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Nancy Pelosi at Taipei. Photograph Source: Office of U.S. House Speaker Public Domain

The Democratic Party leadership, along with the Liz Cheney wing of the Republican Party, seems intent on provoking a war with both Russia and China at the same time, all supposedly out of love for democracy and opposition to tyranny. The sidewalks of cities across the US are increasingly filled with the stench of the dead, who have passed away inside the tents in which they spent their last days. And you can still hear liberals wondering aloud why anyone would possibly vote for Trump again.

I just dont understand it, theyll say. How can people be so stupid that theyll vote against their own class interests?

Dont tell the liberals that the average Democrat in the Congress is worth a bit more than the average Republican. They dont want to be confused by reality. In their minds, the Democrats are still the party of the working class. You know, the party that it almost maybe was, for a few years in the 1930s, when it had to be.

Have you ever listened to one of Trumps speeches, from beginning to end?

Its my favorite question to ask anyone on the liberal-left spectrum. The vast majority of the time, after a bit of hedging, the answer is no.

If the average liberal used 1% of the time they spend asking other liberals why Trump is so popular just listening to how Trump and his supporters look at things, a lot more people could start developing some useful perspective here. But the liberals are as siloed into their propaganda sources as the rightwingers are stuck into theirs.

In the liberals digested version of MAGA, its all about scapegoating marginalized people for societys problems. To the extent that there are real problems the MAGA crowd is upset about, such as constantly declining standards of living for most people in this country since the 1970s or so, this is to be blamed on white people resenting their loss of privilege.

That is, the Forgotten Man that Trump and his supporters have been going on about for years day in and day out, is to remain forgotten.

But what if these Forgotten People, however they define themselves, dont want to be Forgotten? What if this massive, intersectional base of MAGA support that the liberals dismiss as privileged think there might be more to life than continual decline? What is the solution offered by the liberals to all of this?

Here in Oregon, if we look to the gubernatorial race currently underway in this state completely controlled by the Democratic Partys supermajority, the three main candidates being mentioned in the press agree that homelessness is a big problem, and the most visionary solution any of them seem to be able to offer is that the state government should find the resources to at least house the homeless veterans. Which, after all the time theyve been running this state, they havent managed to do yet.

In contrast with the politicians of the more populist right and their media outlets, who vilify the marginalized groups they scapegoat for the decline in fortunes of the working class, the line of the elements of the corporate press and politicians who position themselves as progressives, for the most part, is to ignore class, unless its related to race, gender, sexuality, immigration status, physical disability, mental illness, being an abuse survivor, or otherwise being part of some kind of marginalized group other than the biggest one of them all, that the vast majority of all of the marginalized groups are a member of (the working class).

For those of us who are participating in the creation of or the consumption of news stories, songs, and whatever else seeking to humanize marginalized elements of society that are constantly being vilified, lied about, and scapegoated by the right, what we do we do with positive intentions. Which, on the face of it, is obvious. But when all the tales of marginalization come in combination with the clear absence of stories that tie the rights divide-and-conquer scapegoating propaganda in with any kind of explanation for why most of US society that is, white people are in the impoverished and struggling state that most of us are in, were left coming up empty.

The ingenuity of the liberal media and liberal academia in terms of finding well-intended journalists and academics to go along with the program and work neatly with the agenda of the liberal elite is its an easy policy to engage in, with little brainwashing required. For those who have had experience with corporate or public media outlets, or with careers in academia, much less explanation is necessary. Anyone who has been close to these circles quickly discovers that it is generally not the journalists or the academics who decide what theyre doing stories or research about, so much as which stories, documentaries, research proposals, departments, etc., are funded, and which arent.

Especially if youre not dealing with the one-minute digested version of realities exposed by good journalism or academic research, an investigation into how the housing crisis has affected the Black population of Portland, for example, will undoubtedly also highlight how gentrification has similarly impacted the working class generally. And there are lots of good reasons to focus research on how the housing crisis affects the Black population specifically. But when any story or paper related to poverty always has to have a particular connection to forms of marginalization other than the most significant one, in a country where the overall standard of living of the working class has been declining for the past fifty years, an impression is developed.

