Clean hands and bad apples--Propaganda 101

We're in the midst of a huge, expensive campaign aimed at shaping and directing public opinion and votes. Seems opportune to look behind the curtain for a minute and see just how this is done.

What I'll say here could be used by any political party, any time--it has little to do with any party's platform. This is about process--the process of getting voters to vote your way without thinking.

Now--suppose you're a political consultant. Suppose you're a technical person who solves problems without regard to words like "moral" or "immoral." Now suppose a political party's leaders ask you to craft a strategy to marshal the half of the country without much education or smarts--while at the same time holding onto the allegiance of its smarter, more educated members.

This is pretty tricky, really. What marshals the mob is demagoguery. But demagoguery tends to offend educated people. So you need a way to do the demagoguery with a firewall between the two zones, so the party's leaders can appear to have clean hands. At the same time you can train your more educated cohort to accept more demagogic appeals by triggering people's tribalism.

In America today, even educated people usually believe you have to go to some backward country to see tribalism. Just try this thought experiment. I say "tribesman." What do you see in your mind? You see some nonwhite dude in a loincloth with a bone through his nose, don't you? I'm not saying you're racist. I'm saying we've been led to think that people in the rich countries aren't tribal.

But it's in our DNA. It's not just the way our ancestors lived. It's the way our part of the evolutionary tree has lived for at least five million years--right from the time we dropped out of the trees and started living on the ground. In the trees everyone could flee if trouble showed up. On the ground--if you don't have a tribal organization, you're toast.

That didn't go poof! when we figured out how to modify our environment instead ourselves, maybe 10,000 years ago. We've got civilization, but all those tribal instincts are there inside us, 100% intact...ready to be triggered. Some triggers are benign--love thy neighbor, expressed in a beautiful song, scenes of self-sacrifice for the common good.

But the most reliable--the most effective at shutting off our ability to reason--well, that would be fear/anger/paranoia, because when the tribe is threatened you circle the wagons.

And when people kick into tribal mode they will readily vote against their own self-interest--even educated people will. It's that strong.

A lot of what people think of as racism is really tribalism. It's simplest when everyone in your tribe looks like you, of course, but our human minds can often work around that. And of course it's just as possible to see someone who looks just like you as being in the enemy tribe.

Now to recent events.

In a recent op-ed piece, liberal NY Times columnist Bob Herbert indicted the Republican Party for its "absence of class," saying that it's "tolerating, shielding and encouraging foul, mean-spirited and bigoted behavior,"and that "It’s long past time to acknowledge that a party that promotes ignorance and provides a safe house for bigotry cannot serve the best interests of our country."

Many comments on the comment thread rejected this accusation, of course.

For example, one commentor called Herbert a liar, saying that the behavior Herbert referred to was just that of a few bad apples--or, especially in the case of racist behavior, that Democrats just make up the incident...that it's race-baiting equivalent to soccer players who fake injuries on the field in order to game the officiating.

This commentor said "Kindly tell us oh honest Bob, just who are those in the Republican Party are who are tolerating, shielding and encouraging foul, mean-spirited and bigoted behavior."

He said a lot more, mostly about how evil and treasonous the Democrats are, but you get the picture.

This is the clean hands gambit at work. Muster your troops at the grassroots level, but have it done by proxies. Iran has Hezbollah. The GOP has the Tea Party movement. These aren't sock puppets--they'll often go off-script, and sometimes drag their masters, leash and all, into the weeds. But proxy wars are worth it to our hypothetical consultant, because even if they do go off-script you can disavow them, all the while capitalizing on all the stuff they do that advances your party.