We Must Start Paying Attention Now

Next, the Manipulative Process Leads Us to Gas Lighting and Conspiracy Theories

Mar 14, 2024

“Welcome to the world of reality denial, where truth is subordinate to ideology, feelings have more weight than evidence, and democracy hangs in the balance.”[1] Lee McIntrye

Do We Not See the Gathering Darkness?

There are times when events occur and swirl around us that, as major as they are, many of us do not recognize their significance. Perhaps it is because we have no frame of reference for these events since most, if not all of us, have never seen them before. We may have read about vaguely similar events in history books, if we recognize them at all. Or, perhaps it is because the major news media is not “diving in” and covering in depth what these events are, what they represent, or what they mean for us. For some, it is because they just do not care. Regardless, eventually all Americans will care, even if they do not see the threat to our nation before us now.

What Has Obscured Our Vision?

Whatever the causes one might ascribe to Americans’ general unawareness, lack of understanding, or simply not taking notice of this greatest assault on American democracy since the Civil War, it begs important questions. Why has it taken so long for Americans to see this present danger? Why has it taken so long for Americans to hear the alarm that has been sounded about this assault on their democracy? As with most important questions, there are likely several components to their answer. One key part of answering these questions is acknowledging that the American civic education system has not equipped us to recognize, comprehend, and thwart this present and very real twenty first century threat to our democracy.

The Effort to “Re-Program and Re-educate” Americans

Despite unpreparedness in terms of civic knowledge to recognize this attack on democracy, one further important question still must be asked. At this present moment, what is it exactly that is being done to the American people that is such a threat to democracy?

The answer- what has being going on amounts to an attempt by those on the radical right-wing of our political spectrum, on a scale we have never seen before, is to achieve mass manipulation of Americans’ civic awareness. The goal of this mass manipulation is to make strong man authoritarian government appear and seem reasonable, normative, and desirable to us. Strongman scholar and historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat describes what is going on today in our public square as Donald Trump’s and his MAGA Republican Party’s “…re-education of Americans to believe that strongman leadership is the solution to the nation's problems.”[2]

We’ve Been Flooded by Lies and Propaganda

Since 2015 the American people have been subjected to an on-going civic “re-programming and re-education” process that has been successful in creating what ,for a significant number of Americans, is a “false reality”. False realities are foundational for the autocratic, authoritarian government that Trump and the MAGA GOP intend for the United States. Creation of false reality on such a mass scale requires that a nation’s citizens be inundated and inculcated with a new belief system. This new belief system then replaces a citizenry’s democratic belief paradigm with one based on a “mythic past”, it pits one group against another (i.e., “Make America Great Again” and “immigrant invasion”)[3], as well as promotes an anti-intellectual[4] populist “sales pitch” message of grievance and shared victimhood[5].

Further, it requires a “strongman leader” (aka Donald Trump) who has not a scintilla of democratic norms and values in his being, and is smitten with dictators like Russia’s Putin, Hungary’s Orban, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, and even Adolf Hitler.[6] This aspiring leader authoritatively proceeds to tell us that he is the only one who can solve all our problems in order to restore our country to its fabled greatness (i.e., “…only I can solve it”).[7] Further, he has made no secret of his authoritarian plans if elected to a second term, including being a dictator (at least for one day).[8]

But most importantly, achieving this creation of a false reality requires that Americans be “carpet bombed” with a constant, steady stream of lies. Propaganda is the other tool that authoritarians like Trump use to great effect. As Ben-Ghiat points out “…At its core, propaganda is a set of communication strategies designed to sow confusion and uncertainty, discourage critical thinking, and persuade people that reality is what the leader says it is.”[9] (emphasis mine)

Since 2015 we have seen propaganda and lies at work in our public arena by Trump and his MAGA cohort all the time. It has become “business as usual” in our political system for Americans.