How and why this impression is developed will vary depending on whos involved. For the journalist or the academic, the information being provided may be real enough, and also even very important. For those pulling the strings, and for those consuming the digested results of the research and reportage coming out of what we might call the Nonprofit Industrial Complex, its fairly clear what they think the takeaway here is:

Ignore the wizard behind the curtain. This is more or less a classless society is the message. Anyone inferring otherwise is some kind of conspiracy theorist talking about the Forgotten Man and scapegoating the very groups we are constantly seeking to humanize. And were humanizing them all so well, arent we? Listen to how well we humanize the scapegoated, and ignore the wizard who isnt really there. The loss of your privilege is to be expected. Its not really part of an overall decline under late-stage monopoly capitalism run by a corrupt system led by old, rich, white people, half of whom call themselves Democrats. Blame those who are blaming the scapegoated groups that were humanizing. Once we have a society free of prejudice, everyone will be happy and prosperous, by some magic process that shall not be defined.

And if thats not enough, and we still want to figure out why most of us are so poor, even though were white?

Good luck.

This is where the Progressive Industrial Complex comes in. I may be the first anarchist to use this term, so Ill explain what I mean by that.

If were defining the Nonprofit Industrial Complex as that complex of entities that together create much of the output of journalistic and academic endeavors coming out of much of the left-liberal spectrum, which tends to define the spectrums orientation generally, then the Progressive Industrial Complex is what happens with these articles, books, documentaries, and research papers after theyre out there in the world. It is what a Subreddit or a Facebook Group is to the New York Times.

This is the arena in which the ideas that are being continually implied by the Nonprofit Industrial Complex come home to roost, in the form of identitarian psychobabble. It doesnt seem to be much of a stretch in many social circles, once youve heard enough stories about the suffering of so many different groups marginalized on account of race, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, or disability, to draw the conclusion that the only suffering that goes on in society happens to these particular marginalized groups.

Thus, if nonmarginalized (read white male) people are suffering, and it is not because of the scapegoated groups, nor is it because of a broken, rigged, and declining capitalist system, then it is our fault. The suicide and drug overdose rate among this group of people would suggest a lot of us have internalized this message very well.

Those who are looking for explanations to societys ills that are based in understanding the problems created by the division of society into classes, and the relations between these classes in the context of a capitalist economic system with an extreme, pro-business legal framework, will be denounced as class reductionists, closet racists, or maybe even just plain racists, and for good measure, probably sexists and transphobes, too. For pointing out that the general decline of the working class over the past fifty years in this society is the most central factor in the rise of the far right, which is daily capitalizing on this dire situation, you will be called many names by many people, if anyones paying attention to what you say at all.

Perhaps the most laughable part about the intellectual infrastructure of the US identitarian, new new lefts loss of privilege line of reasoning about the rise of the right is how much it requires that you have national blinders on in order to believe a word of it. Because all it takes is a cursory glance at just about any other country on the planet to see that the decline in living standards for the working class majority in this country is something that is happening in so many other places at the same time, including in countries with very different demographics and histories from ours, such as India or Brazil, where the idea of calling any large segment of the population privileged or at risk of a loss of privilege is patently ridiculous.

Of course, we could draw the conclusion that the rise of the far right in India is all about privileged Hindus not wanting to share their country with Muslims. We could draw the conclusion from the rise of the right in Brazil that the more privileged elements of society just want to steal more indigenous land. We could also understand the Brexit vote in England as nativist Britons wanting to keep their fancy country for themselves, and kick out all the foreigners. We could interpret the Yellow Vest movement in France as somehow antisemitic, rather than anti-elitist.

Or we could see how the right is defining the situation for people in these and other countries, and how the visible elements of the left are generally talking about everything other than the central problem all of these societies face. Because those visible elements of the left, or what people see when theyre looking for the lefts perspective on the situation, are represented by the leadership of entities such as the British Labor Party, the Socialist Party in France, the Democrats in the US, and the equivalents of these parties in India (the Congress Party) and Brazil (the Workers Party), etc. And all of these parties, perhaps with the exception of the Brazilian example, have long ago embraced all of the excesses of capitalism, and the global model of development producing ever-growing chasms of inequality put forward by the World Bank and the neoliberal economists from the Chicago School.

Why dont we hear from these Democratic leaders since the DNC rigged the primaries and made sure Bernie wouldnt get the nomination about the division of wealth in this country, or how it keeps getting worse under capitalism, and how we need to radically redistribute it in order to even think about getting anywhere towards a decent, fair society? For the same reasons you wont hear the Republican leadership talk about this. Because both parties are led by the rich, in the service of the rich, and the system of capitalism that keeps them rich.

For the right, the logic is pretty consistent for the past century or more. Harness prejudice of all kinds, weaponize the suffering of the working class to serve your ends, which generally have to do with serving the interests of the corporate elite. A long time ago, the left sought to address the suffering of the working class by organizing against the corporate elite, and challenging racism and xenophobia as tools of the plutocrats, used to keep the working class divided.

