These misleading arguments have been made in campaigns since the beginning of time. The difference today is that people can fact check claims in seconds, if they want, so propaganda should be less effective, not more effective, than it has been in the past. Unfortunately, there is no law that can be written in a democracy to protect voters from making emotional and reckless choices about their own future. Now we have to live with the consequences.

Another reason we should not overstate the impact of this propaganda is that doing so elevates Trump to some kind of master manipulator, when all he is doing is exploiting a trend of selfish, stupid behavior by large swaths of the American electorate.

was the way it was microtargeted, yet sneakily leading people to believe that the ads were targeted to someone else, i.e., Muslims believing they were seeing ads targeted to Jews and vice versa. That's a new technique.

But regardless of whether we agree or not, thank you for responding so thoughtfully and adding to the discussion.

Trump is not the first demagogue in history, and he is not even a particularly good one. He just arrived at a time where big chunks of the electorate feel particularly entitled and willfully ignorant.

Most people have a wealth of knowledge in their pocket, available at a moment's notice. Those that believe nonsense are making a choice to be angry and ignorant. People need to take responsibility for their own decisions and stop blaming it on being manipulated or propaganda. The MAGA movement is about to do irreversible damage to our country. They have no one to blame but themselves.

This is obviously an absurd argument.

Politicians and oligarchs can now sway millions of voters in a very short period of time with lies and manipulation.
Social psychology research tells us how easy it is to do this.

I do agree with you that Americans need to take personal responsibility for their willful ignorance, laziness, and
refusal to be well informed citizens.

This time was much different. The propaganda was carefully thought out, staged and implemented with various target groups.
College and muslim voters.

And today social media and online messages can sway thousands and millions of voters.
For someone to say this has been done since the beginning of politics is ridiculous.

Trump does exploit the reptile-brained people,
and the ads were microtargeted exactly as
WaPo describes.

While factchecking resources are more readily available today than ever before, so, too, is the mis/disinformation that requires factchecking. And most people either are too lazy or do not have the critical thinking skills needed to factcheck.

Furthermore, before, legacy media organizations and figures were trusted enough to provide this service for the public; now, after a decades-long onslaught by right-wingers to discredit such media and that legacy media now kowtowing to the mis/disinformation by presenting """both sides""" -- putting a lie on equal footing with the truth -- it's no surprise that our populace is ignorant when it comes to so many issues today.

Check your spam folder.

Married to a Jew. The trifecta. These are three reasons that played a part. Black women are the most disliked group in America.

One of my Jewish friends who just moved from ATL to western NC. He was spitballing. I’m Asian and he’s Jewish. We are both in our seventies and we gauge this on our life experiences. My dad couldn’t swim in the public pools and Jews have been hated forever.
Black women imo is the most hated sub group in the country. Think about people like Letitia James and Fanni Willis. These women take no crap and that is threatening.

From your post I surmise these things:

1. That an elderly Asian and Jewish man (assuming that you are a man) composing a population of two have an opinion based on antidotal comments over the duration of their lives to date.

2. That females are that intelligent, well-spoken and in positions of power makes you feel threaten. I am not sure if that is all women or just the two Black women you mention. Only you can share that information.

3. And finally, you qualify your original statement by stating that it is now your opinion.

You are better than your original post.

For your follow up.

Without the strength of Black Women — our people would not have survived and endured the American Experience.

While Black men have been targeted via economic pressures, legal and illegal incarceration, miseducation and whatever else this Society of America has thrown at us, Black Women have had our backs and been our strength.

Black Women have (with and without husbands, uncles, brothers, etc.,) been the foundation of the Black family, the backbone of the family. They have worked (at a time when White Women didn’t work) outside of their homes and arrived late to work at our homes.

They have kissed, hugged, loved and spanked us as we needed in doing what was necessary to help us; to help us survive and in some cases to better than we were and could be.

They have endured the rape that was a by-product of slavery (regardless of what the colleges teach about rape being a very minor part of slavery); the attacks on their beauty (by a culture that is euro-centric); the attacks on their views and opinions; and their ability to raise their kids in a society where all cultures are facing difficulties raising kids.

People have said that it is the Black Churches that ensured our survival though ages, true, but it is the Black Women who have been the foundation/infrastructure of the church and the home.

There are problems to be sure, as in every family/culture, but we are who we are because of the women in our lives (and that is true of every group).

So, go ahead Fanni, Lelia and other women (of all colors) do what you can to aggressively save this nation and its people.