Not Equipped to Recognize the Threat We are Under

American civic education has not been reconstructed and updated to equip us to readily recognize and effectively deal with this twenty first century authoritarian movement threatening to topple American democracy. To the extent that we have seen something like this before, there have been previous generations in the United States that entertained and became engrossed in authoritarianism. The best example was in the 1930s. A fascist movement mirroring the ideology of Hitler and Mussolini trumpeted fascism and antisemitism to thousands of Americans. This was led by major public figures like automaker Henry Ford, Catholic priest Father Charles Coughlin, and famed aviator Charles Lindbergh. All three were infatuated with Adolph Hitler, what was going on at the time in Germany, and did their best to attract Americans to it.[10] Their movement morphed into a group ironically named the America First Committee of 1940-41 (does that name ring a bell?) dedicated to isolationism and avoiding war with Germany.[11]

However, this was over eighty years ago. Today, how many Americans know about this? To be sure, there are fewer and fewer Americans alive today that can attest to this significant pre-World War II American fascist movement. And to be fair, historians have long noted that we Americans are not quick to take note of threats to our democracy. Historian Allen Guelzo, in his book Our Ancient Faith about Abraham Lincoln and democracy, calls our attention to the work of historian David Runciman who says:

“…Democracies are not good at recognizing crisis situations,” because all the surface noise of democratic politics makes them insensitive to genuine turning points.”[12] (emphasis mine)

Is this not one of those “genuine turning points” in our democracy’s history?

“There’s Something Happening Here”[13]

But today there is not only something happening here, it is different than the authoritarian threat we faced in the 1930s when some Americans became enthralled with Hitler and Mussolini. What is different today is this authoritarian fascist dogma has completely taken control and inculcated itself into a major American political party. Whether we realize and accept it or not, the current reality for numbers of Americans is that fascism has achieved the appearance of legitimacy.

Some portion of those Americans attracted to the MAGA/Trump takeover of the GOP and its message may not even understand what fascism is, much less the threat it represents to their democracy. They may not even care. For them, the tenets of their strongman’s authoritarian dogma are attractive. Attractive enough and real enough for them to be willing to forfeit whatever freedoms they thought democracy had offered them and give themselves over to Trump’s authoritarian rule.

Abe Lincoln Must be “Rolling in His Grave”

This anti-democratic threat is dressed up and disguised as the political party which Abraham Lincoln helped found- the Republican Party. We can be further confused as these anti-democrats have created a false political lexicon allowing the adherents of this anti-democratic movement to call themselves conservatives when they are, in fact, fascist or libertarians (or both). And, although as already noted, the United States has had demagogue “wannabe” strongmen or public figures before that were intoxicated with authoritarianism, until now none of them have been the leader of one of our two major American political parties.

Consequently, as a whole, we have not been equipped to recognize, or in many cases, have already bought into, a political ideology that is not based on democracy’s principles and precepts. Instead, we have overwhelmed by an authoritarian false narrative tsunami that, as author and political consultant Stuart Stevens describes it, is a “dog breakfast of facts”[14] This tsunami of lies has happened upon an American political culture and landscape that is ripe for manipulation by a populist authoritarian like Trump. Author Kurt Andersen describes this political landscape accurately in his book Fantasyland, which explores Americans’ willingness to embrace the fantastical. Andersen asks, “…Why are we like this?” He goes on to answer his own question:

“…The short answer is because we’re Americans, because we can believe any damn thing we want, that our beliefs are equal or superior to anyone else’s, experts be damned. Once people commit to this approach, the world turns inside out, and no cause-and-effect connection is fixed. The credible becomes the incredible and the incredible credible…”[15] (emphasis mine)

What Has Been Done to Us?

Because of what Anderson calls our collective willingness to embrace the fantastic, we become easy prey for attacks to our critical thinking. To do that, first, we must be made to believe that truths are lies and lies are truth. Propaganda is used to do this as already mentioned, as are lies. But the lies are deployed a certain way. This technique of lying, called by psychologists the “illusory truth effect”, works to great effect in the environment Americans find themselves today- one of political cynicism, disillusionment, as well as an erosion of trust in our democratic institutions. The illusory truth effect is the tendency to believe false information to be correct after repeated exposure.[16] For it to work, lies must be constant and repetitious, something at which Trump and his MAGA movement have become extremely proficient.

Furthermore, we have become accustomed to accepting a new information conveyance paradigm in the public square espoused by this authoritarian movement term they call “alternate facts” (aka “lies).[17] Furthermore, we have become conditioned to believing that the mainstream news media, an important part of maintaining democracy, is “fake news” and is not to be trusted. Instead, these anti-democrats tell us to trust only their “alternate facts”, and to only believe the news media that the authoritarians endorse (like Fox News and OAN, which have become tantamount to a form of “State TV”) which they use as their conduit to transmit their lies.