To the extent that there is anything left involved with the Democratic Party or the class-blind identitarianism it wholeheartedly embraces, the visible lefts contemporary answer to working class suffering is to say that the white workers just need to check our privilege and get on with the belt-tightening, because now we have to lose our privilege, and make room for the marginalized groups that are now going to share the little tiny slice of the pie weve all been scrapping for for the past 500 years. As far as I can tell, the message from the liberals to the white working class was summed up by the Sex Pistols forty years ago: theres no future for you.

Back in the 1930s, the US had a sufficiently class-oriented progressive government to keep the Great Depression from turning the general population in a more radical direction than it was already going in. The federal government recognized the importance of a strong labor movement, and for the government to take a central role in housing and feeding the population, and putting people to work building infrastructure, taking care of each other, and making art and music. In the 1930s, many people naturally began to conflate ideas like socialism and equality with patriotic Americanism.

In Germany, the forces of liberal democracy werent able to or, depending on which ones, didnt want to hold the radicals at bay by finding a way to keep the population fed, and the radicals that came out on top were the Nazis. The National Socialists, as they called themselves. The ones who talked about the Forgotten Man, scapegoated marginalized groups, and united around a bombastic, charismatic leader, at a time when so many normally non-marginalized members of the population in Germany were destitute. An overall situation that is almost shockingly familiar except from my vantage point, the US today looks far more like Weimar Germany than like FDRs America.

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The Progressive Industrial Complex and Our Fascist Future - CounterPunch

On Tuesday, New York voters will decide their party nominees to head into the November midterm elections. Two races closely followed by theGrio are the primary contests for New Yorks 10th and 16th Districts, where sitting Black progressive members of Congress, U.S. Reps. Mondaire Jones and Jamaal Bowman are battling to keep their seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Bowman and Jones were elected in 2020 after taking on long-serving, veteran (and moderate) Democrats in their districts. Since being elected to Congress, the liberal politicians have made a name for themselves as leading, young, progressive, Black voices in Congress, championing various issues from student debt cancellation to expanding the Supreme Court.

But this primary season has shown to be a test of strength for the progressive lawmakers, as Joneswho made history as the first openly gay Black man elected to Congressand Bowman confront competitive races against more moderate candidates. While both district races are very different in nature and constituency, their outcomes will undoubtedly have consequences for Black (and Black LGBTQ+) representation in Washington and policy issues important to Black and brown communities.

In separate interviews with theGrio, both Jones and Bowman reflected on what theyve achieved in their first terms in Congress and why they believe they should be elected to serve another two years.

Congressman Jones race in New Yorks 10th Congressional District is undoubtedly the most competitive Democratic primary in the state, and arguably across the country.

The 35-year-old politician had a windy journey this election season, having first been challenged in his current 17th Congressional District by fellow Democrat Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, following a court-ordered redrawing of the state congressional map. Maloney, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC)which is tasked with the job of electing more Democrats in the Housewas lambasted by Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), for challenging Jones, a sitting Democrat in Congress.

Criticisms online also revealed outrage over the racial implications of a white man in leadership running to unseat the nations first openly gay Black congressman. Jones ultimately decided not to run for reelection in his district against Maloney. Another option was running against Bowman, a fellow progressive, in the 16th District, but ultimately, he decided to run for a solid Democratic 10th District seat in New York City.

Jones has raised over $3 million throughout his campaign and spent considerably on TV ads in the city emphasizing his connection to the districts historical LGBTQ+ roots, and his educational and professional rise despite being raised by a single mother while living on Section 8 housing and food stamps. Hes also touted his legislative work as a progressive champion.

Im the only member of Congress in this race and a leading progressive who has delivered results for New Yorks 10th District already when it comes to billions of dollars for schools, housing, health care and infrastructure, Jones told theGrio, pointing to laws hes voted for in Congress, including the American Rescue Plan and Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act.

The New York Democrat said he is uniquely prepared to meet this moment, adding, Im doing battle with Republicans even while pushing Democrats to fight harder for the things that we say we believe in.

Jones, who was once named the most active freshman in Congress, said hes proud of his role as a bridge builder and negotiator between progressives like him and conservative Democrats. But Jones could potentially be ousted from Congress as polls have indicated that moderate candidate, Daniel Goldman, a multimillionaire and Levis Strauss heir, holds a consistent lead in the crowded race among polled voters in the district.

