Lacking successes to celebrate, if you don’t count corruption and mendacity as positive accomplishments, the shape of the Trump campaign to come will be to cry fake news while running a fake campaign. Case in point: gun control.
After the recent spate of mass shootings, on the lawn heading for golf, the president said that clearly something had to be done about assault weapons and background checks. Then, after a come to Satan meeting with the NRA, he announced that “background checks wouldn’t have stopped any of it” and talk of gun control ceased.
Perhaps aware that even active shooters thought doing nothing was politically risky, Trump then adopted a new spin, claiming to be working hard on the subject. “We’re doing a package…We’re looking at a lot of different bills, ideas, concepts.”
Anyone who has watched Trump for more than five minutes knows by now that none of this is true. Nothing has been put forward. It is unclear that anyone is working on such a project. So, don’t hold your breath. Clearly he is vamping until the furor dies down, and he can go back to ignoring the issue until the next mass murderer.
That would be that, except for reporting by the Washington Post. Due to it, we know this is far from the whole story. Something a good deal more sinister than mere fecklessness or political expediency is at work. (See: “After latest shooting, Trump pushes Facebook ads ‘straight from the NRA playbook,”by Isaac Stanley-Becker, September 3, 2019).
At the same time that Trump was assuring the mainstream media in person on the White House driveway that the administration was all over the problem of gun violence, the Trump campaign was busy on-line saying the exact opposite.
The technique was that used by Russia to elect Trump in 2016, which qualifies as the sincerest form of flattery. Putin must be gratified. Ads are posted on Facebook that target individuals who belong to selected demographic segments of the electorate in crucial states or districts.
So, one ad appeared with the text “Democrats have finally admitted what they truly want, a repeal of the Second Amendment…It’s up to the American people to stand strong and defend our freedoms.” Wayne LaPierre couldn’t have put it better.
Another Facebook post in the format of a TV campaign ad features the usual “foreboding music,” and promises “Your second amendment will never BE REPEALED.” Note the Trump-on-Twitter all caps style.
This post included an invitation to sign the “Official Defend the Second Amendment Petition,” complete with the customary request for name, email, zip code, phone number, the better to inundate the petitioner with endless alarming posts and solicitations for donations. The gun you save may be your own.
This is the internet age update of the direct mail pioneered by right-wing fund-raiser Richard Viguerie. The medium is different; the technique is identical. Target likely voters. Send them fake news demonizing the other party and warning them if nothing is done the end of life as they know is nigh. Tell them what to do to save themselves. Send money. Vote for Candidate X.
These posts, authored by the Trump campaign without necessarily saying so, targeted “left-leaning states wth a sizable population of gun owners such as Oregon and Washington as well as a handful of Midwestern states including Michigan and Ohio.” Another version was aimed at men 45 to 54 in Louisiana.
Trump has spent $5 million since June on such Facebook ads. Social media is fast becoming one of the most potent tools for unscrupulous modern campaigns. It combines precise targeting of chosen demographic and psychographic segments of the electorate with the ability to deliver dishonest and inflammatory messages you wouldn’t want the larger public to see clandestinely.
Facebook fake news is also cost effective compared to budget-busting mass media and allows dark money to be deployed to mislead, distort, and dissemble, the better to clouding men’s minds. All with with no accountability. You can disguise the identify of the advertiser and say one thing to group A and something completely different to Group B.
No wonder the Putin’s cyber warriors have used it to undermined elections in many of the 27 countries where Russian interference has been documented including Canada, Denmark, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Now, thanks to this report, we know the Trump campaign, in collaboration with the Republican National Committee, is busily running a similar stealth disinformation operation hidden from plain view. It seeks to influence voters using fraudulent messages sent from a front organization whose connection to the president and his party may never be revealed. The entire effort is invisible to the rest of the electorate, probably because they would find it outrageous, undemocratic, and dishonest. In short, Trumpian.