The Myth of the 'Interconnected Threat'

How TRUE disinformation structures and sways public (mis-)understanding

→ The latest swing state polls: Trump is in the lead in almost every swing state, as per polls released since February 20. You’ve got Arizona: Trump 46%, Biden 43%. There’s Nevada: Trump 46%, Biden 40%. And what about Georgia? Trump 48%, Biden 42%. It goes on and on. Now, let’s slow down. These aren’t Biden-should-just-give-up-and-go-home-and-eat-ice-cream numbers. And Florida and Ohio aren’t on the list. But they’re still numbers. Aren’t numbers supposed to be good? 

For a hint about the disconnect going on, here’s MSNBC interviewing the authors of a new book called White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy this week. Host Mika Brzezinski gamely begins: “Tom, I’ll start with you. Why are white rural voters a threat to democracy?” Oh, boy. Tom’s ready. Here’s Tom Schaller, who is a white man but based in Washington, D.C., thank God: “We lay out the fourfold interconnected threat that white rural voters pose to the country. First of all, they are the most racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-gay demographic in the country. Second, they’re the most conspiracist group: QAnon support and subscribers, election denialism, Covid denialism and scientific skepticism, Obama birtherism. Third: anti-democratic sentiments. They don’t believe in an independent press, free speech, they’re most likely to say the president should be able to act unilaterally. . . . they’re also the most strongly white nationalist and white Christian nationalist. And fourth: they’re most likely to excuse or justify violence as an acceptable alternative to peaceful public discourse.” 

The American press spent years sending 23-year-old Harvard graduates to small-town diners, years funding foray after foray into Trump country, and this is the best that was learned? This is the sum of that knowledge? These are the intellectuals of the Biden era? I have rural family, and yes, absolutely, it’s exactly as Tom described, in that there were all these tiny humanoids running around, almost like hairless micro-labradoodles, if you can picture that. I forget what they call them, mids, tids, or something. Terrifying. Anyway, with these pundits at the helm, swing states are going to go great.

The FREE PRESS - TGIF: Bad Things Happened

I would imagine that MOST of the claims made by Tom Schaller, above, are so conditional that they are basically worthless as means of social science, or as means of understanding the cultural attitudes of a population. Were I the MSNBC presenter (a big if, certainly) I might have asked:

• When you say the most racist, does that include:

  • support for racially-biased selection criteria for jobs or college spots? No-that would be white urban progressive in the upper middle class or above;

  • support for racially segregated housing and events and messages? No-ditto;

  • hate crimes against Asians or Hispanics? No-that would be young black men;

  • anti-Semitic attitudes or crimes? No-that would be Muslim Americans;

    In what sense, then, can you say that a huge demographic in the country is “the most racist” under these conditions when they are not the group in question for each of these queries? What questions or assumptions brackets this claim and do those questions erode the meaning of the claim to incoherence?

• When you say “the most anti-immigrant” does that include the views of legally arrived immigrants and first-generation citizens? In my experience they are actually the most opposed to illegal immigration (and the distinction is surely of prime importance, even though it is ignored here)

• When you say COVID denialism, do you mean: denial of the science on COVID which indicates that vaccines don’t adequately reduce transmission; or the science (that seems settled) showing that masking was ineffective; or that school closures and other social policies had tremendous negative externalities? This is all COVID science… but I imagine that this is not the COVID denialism he’s talking about

• Does scientific skepticism include weird and unscientific beliefs about gender, or the article of faith that youth sex modification surgeries save lives? Again, I doubt this is what he means

This is a brief primer on the second-most preferred tactic of obfuscation (“disinformation”, if you will) on the Left. First is guilt by association (example: Joe Rogan has ‘platformed’ doctors skeptical of medical orthodoxy or guests who question biological males participating in women’s sports, therefore Rogan is a COVID denier and a transphobe, therefore anyone who speaks to him is a COVID denier and a transphobe, and anyone who speaks to them, etc.; It is an endless chain of guilt based on poorly-understood and -represented ideas and arguments).

The second-most preferred tactic is the re-definition: define a word or a term to exclude everything you desire, and blur the actual motives or arguments of a related group, then transmit the new meaning to a group of people who share your biased and emotional attachments. That new term will become part of their understanding and will thicken the walls of prejudice or hostility towards anyone outside the epistemological group.

BLM was literally DEFINED as a worthy and just movement by the media. Every (one of the many) contrary facts was ignored. With the definition, everyone who questioned BLM became ‘right-wing’… and was defined as a bigot. When the news appeared that BLM had mismanaged tens of millions of dollars the news cycle had already moved on and the aims of legacy journalists had mostly been achieved. The truth didn’t matter… but, these days, it rarely does.

Example: define ‘racist’ so that it ONLY applies to white people who oppose set-asides or benefits for nonwhite people on the basis of race (even if this opposition is not due to racism whatsoever and is simply a matter of principle or policy conclusions). It gets a little messier when black people are the ones in opposition but it’s very common to see white Leftists scolding nonwhite people for ‘racist’ attitudes. Not only does this muddy the waters, and prevent the believers (the in-group) from hearing or considering the arguments of their opposition, but it tars that opposition as bigots (even the millions of nonwhite people who inexplicably believe these ‘racist’ ideas).

The only true interpretation becomes the Leftist one, and falsehood and bigotry are literally baked in to their understanding and definition of differing views. This is how we come to a point in which millions of legalized immigrants are “anti-immigrant” bigots according to the Left, or how million of gay men and lesbians are “anti-LGBTQ”. It’s incoherent and it’s messy but as long as you fool >90% of your readers (who nearly always share your bias) >90% of the time the system works and the walls stay up, and communication becomes impossible.

After this is repeated about 20 million times the media begins to write articles about the targeted groups developing ‘anti-journalism’ or ‘anti-science’ bias and moaning about misinformation (with a common implication: that legal and governmental measures are required) flowing to the public. This misinformation is, quite literally, defined as anything which counters their narratives. If you define words to mean exactly what you want them to you have found a cheat code to the suggestion and manipulation of vast numbers of ordinary citizens.

Remember: the answers to all of these issues is more and better communication.

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