Jones and his other opponents in the race have taken aim at Goldman, accusing him of buying the congressional seat as he has reportedly invested $4 million of his own money into the campaign. Goldman also received endorsements from the New York Times (despite also praising Jones), and shockingly, from former President Donald Trump.

Mr. Trumps endorsement of Dan Goldman tracks, Jones said of Goldman, who he criticized for his investments in Fox News, his support for abortion restrictions and opposing prominent progressive legislation like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.

It makes sense to me that Mr. Trump would think Dan Goldman is best positioned to defeat progressives in this race, which is what he said in his endorsement, he said.

Mr. Goldman is an out-of-touch multimillionaire who lives in a $22 million condo, Jones added.This is not someone who represents the values of this deeply progressive district.

Recognizing the high stakes of this race, Jones told theGrio to lose me in the House would be a blow to our democracy and the fight to protect fundamental rights.

I have been a leading progressive member of Congress, who has brought the rest of the Democratic caucus with him on issues like Supreme Court expansion, and voting rights and democracy reforms, he explained.

Jamaal Bowman, a former school principal turned politician, has quickly raised his public profile as the only male member of the progressive collective of lawmakers known as The Squadwhich includes AOC and Reps. Ayanna Pressley, Cori Bush, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.

Similar to Jones, Bowmans race has been shaped by redistricting. The congressman, who represents parts of the Bronx, had a significant number of Black residents drawn out of the 16th Congressional District.

Rep. Bowmans moderate opponents have taken aim at his more liberal stances like defunding the police and his voting against the bipartisan infrastructure law that he and members of the Squad boycotted in an effort to save another major Democratic bill known as Build Back Better.

Yes, I am a progressive. Yes, I am a member of the Squad, if you will, said Bowman, but also emphasized his endorsements by Democratic Party leadership in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Its not as much about whether you call yourself progressive or moderate or conservative. Its more about how you show up and how you get the job done.

Bowman said he believes voters are motivated by good leadership, not any particular faction or ideology within a party. I know in my district, we continue to get a very high level of support, because people believe and feeland I agree with themthat weve been able to meet their needs over these last couple of years.

He added, Its about servant leadership and compassionate leadership, and its about showing up for your district and speaking truth to power on the issues that matter most to them.

Rep. Bowman touted his and his staffs work on both the national and local level, from closing more than 3,000 cases of interventions with federal agencies like the IRS for his constituents, writing proposals for community project funding and helping constituents refinance their mortgages, including access to millions of dollars for home repairs. In total, he said hes helped his constituents save roughly $3 million.

Bowman also pointed out that hes introduced around 45 pieces of legislation, and his offices writing of a resolution condemning the racist ideology known as the great replacement theory, which was passed in the House. The congressman said he was also proud to have Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as the Senate lead on his Care for All resolution that centers care as part of the rebirth of the American economy.

As Reps. Jones and Bowman hope to come out victorious in their respective primary races, Democrats in Washington are hoping their legislative accomplishments over the past two yearsincluding the most recent Inflation Reduction Act signed into law by President Joe Bidencan be enough to hold on to power in Congress to continue the Biden-Harris agenda for the next two years. Both congressmen expressed faith in the partys ability to win over voters in the November elections less than 90 days away.

We have a lot to celebrate, Bowman told theGrio. We should be on the upswing and we have to make sure were communicating clearly, consistently, concisely and effectively, so that the American people can know what weve done and get on board with what we need to do.

Jones said that Democrats in the Senate have a very good chance of holding or even growing their majority, pointing to how well our candidates in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Ohio are doing. With respect to the House, he said, we are at a systemic disadvantage due to partisan gerrymandering in red states in this country.

The congressman continued, We can still keep the House, but it means weve got to message well the accomplishments that weve had over this term and convince Americans that we will build on those accomplishments if they return us to power.

TheGrio is FREE on your TV via Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku and Android TV. Also,please download theGrio mobile appstoday!

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New York progressive Democratic Reps. Jamaal Bowman and Mondaire Jones battle to stay in Congress - TheGrio

A lot has changed since the last time Netroots Nation came to the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in 2009. Back then, Barack Obama had just taken office and the future looked bright for the progressive movement embodied by the gathering.

This years event, which organizers say should attract roughly 2,500 attendees, takes place at the same venue, but in a much murkier moment. A U.S. Supreme Court decision overturned the constitutional right to abortion, Democrats have until very recently often seemed adrift under President Joe Biden, and the country is less than three months out from an election that is expected to be challenging for his party.

But state Rep. Austin Davis, the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor and a headliner at the event, says Pittsburghs recent political history offers an inspiring lesson.