Women in general don’t get the respect they deserve. Anyone remember John Lennon’s “Woman is the Nigger of the World”? I’d guess for Black women, that goes double or triple.

https://open.spotify.com/track/6uKsrF9ejNeVy0lZvOQFdp

And

https://www.beatlesbible.com/people/john-lennon/songs/woman-is-the-nigger-of-the-world/

Thank you for the article found the entire at the archives.

https://archive.ph/u9o7C

It’s a lost cause and supporting an apartheid ethno state that is engaged in genocide is a bad look. Israel is an Rightwing theocracy it is not a Democracy. Ever notice that it’s the one issue that Democrats and Republicans agree on?

because they aided and abetted the Orange Traitor

Neither did the NY Times. The press reports facts. They also print opinions. Those opinions/pundit pieces are not facts. They are opinion. Just because the Times/Post prints something you don't agree with doesn't mean they're traitors. People need to stop confusing news from opinion. Fox doesn't. That's one of the reasons their viewers are so fucked up.

they also select the facts they choose to present in order to fit a narrative in modern times since the media is now owned by the wealthy who have a motive.

this wasn't the case when news/media were locally owned.

I worked at the newspaper for over three decades. All the groundwork for putting together a newspaper is in the newsroom. It’s not in the executive board. There seems to be this conspiracy theory that executives layout newspapers and write headlines. They do not. Newsroom editors, and copy editors to that work. There were newsroom meetings in my day, but the meetings were more organizational as to what department was doing what each day. There were newsroom meetings in my day, but the meetings were more organizational as to what department was doing. What each day. Said the basic news work is done by editors, who edit reporters work.As I said, the basic news work is done by editors, who edit reporters work. It’s not the conspiracy that many in social media believe it is.

i grew up in washington, dc. i read the paper every day. today, i would not waste my time or money on this rag. democracy dies when institutions like the post become the toys of rich motherfvkkers like jeff bezos.

A VERY TINY piece of me wonders if some of these voters cast a protest vote anticipating a Harris victory, but without their vote. Hard to believe they think Trump’s policy is better, unless I am missing something.

Yeah, they were just waiting around, doing nothing until the "tubes" were invented so they could, all of a sudden, use them for propaganda.
Good thing they didn't have partisan newspapers, town criers, wealthy cliques or especially churches back before the net to influence other stupid people!
As to the rich, new feudal overlords, they feel they and only they have a say over what happens to their domains. It's just that all of them seem to be the same greedy wannabe kings and have the means to influence the sheep with those archaic abilities and, gosh, even lies, like the net. Good thing the Post and Times and other media didn't take the bait and become slaves to those pieces of silver.

...is WaPo trolling us.

I don't think this is a troll. There were plenty of good articles about Trump's crazy behavior and crazy promises.

The bigger problem is that the only people reading WaPo already know Trump is crazy. If you read the comments under articles, 99% are always informed, anti-Trump comments. The rest are bots.

Not enough people read actual news sources, though. They listen to Joe Rogan and think they've done "research."

...and the editors know this.

And in an effort to get more readers, Bezos hires more conservative hacks and cravenly refuses to endorse the most obvious better choice in U.S. history.

I was fully informed about Trump's awfulness precisely because I read WaPo.

And his interference with the editorial side was a shocking aberration.

News services like the Washington Post heralded false flag reporting. I dropped my subscription when they started bad-mouthing Joe Biden for suspect memory problems while ignoring the same problem with Donald Trump. The Washington Post's dishonest reporting was too much for me. Those reporters were following directions and not reporting fairly for the American voter; they were reporting to satisfy their editors. I subscribe to the Guardian now and am happy with their reporting.

Their morals are relative and they cannot be trusted to tell the truth.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/15/republican-ads-false-flag/

"SNIP...........

With digital spots, direct mail, text messages, influencer marketing and mobile billboards, the overall project was a high-tech experiment in misdirection — an old political tactic that has been sharpened in recent decades with increasingly precise targeting techniques.

Ads tested better if Muslims felt they were seeing a message meant for Zionists, “Bernie bros” felt they were hearing from the far left, and “Zyn bros” felt they were hearing from activists who wanted “a world without gas-powered vehicles,” a ban on fracking and affordable housing for undocumented Americans — policies Harris did not actually support during her campaign.

“The worst part is Kamala Harris talks out of both sides of her mouth,” said one of the ads, which was designed by Trump supporters to look as if it was advocating for leftist priorities like “free health care” and a “break on tuition.”

............SNIP"