narratives aren’t necessarily good for all of us. Our system must not tolerate corruption or it will become the norm. Corruption is currently being incentivized by our system, if this continues, it will be on our path to ruin.
Government communication systems must be created. These systems must be funded, and improved for all politicians to ensure accessibility, transparency and accountability. We do business on our phones, why not civics?
My spirit of action is aligned in protest of the divisive messages of President Donald John Trump, his accomplice Mike Pence and most of the Republican Party leadership. I am not part of a radical left, I am not advocating for violence, or revolution but I am insisting upon transparency and accountability in government. We can not allow a lecture on law and order from a pack of tyrants, nor accept this lecture from the next.