If I would have told you six years ago that the mayor of Pittsburgh would be Black, and that we are on the verge of having a Black female congressional representative, and that the states first Black lieutenant governor would come from here you would have said, I dont think so."

What the past six years show, he said, is that progressives can win by elevating the voices of people who are on the ground. I say this in my speeches all the time: The people who are closest to the pain should be closest to the power. We embrace that here in Pittsburgh, and I think you're seeing that around the country.

Netroots Nation itself began as a gathering organized by DailyKos, an influential online gathering place established by Markos Moulitsas. And as it has grown in stature since the first gathering in 2006, it has drawn some movement leaders of national stature: Pittsburghs 2009 event, for example, had former President Bill Clinton as a keynote speaker along with former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean.

This years event is, thanks to the coronavirus, the first in-person gathering for Netroots in three years. Some 140 panel discussions, workshops and other events including some yoga sessions and at least one lunchtime protest are planned to help progressives meet the moment.

With the ongoing threat of a fascist takeover of our democracy, progressives are fired up and ready to win elections up and down the ballot this November, Netroots spokesperson Mary Rickles said in a statement. The activists, organizers, and influencers at Netroots are at the helm of the biggest fights to protect our rights, and their support will be critical in determining the outcome of the midterms.

This years gathering in Pittsburgh will include Minnesota Congressional representative Ilhan Omar, one of the highest-profile progressives in Congress, as well as Minnesota Attorney General (and onetime contender for national Democratic chair) Keith Ellison. Labor figures will also attend, ranging from teachers union national president Randi Weingarten to Chris Smalls of the upstart labor movement that has been unionizing Amazon.

Western Pennsylvania will be well represented too, especially on Thursday, where events are slated to feature officials that include Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, Congressional contender Summer Lee a standard-bearer of the regions progressive movement state Senator Lindsey Williams and state Rep. Sara Innamorato.

Local activists including Brandi Fisher, Miracle Jones, and Jasiri X will also speak at a panel discussion about the role Black-led activist groups have played in transforming local politics.

Innamorato said the convention is a good opportunity to meet people from around the country who are building expertise in fundraising and emailing and all the technical things that go into organizing both in the community and in the digital space.

Then too, she said, It feels great to be able to show off the movement-building work thats been happening here. Were not the bluest area people think of when they think of progressive spaces in America, but weve been able to build a movement that is multiracial, intergenerational, working-class, and focused on unifying around common goals related to justice.

The convention runs through Saturday.

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Pittsburgh hosts, and hopes to inspire, national gathering of progressives this week - 90.5 WESA

New Yorks progressives have spawned an ugly war thats taking place not just on the ideological fronts but in the streets and its claiming real casualties. Yet what the progressives fail to admit is that these casualties arent just numbers on a spreadsheet; theyre real people.

On Aug. 13, New York added another name to its casualty list with the killing of taxi driver Kutin Gyimah. Gyimah was a real person a father of four and loving husband. He died after he was brutally attacked by riders for daring to collect his fare for his driving services.

And his merciless death came just a day after another innocent, Jesus Cortes, was blindsided by a sucker punch to the head, in an unprovoked attack allegedly by parolee Van Phu Bui. The out-of-the-blue wallop caused fracturing to Cortes skull and bleeding in his brain.

Alas, in this very hot war, the humanity of innocents like Cortes and Gyimah is utterly lost. To the progressives, casualty numbers can never be high enough to change their course, because their mission is more important than a few dead bystanders.

And they are waging their battles from within all sectors of the government, which are being increasingly occupied by ideologues who create policies that sound good but create hell for civilians.

As Jesus Cortes lay in a hospital recovering from his injuries, New Yorks occupying forces downgraded Buis charges from attempted murder to assault and harassment and promptly released him from jail. Why? Because their ideology dictates that they reserve compassion for the criminal element, not the innocent who are preyed upon.

That insanity brought a national spotlight down on Gov. Kathy Hochul, who was shamed into stepping in to see that Bui was locked up. But Hochul is set on leaving the system that led to the travesty entirely in place.

It leaves the only people who are fearful today in New York to be law-abiding citizens; meanwhile, those, like Hochul, whove manufactured and sustained this war zone will never admit their responsibility for it. Their progressive doctrine states they must never give in, keep up the battle and dominate every part of the system, no matter how much suffering they cause.

They justify it by claiming theyre pursuing equity, and too bad if it entails casualties. They pretend the public is plenty safe even as they make sure not to punish predators.

