“The Rhetoric, Lies, as exemplified by the false statements made by Comrade Kamala Harris during the rigged and highly partisan ABC Debate, and all of the ridiculous lawsuits specifically designed to inflict damage on Joe’s, then Kamala’s, Political Opponent, ME, has taken politics in our Country to a whole new level of Hatred, Abuse, and Distrust.”
“Because of this Communist Left Rhetoric, the bullets are flying, and it will only get worse!”
–Donald Trump
“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do, Dana, because you guys are completely letting Kamala Harris coast.”
“I say that we’re creating a story, meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it, but yes, we created the actual focus that allowed the American media to talk about this story and the suffering created by Kamala Harris’ policies.”
–J.D. Vance
In other words, the truth, or history, is malleable. It can be changed or manipulated to serve a specific purpose or to establish a particular narrative. Of course, there is nothing new about this, politicians (and others) have been doing this for centuries, it was described and codified by Goebbels and perfected by the Soviets. George Orwell wrote at length about it.
But this is something different. In the past, propaganda was crafted in order to guide or mold public opinion, but it was always presented as the truth. You never actually told people you were lying.
What we are seeing here is an attack on the very concept of truth, that it is somehow legitimate to modify the presentation and description of events and motives in order to illustrate some higher, or inner, reality. I am not talking here about how the perception or conclusions in a narrative are dependent on perspective or bias (conscious or unconscious) or even exaggeration or selectivity. We have always been aware of that possibility. No, this is something different, something far more fundamental. What we see here is an attempt to alter real events and opinions deliberately so that they reflect some inner truth or reality that is invisible to those who are compelled by a “merely objective” narrative.
I first became aware of this during the Presidential campaign of 2012. I wish I could remember more details about this so I could provide a proper footnote, but I do remember the incident being discussed here in the Zone at the time. The candidate had given a speech where he was trying to promote a particular political position, one that was more or less acceptable on a common sense bipartisan basis. A film clip of these remarks had been edited in such a way that it appeared that he was promoting an entirely opposite point of view, one that was totally unacceptable, and this manipulated recording was being used to attack him in some TV ads. This was not an AI deep fake, this was done by traditional film editing techniques, cutting, selecting and inserting.
There’s nothing new about this, maliciously altering historical text has long been used in propaganda, No, what is different about this particular incident is how the other candidate reacted to this clip when he was questioned about it, and confronted with the original, unedited film record. His reply was something like (I paraphrase); “No, that’s actually what my opponent meant, even if he didn’t come right out and say it.”
This sort of shameless prevarication is not new, and neither is it restricted to any one ideological camp.
What is terrifying about this is that it now has become acceptable, even desirable, because it is furthering the cause of the righteous. As with the Russian misinformation factory, they have given up on tying to convince their own people of the lies, they are now content to promote the the idea that “we’re no worse than they are”.