What happens when deliberate lies are treated like legitimate ideas?
That's the strange reality we are currently living in.
Greetings, my loyal subjects readers. Just a quick reminder that CLASS 4: INTRODUCTION TO INFORMATION OPERATIONS is up. In it, we explore tactics way beyond “fake news” and disinformation. If you haven’t already signed up for my Foreign Influence Operations course, you should! It’s informative AND fun, like me!
ALEX’S WEEKLY RANT
Not all lies are the same.
“That’s the best looking baby I’ve ever seen!” is lightyears away from “The election was rigged and the presidency was stolen.”
While both lies are made to meet immediate purposes, only one will have long-lasting effects on society writ large.
We all know the election was not rigged. Donald Trump knows this, as well, as do all the personalities at Fox News and a slew of other enablers.
And yet, many of the promoters of these lies remain players in our political system and use that same political system to promote those and other lies. It’s the opposite of a virtuous circle. It creates an odd dichotomy, where purveyors of truth are constantly battling liars who are legitimate members of the political class, even when their lies are really fucking obvious. And it’s exhausting.
One of the points I discuss in my Foreign Influence Operations course (seriously, sign up!) is that the real purpose of disinformation is to pollute, confuse, and debase the information space so much that people simply stop participating in civic debate. This is extremely dangerous in a democracy. After all, how can a democracy survive if no one participates in it?
And yet, here we are, with a former president who lied to us multiple times a day in ways big and small who now remains a frontrunner for the next election; with a congressman from New York whose entire resume is made up but who refuses to resign even after being uncovered as a fraud. Here we are with Tucker Carlson selectively editing January 6th video to create a completely false story about how people who pleaded guilty to insurrection were actually super peaceful. Here we are with a “Weaponization of the Federal Government Committee” that history books (if we’re allowed to write them) will call out as an Orwellian sham for promoting right-wing conspiracy theories, despite reams of evidence debunking those theories.
It’s all so obviously lies, and yet we treat it like legitimate politics. It’s like if a flat earther were to win the Nobel Prize for physics and we all applauded and said, “Ah yes, well deserved!”
It’s ironic that’s so many hiding behind the red-white-and-blue banner of “defending democracy” are actually using disinformation tactics used by dictators everywhere. Indeed, some of the loudest and most animated flag-wavers do seem to have an affinity for one dictator in particular, Vladimir Putin, who they see as a strong, manly man who embodies all the virtues of a truly conservative movement.
No, I don’t think these big name liars are paid by Russia (although Russia certainly does have a paid network in the US to help feed pro-Russia ideas into the information ecosystem). I think it’s worse than that, in fact, because these guys spout the lies willingly. Why would Russia waste money paying them to do what they do naturally? As Rick Wilson recently put it, why buy the cow when the milk is free?
It’s also funny that so many in the GOP like the idea of emulating Putin, considering how not conservative Russia is.
But also, objectively, Russia kind of sucks these days unless you’re an elite from Moscow or, even better, Saint Petersburg.
Which is kind of the point. The purpose of the lies is impunity. A desire to have the rules apply to everyone else but not to me. That, my friends, is what it means to be truly elite.
Which is why the liars get really angry when people call out their bullshit. People with the audacity to call a lie a lie, to call out disinformation and propaganda when they see it, face online and offline attacks and threats. We’ve seen journalists threatened with expensive lawsuits in an attempt to shut them up. We’ve seen election workers threatened with violence, to the point where they leave their job.
As freelance journalist Marcy Wheeler (@emptywheel) has said, it is an attempt to punish those who call out disinformation, “a concerted effort to normalize an assault on rationality.”
The result is that objective truth ceases to exist and people begin to silence themselves, to stop participating in democracy.
It took a generation of lies for Putin to build the malleable public he now has, where he can toss anyone in jail or out a window for questioning him. The result is that the majority of people stay silent and don’t criticize the government. In turn, Putin has become a dictator, not the leader of a democracy.
Our elected officials and their enablers who feed us lies for their own benefit are leading us down a similar path. Already we see them attack people who call out their bullshit. Eventually, we might not be able to call it out at all.
THE WEEK’S LINKS
A roundup of stories you should be reading
(Note: I reserve the right to rant in depth about any of these at a future date)
RUSSIA
US turns to new ways to punish Russian oligarchs for the war (AP)
ICC to issue first arrest warrants linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (The Guardian)
Russian “Hybrid War”? Italy Says Wagner Group Is Using Migrant Trafficking To Divide The West (La Stampa in English)
JANUARY 6
The Serbian who inspired US Capitol rioters, then emigrated to Texas (BBC)
ARITIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
This Changes Everything (NY Times)
YOUR MUST-READ STORY OF THE WEEK
Sloth bites teen during visit to Michigan pet store, ruining lifelong dream (Michigan Live)
Alex Finley is a former officer of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, where she served in West Africa and Europe. She writes and teaches about terrorism, disinformation / covert influence, and oligarch yachts. Her writing has appeared in Slate, Reductress, Funny or Die, POLITICO, The Center for Public Integrity, and other publications. She has spoken to the BBC, MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, France24, and numerous other media outlets. She was also invited once to speak at Harvard, which she now tells everyone within the first ten seconds of meeting them. She is the author of the Victor Caro series, satirical novels about the CIA. Before joining the CIA, Alex was a journalist, covering Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and the Department of Energy. She reported on issues related to national security, intelligence, and homeland security. Did she mention she was invited to speak at Harvard?