The horrific yet unsurprising result: Rising crime rates. A lack of justice for the innocent. Demonization of those who try to protect themselves (e.g., bodega worker Jose Alba). Slain taxi drivers. Hospitalized bystanders.

Progressives continually lecture about how they seek to aid the poor and working class but when the poor and working-class start to bleed, thanks to their policies, their bleeding hearts suddenly heal.

Fact is, when the systems begin to fail, its the people at the bottom who suffer, while those who reign from above insulate themselves from the pain others feel. Lenient district attorneys actually allow for violent sex-offenders like Van Phu Bui to be released back onto the streets to potentially add to the ever-expanding casualty list.

Efforts to defund and demoralize the police have contributed to an environment where someone like Kutin Gyimah is brutally, fatally assaulted, without making his would-be assailants second-guess their criminal acts in fear of being caught.

Lets stop pretending: New Yorks casualties arent numbers; theyre real people who deserved protection and advocacy, certainly more than the emboldened predators who choose to terrorize the innocent but are championed by the progressives.

People like Kutin Gyimah and Jesus Cortes arent expendable; theyre vital to their loved ones. Yet elitists dont see them that way; to them, theyre numbers that can be ignored, lest they be deterred from their ideological goals.

All New Yorkers are now suffering enormous anxiety, because they are becoming aware of how progressive policies are producing a hell they must survive in. They know that if they were to become one of these unfortunate victims, their city would simply add their name to a casualty list while doing nothing to prevent it from occurring again and little to ensure justice on their behalf.

Its a needless war. And its beyond pathetic.

Adam B. Coleman is the author of Black Victim to Black Victor and founder of Wrong Speak Publishing.

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NY progressives have spawned a bloody war on the streets and innocents are paying the price - New York Post

If you want to understand Donald Trump as a political actor, Jennifer Mercieca's book "Demagogue for President" (Salon interview here) remains the clearest, most illuminating explanation. But if you want to understand the larger story in which Trump plays a part however large he may still loom at the moment thenFrancesca Bolla Tripodi's new book"The Propagandists' Playbook: How Conservative Elites Manipulate Search and Threaten Democracy" offers a stark and clarifying picture of how Trump's political stage was constructed in the first place, and how that project may continue into the indefinite future, with or without Trump.

Tripodi's subtitle calls attention to the central role of algorithmic manipulations in today's media environment, but her account is informed by history as well as her own ethnographic observations, so recent high-tech manipulations are situated in a much deeper and broader context. In 2017, Tripodi writes, she set out "to understand how conservative voters sought out information they felt they could trust. ... My goal was to better understand how Trump voters made sense of the contemporary news environment and how search engine optimization might play a role."

To research this, Tripodi immersed herself in with two representative groups in Virginia. "I had no intention of studying extremism," she writes. "I had no idea that the way information is tagged and categorized would take me into a media ecosystem fueled by conspiratorial logic. I did not expect the content in which I immersed myself to influence my own mindset, and I certainly did not expect to witness the violence of the Unite the Right rally."

She was, in short, greatly surprised by what she found: "Quite frankly, I did not realize how bad it already was, how bad it still could get, and how vulnerable we all are, myself included."

Yet there's a sure-footed quality to "The Propagandists' Playbook." However covert, sweeping and powerful the manipulations Tripodi explores may be, they do not disorient her account, and they need not disorient the rest of us either with the help of her clear-eyed analysis. The book is organized as a set of seven "steps," and I chose largely to follow the chapter-to-chapter thread for clarity's sake in my conversation with her, which has been edited for clarity and length.

You organize "The Propagandists' Playbook" in a set of seven steps, and the first one is a commandment to "Know your audience." In that chapter you describe "the five F's of conservatism." What led you to that formulation, and what are they?

This book is based on research. I'm an ethnographic researcher, and I did months of research and interviews and content analysis of the news and information that people rely on. So I used grounded theory to identify pertinent themes and trends, and then based on those category I created this construct of the five F's of conservatism. I asked people to describe what they mean by "conservatism," and their definitions centered around these concepts over and over again, and these concepts were also central to the news and information that they were reading. So the five F's that I describe are faith, family, the armed forces which constitutes the military and the police firearms and a free market.

The second step is: "Build a network." As you describe it, this network has a long history, going back to the early days of radio, but only moved beyond radio in the 1980s and '90s as a result of the rise of televangelism and Reagan era deregulation, including repeal of the Fairness Doctrine. First of all, what is this network like today?

