There’s a book on my mind that I
don’t want to write. For decades I’ve
noted and socked away research relating to trends in message control, what some
call “spin”, specifically as its being used by the Right in Canada and the
US. But getting into that mindset is painful. It's like method acting, it doesn't turn off easily, so I really don't want to write about it despite feeling doing so is a public service.
And before Defenders of the Right try to
chime in, let me stop you right there. As I'll show in this post Conservative message control is intentionally evil and insane. And I have decades of examples and evidence
to prove it.
Yes, all political movements are
guilty of spin, framing and trying to stage or control their message, but its use by other political parties is largely limited to their ideal vision of
things. Where it gets co-opted is when the
compromises necessary in a democracy often subvert the ideal as a matter of practicality
in order to get the support they need to make any progress at all.
For example: Obama’s Affordable
Care Act was compromised when the Democrats agreed to some conditions certain
Republicans wanted put in. Even though
the Democrats knew those provisions were being put in so those same Republicans
could then attack the ACA as flawed. The Democrats agreed because ‘something
was better than nothing’. The idea on
the Left was to compromise in order to move the goal post forward. Society is a living thing so once the bar moved a bit then fixes could be put in later.
The idea on the Right was to force
compromise so they could later prove it didn’t work. The very idea that because one version didn’t
work no version could work is at the heart of Conservative attacks. Liberals and Democrats lose support because supporters on the Left expect perfection first time and Conservatives know that. This by the way is the real reason we end up with Conservative governments.
Where normal ideas by non-Conservative parties are
corrupted is when those compromises lead to people who force decisions that benefit them in exchange for their support. More
often it’s third party benefits, delivering on promises to Lobby groups in exchange for support of a Bill or entitlement style kick-backs to those third-party supporters (ie: I’ll vote for this Bill if Component X of this other Program is put in my State. Knowing the only party that can win the bid is my biggest donor, Company Y).
This was how the US Space Program got to the Moon. They put an entitlement
project in nearly every State they needed Senate support for so that those
elected officials wouldn’t cut the program for fear of causing job losses among
their electorate – even though that increased program costs by more than
12%. That's compromise.
And in case you’ve spotted the similarity,
these examples are 'quid pro quo', this for that or something for something. And such compromises are actually the foundation of
how democracies are supposed to work.
The current issue with Darth Cheetoh in the White House isn’t that there
was a ‘quid pro quo’, it’s what the ‘this for that’ was about – election manipulation
with the assistance of a foreign government.
And there will be ‘quid pro quo’
in Canada’s new Parliament because in order for Justin Trudeau to maintain the 'confidence
of the House' he will have to ‘this for that’ with another party or block in order for his government to
survive. Whether he does a formal
coalition with the NDP that will see the tiny party of 24 members effectively
control the legislative agenda this Parliament, or whether he seeks support on
a Bill-by-Bill basis as Stephen Harper did when he had the longest lasting
minority government in Canadian history, only time will tell. The risk of a the Harper option is while it avoids the pitfalls and overspending that trying to satisfy two party
bases require in a formal coalition it can also see the mood of the House turn on you like a bitch.
But getting back to the reason I'm reluctant to write one particular book: Ever
since Mike Harris won as Premier of Ontario, and I suspect even a bit earlier
when Preston Manning began the Reform Party of Canada, there’s only one party
openly and actively lying. Deliberately
saying what they believe their base and voters want to hear in order to get and
maintain power and then doing what they really want to, often in opposition to
what they said, and mostly to satisfy their big donors.
And Republicans, Reformers, and
Conservatives do this by using two ideas that either originated in or were refined in the 1940’s. Gaslighting and Propaganda.
The psychological term gaslighting describes a form of psychological abuse in which the victim is gradually manipulated into doubting his or her own reality, or more commonly in this era being fed an alternate reality (“alt+facts”). Although it’s more commonly attributed to the
second film adaptation from 1944, it originated from the 1938 play “Gas Light” written
by Patrick Hamilton.
Gaslighting means emotionally manipulating others by undermining
their confidence and calling their credibility into question. In a relationship this is mostly a form of attack but the techniques are used by the Right to both frame their
message and attack their opposition.
The second part of that, the
attack, turns gaslighting into an art by incorporating an additional paradigm:
The teachings of NAZI Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. Goebbels taught, “Always accuse your opponent
of that which you are guilty of.” And
sadly, when you look at the facts, the history of Debt spending in Canada, the
Parliamentary record, the Bank of Canada reports and nearly every independent
study of Government both in Canada and the US for the last 30 years clearly
show that if a Conservative says "only they can unite" something it’s only because they’re principally the ones sowing the seeds of division. In fact, nearly everything a Conservative or Republican tells you is upon investigation actually the opposite of what they're doing.
So, as Steven Harper did for 9 years,
they’ll say they’re balancing the budget even while they blow the $100 Billion
that was paid on the debt by the previous government over 12 years, and then
borrow another $70 Billion while they hack away at minor support services that
the most vulnerable in society rely upon, leaving government with the greatest
non-war time spending increase in Canadian history.
Or as the Republican’s have
shown, the 2 terms of George W Bush and Trump’s so far have tripled the US Debt
three fold increasing military spending under the guise of 'Defending America' while decreasing revenue through tax breaks that benefit only a tiny
percentage of Americans, yet they continue to attack Healthcare as the thing
that will bankrupt America despite it costing a fraction of what the tax cuts
did while helping nearly half the US population. And Obama’s debt went up at the slowest rate
of any President in the last 40 years.
But if those last 2 paragraphs
are a surprise to you its because you’ve been emotionally manipulated by others
who have repeatedly and systemically called into question the credibility of
independent facts. Or as the man most guilty of gas lighting calls it, “Fake news.”