Next, They “Double Down”

We have difficulty handling these lies not only because our civic knowledge is deficit, but because our critical thinking skills are not up to par. Consequently, when these lies take the form of logical fallacies, requiring proof of non-existence, as well as making false comparisons and false dichotomies, our thinking becomes confused. This false reality being “painted” for us begins to seem real and true. With that, the goal of the strongman and his followers of making all their lies credible for many Americans has thus been achieved.

Additionally, because our knowledge of American history is so weak, and often non-existent, past events can be misconstrued by these authoritarians to make us believe that what we are being told by them in the present is true, when in fact it is not. It is a lie. However, from that point on the damage is done, as it becomes even easier for us to arrive at the false conclusions the authoritarian wants us to come to, and entrench ourselves psychologically in them. This is the authoritarian’s primary goal- that we not only believe him, but we live in his (false) reality. We begin accepting as fact his false narratives. We begin arriving at false conclusions about the world around us. And, we accept this leader’s statements, his so-called “explanations”, as well as his fabulist stories, with no questions asked, no matter how mythical and absurd they are.

The Incredible Becomes Credible

With this process, which is a gradual progression, the road is now paved for us to receive a steady campaign of lies presented in yet another particular way. It is called gas lighting which becomes another “tool in the toolbox” this authoritarian makes regular use of. It is a term that, up until the Trump presidency, was not a prevalent part of our everyday civic vocabulary. But it is now.

Author and political analyst Amanda Carpenter lays out what this term is all about in her book Gaslighting America (not unironically subtitled: Why We Love It When Trump Lies To Us). As Carpenter explains:

“Gaslighting is a psychological term for what happens when a master manipulator like Trump lies so brazenly that people end up questioning reality as they know it…Gaslighting is far more malicious than a little white lie; it is a lie told in such a way that it makes the person being lied to feel crazy, and in dramatic cases, start acting like it.”[18] (emphasis mine)

Trump used gaslighting frequently before and during his presidency. He has continued to use it since in his post-2020 election loss denial campaign. He did it so much as President that some called him “Gaslighter-in-Chief.[19]

Carpenter stresses that Trump’s gaslighting method, once a person figures it out, is fairly simple, methodical, and he uses it time and again to great effect. Once a person figures it out, it is also fairly predictable. Carpenter has analyzed Trump’s gaslighting method as having five steps, describing them as:[20]

· Step One- Stake a Claim: In this step, Trump finds a political issue or action that competitors are unwilling to adopt like the Obama “birther” controversy. This ensures a media frenzy.

· Step Two- Advance and Deny: Trump “casts the issue into the public realm without taking direct responsibility by discussing and raising questions raised by others than himself about the issue or action that Trump has raised. He does this pointing out what allegedly “other people are saying” (not him, mind you).

· Step Three- Create Suspense: At this step, Trump announces that evidence about the issue or question he has raised “is forthcoming”. Carpenter points out that Trump can allow this step to go on for “weeks, months, even years”.

· Step Four- Discredit the Opponent: If critics gain traction, Trump responds by attacking their motives and personal character.

· Step Five- Win: Here is when Trump “declares victory”, regardless of the circumstances or the actual outcome. This often takes time “to reveal itself” when Trump is ready to drop the matter.

Think about the years of Trump’s presidency and its multiple fractious controversies, many of them manufactured by Trump himself as a diversion to deflect attention from an issue that he was not doing well with (think Black Lives Matter protests during a raging, out of control pandemic as an example). One can see Trump’s five step gaslighting methodology as outlined by Carpenter’s being used almost every time. Trump especially uses it when his “back is to the wall”, such as during the Russia 2016 election interference investigation.

By the time the Russia investigation was done, Trump had, for many Americans, turned the tables. In their eyes, now Trump was the victim, not our democratic election processes that he and his campaign had undermined. Instead, Mueller and the Federal law enforcement and criminal justice system were now Trump’s persecutors. They, not Trump, had caused all of this to happen. The egregious conduct of Trump’s campaign in its proven collaboration with the Russians (see the final report of the Republican dominated Senate Foreign Intelligence Committee) was somehow “lost in the mix” of Trump’s gaslighting public rhetoric and his distortions of reality. Remember Trump screaming the whole time Mueller was investigating him that this was a “witch hunt” and “there was no collusion” (with the Russians)? Never mind that some of his associates involved in this matter were found guilty and went to jail (some of whom he later granted presidential pardons to- oh well…).