What's really important about understanding the network of right-wing information is that it's not just in one space. There's a lot of great research that looks at television or at ways that news and information travels online or thinks about YouTube or social media. What I demonstrate in in my book is that these are highly interconnected forms of information, and that this has been going on for some time. Things that they write about in their news coverage or in books they would talk about on radio, and then that became television, and because they had a lot of practice at building this network, adding the layer of internet information was not too challenging. So it looks a lot like what it looked like since it started, with the exception that they have adapted to the ways that people get news and information in the 21st century.

Second, you studied the network through immersion in it, and you identified what you called two central conspiracy theories as a result.

Right-wing media's two central conspiracy theories: "Those on the left are increasingly intolerant, scary, dangerous and disruptive," and "the media works in tandem with the left ... and cannot be trusted."

One is that the left is dangerous that those on the left are increasingly intolerant, scary, dangerous and disruptive to society. The other is that the media works in tandem with the left, and as a result the traditional media cannot be trusted. What's fascinating is these are also not new conspiracies. I show in my book how these notions of media distrust have been around since conservative media started, but the fear of the left being increasingly dangerous was really focused and emphasized in the 1960s, during the civil rights movement.

The third step is to "Engage in their form of media literacy," which you describe as founded in "scriptural inference." What does that mean, and why is it so central to how conservatives make sense of the world?

One thing I think is really important about my book is showing that conservatism is not just a worldview, it's also a media practice. Specifically, it's a form of media practice that leverages individual interpretation and emphasizes direct engagement with the literature. And whether that be the Bible or the Constitution or the Federalist Papers, or the memo that Trump released when he was being impeached the first time his memo with [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy this call to engage directly in the text is really rooted in the Protestant Reformation, specifically the Protestantism formed within the United States, which was about elevating individual interpretation in favor of an expert telling you what to do.

This form of media literacy, this way of interacting and engaging with the media is also the way conservative media talk to their audience. They don't just say, "Trust us, we know what we're doing." They actually activate this form of active inquiry, they utilize hermeneutical methods in their newscasts. You'll see this as a regular strategy that Tucker Carlson plays out. He'll put the quotes behind him that he wants people to focus on, and they leverage that form of media literacy. That's so important because it's different from the way other people, including progressives, engage with the media.

Step four is "Understand how information flows," and step five is "Set the traps." These are clearly closely connected, as you write that "Conservative elites leverage a niche understanding of SEO strategies and methodologies to maximize the exposure of conservative brands, causes, and content." I'd like to ask about two specific examples you describe, and what they show us about the general strategies. The first involves Nellie Ohr, who was used to portray Trump as a victim of an attempted Democratic coup. What happened there, and what general strategies were involved?

Nellie Ohr is a great example of what I describe as "keyword curation" and "strategic signaling." The first part of understanding how information flows is not exclusive to conservative content creators. It's a basic understanding of how algorithms work, and what's important about that is to recognize that inputs your keywords are driving the output that any search engine's going to bring back to you.

How didNellie Ohr, the wife of an obscure Justice Department official, become a "curated keyword" used to "perpetuate a conspiracy theory about an attempted coup" against Donald Trump?

So "Nellie Ohr" was this curated keyword that was adopted and essentially created leading up to and during Trump's first impeachment. Keyword curation works by relying on what scholars refer to as a data void: When little to nothing currently exists online, that hole or that gap can be easily filled with other content. Nellie Ohr is the wife of Bruce Ohr, who was a Department of Justice official at the time of Trump's impeachment. But because she worked at Fusion GPS and Fusion GPS was behind the now clearly poorly-researched dossier they created this whole narrative that the impeachment surrounding Trump's desire to have Ukraine interfere with the 2020 election was a way of unseating this president who was rightfully in power.

So a series of articles were written about Nellie Ohr, exclusively within the right-wing media ecosystem, and they all linked back to each other. A lot of them used the same copied-and-pasted text and made the same allegations, and then those same allegations were then covered by more mainstream outlets like Fox News. So during the impeachment trial, Rep. Devin Nunes used his time in his opening remarks to say, "We shouldn't be paying attention to this what we should be paying attention to is Nellie Ohr." By activating this phrase, people were like, "Who is Nellie Ohr?" Then you go to Google and search for Nellie Ohr and the only thing returned is these conservative information systems that are perpetuating this conspiracy theory about an attempted coup to take out the president.

Could you say a bit more about the creation of data voids? I think that's a concept people are not generally aware of.

