Republished with permission from Mary Wald
I began researching and writing Sowing Hate and Chaos when, in the middle of another writing project, I ran across a “handbook” outlining a specific form of propaganda intended to pit citizens against citizens, create hatred and division, and ultimately, to collapse democracies. It was written 50 years ago by a noted French neuropsychiatrist. He laid it out in three phases.
We were in the midst of the first round of Donald Trump rallies. They were like nothing we had seen before. I could not miss the fact that they were right out of the handbook. I knew I had stumbled across something important for my country.
As I was researching, translating, and writing during Donald Trump’s first term it became chillingly clear to me that the United States was in Phase 1, the Propaganda of Recruitment and Indoctrination, exactly as the neuropsychiatrist had outlined. As I continued working, the country moved into Phase 2, the Propaganda of Agitation. I watched on January 6 as the phase unfolded before our eyes. I knew I was not writing fast enough.
Today is the first official day of Phase 3: The Propaganda of Integration. This is the phase where uniformity becomes the battle cry, where the outliers are brought into the fold, by force if necessary. It is where education, the media, and the arts are reshaped to meet the narrative of the new regime, where the justice system is unraveled and reshaped to become a tool for elimination of opposing voices.
Integration was completed in the Republican Party years ago, when Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger were run out of the party with pitchforks, when virtually every leader and hero of the party was written out of the narrative, when the history of the party was rewritten and old heroes became new villains. The Republican party became the party of one man.
But creating uniformity is easier with a political party. To eliminate the opposition, you simply send them off, primary them, retire them, mock them until the party is united against them. Achieving the same effect in a country is going to be much harder, and much uglier.
Mary Wald
Mary is also of the author of Sowing Hate and Chaos: How Propaganda Is Being Used to Destroy Democracy. She has been writing, editing, and producing media with Nobel Peace Prize laureates, including former Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, for more than two decades. She is the international media representative for José Ramos-Horta, 1996 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and current President of Timor-Leste.
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