And, what about the person or persons he was gaslighting? They “never knew what hit them”. They seemed astounded that they, not Trump, had become portrayed as “the problem”, and were now seen by many as the ones committing illegal or unethical acts. The Gaslighter-in-Chief has been a master at this, and many Americans have “bought it- hook, line, and sinker”, time after time. People generally behave as they do because it has been successful for them. And so it is for Donald Trump that gas lighting has regularly been his “go to” play because it has worked. Since “Russiagate”, Trump has been impeached twice and faces major civil and criminal charges, all of which he continues to gaslight the American people about.

The Next Step in the Authoritarian’s Repertoire

Gaslighting is insidious and, unfortunately, easily prepares us for the next major result of an absence of critical thinking- conspiracies. Conspiracy theories rely on the logical fallacy mentioned earlier, called “proving non-existence”. Carpenter describes what makes conspiracy theories so attractive in the absence of critical thinking:

“The test for all conspiracy theories, comes down to a scientific concept called “falsifiability”. …The thing that makes the conspiracy theory successful is that there is no way to disprove it…Every successful conspiracy requires that the lack of proof for the theory also be proof of the theory. That is why they persist. There is no way to prove them wrong.”[21] (emphasis mine)

And there is almost nothing we Americans like better than a conspiracy! We will explore them next. Stay tuned… Yet the question remains, are we paying attention to the looming darkness now? Are you paying attention now? Remember the words of the late Beatle George Harrison in his song “Beware of Darkness”:

“Watch out now, take care, Beware of greedy leaders
They take you where you should not go
While Weeping Atlas Cedars
They just want to grow, grow and grow
Beware of darkness”[22]

[4] How Fascism Works, The Politics of Us and Them, by Jason Stanley, pp 218, Ibid.

[5] Reckoning With Authoritarianism”, by Jonathan P. Baird, Concord Monitor, January 1, 2021, 2:10 PM, Ibid

[6] “Aide Tried to Stop Trump Praising Hitler – by Telling Him Mussolini was ‘Great Guy”, by Martha Pengelly ,March 12, 2024, 10:42 EDT, The Guardian.

[7] “I Alone Can Fix It”, by Yoni Appelbaum, The Atlantic, July 21, 2016, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/trump-rnc-speech-alone-fix-it/492557

[8] “Here is What Trump Plans to Do if He Returns to the White House”, by Jill Colvin, November 12, 2023, 7:10 AM CDT, AP News, and “Trump's Vow to Only be a Dictator on His First Day Back in Office”, by Jill Colvin and Bill Barrow, December 7, 2023, 6:58 PM CDT, AP News.

[9] Strongmen, How they Succeed, How They Fail, by Ruth Ben-Ghiat, pg. 93, Ibid

[11] “Opinion: Americans’ Ignorance of History is a National Scandal”, by Max Boot, February 20, 2019, 12:39 p.m. CST, Ibid

[12] Our Ancient Faith, Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment, by Allen C. Guelzo, pg. 163, Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC New York, citing the work of David Runciman, The Confidence Trap, A History of Democracy in Crisis from World War I to the Present, Princeton University Press, 2013.

[13] Lyrics to Stephen Stills' “For What It’s Worth”, www.musixmatch.com.

[14] It Was All a Lie, How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump”, by Stuart Stevens, pg. 56, Ibid

[15] Fantasyland, by Kurt Andersen, pg. 7, Ibid

[16] Illusory truth effect - Wikipedia

[17] “Conway: Trump White House Offered ‘Alternate Facts’ on Crowd Size”, by Eric Bradner, January 23, 2017, Updated 12:38 EST, https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/22/politics/Kellyanne-conway-alternative-facts/index.html.

[18] Gaslighting America, Why We Love It When Trump Lies to Us, by Amanda Carpenter, pg. 14, Ibid

[19] “Gaslighter-in-Chief, by J.D. Crowe, Advance Local, October 6, 2019, https://www/al.com/news/2019/10/trump-gaslighter-in-chief.html

[20] Gaslighting America, Why We Love It When Trump Lies to Us, by Amanda Carpenter, pg. 15, Ibid

[21] Gaslighting America, Why We Love It When Trump Lies to Us, by Amanda Carpenter, pg. 191, Ibid

[22] Lyrics to George Harrison's "Beware of Darkness", Lyrics | Home (lyricfind.com).

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