This comes out of Microsoft research: The notion of data voids is that sometimes there's not much existing on the internet around a subject or phrase. So data voids can get filled for a variety of reasons. Some of them can be filled by news coverage, for example. When a mass shooting happened in Sutherland Springs, Texas, no one had ever written about that town, and it was essentially a void: a Zillow listing and information about the population. So these voids, especially when there's a news event, are really ripe for bad information, because people are trying to get things out as quickly as possible and mistakes can happen. So that's one way a void gets filled.

The other way that voids get created and filled we see this a lot in advertising is that if you're trying to sell a product, you want to create a name for a product that doesn't already exist. Otherwise, if people search for your product, they're going to get the more established product. So they're taking this concept from advertising and applying it to news. So the data void is tied to problematic information in that if nothing exists online, it's easy to fill it with a bunch of information, especially if you have an already existing network of content creators.

The second example I'd like to ask about is the pushback against Black Lives Matter, which was a process in several steps. What happened there?

Black Lives Matter was the creation of activists who were trying to demonstrate the unfair treatment of Black people in the United States, in particular when it comes to crime and policing. What's fascinating is that you can see, using Google Trends data, that a way to respond to Black Lives Matter was to create alternative hashtags that could compete with it. So after #BlackLivesMatter rises you see the creation of #AllLivesMatter, which was trying to use this colorblind concept that everyone's equal so all lives should matter, not "just Black lives." Then that turned into #BlueLivesMatter, a catchphrase created to support the police and the armed forces, and not only did that activate the five forces of conservatism, but it also began to trend, it became a quick response to #BlackLivesMatter. We can see that it was created in response, because #BlueLivesMatter didn't exist before #BlackLivesMatter, according to Google Trends.

What did that creation sequence prove or demonstrate? You draw some conclusions could you talk about the insights you gained from observing that?

A lot of times people will say, "This has nothing to do with #BlackLivesMatter, this is just talking about how these lives also matter." What you can see from the data is that if this was not a response to something, then it would have been created simultaneously with, or even before, the Black Lives Matter hashtag. The fact that it was lifted off the "lives matter" mantra and then appropriated for various groups activated those terms again whenever a Black person was killed by police. They were showing up very clearly in response to Black Lives Matter hashtags following extreme instances of police violence toward a Black person.

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This example of appropriation makes me think back to something else you wrote about. Another example was how "feminism" tags were used to spread conservative ideas, and that conservative sites often ranked higher in searches for "feminism" than liberal ones. What was going on there?

So that's looking at YouTube videos. I was trying to answer the question, "Don't people on the left also do the same thing as people on the right?" That's a great question, an important one. In order to answer that, I worked with a data scientist: He wrote a script and we looked at the top 10 content producers on YouTube from the left and the top 10 on the right. So we looked at the channels of people with millions of followers, and his script looked at how the content creators were tagging their content. So this wasn't how YouTube was tagging their content, it was about how the creators themselves were tagging their content.

Tags are important, because algorithms aren't people: They read in tags, they read in metadata. The tag is important because it helps an algorithm attach significance to content. It says, "Oh, you're looking for 'feminism'? Oh, this says 'feminism' this is a match."

We found that content creators on the left had no idea how tagging worked, and they used very literal or strategic tagging. ... But PragerU had more videos tagged as "feminism" than as "conservative."

What we found when we looked at conservative content creators and progressive content creators is that content creators on the left had no idea how tagging worked, and they used very literal or strategic tagging, I guess you'd call it. They'd have these very literal tags that described what their content was. But conservative content creators recognize, "Well, some people might be looking for this stuff, and if we're trying to push back against theses ideas, we need to also tag our content this way." Prager University, for example, which runs a conservative YouTube channel, has more videos tagged as "feminism" than tagged as "conservative." This demonstrates that they just have a more nuanced understanding of how keywords and tagging work than content creators on the left.

I asked about that because it seemed parallel to the appropriation of the "X lives matter" theme.

Absolutely. We didn't look at that tag specifically, "Black lives matter" or "Blue lives matter," but the appropriation of keywords taking a concept that doesn't actually belong to you, but you're pretending that it does through metadata, then your content is going to be associated with that tag, even if it has absolutely nothing to do with that tag.

Step six is "Make old ideas seem new," which is particularly focused on how discredited racist ideas have been reintroduced. That adds another dimension to what we've just been talking about. Then step seven is "Close the loop." You describe the example of PragerU videos: "By providing textual evidence out of context, these videos invite conservatives to think critically about lines of text provided, but not question the broader cultural narrative in which those texts were created and now exist." How does that apply to the example you explore of how conservatives have subverted Martin Luther King Jr.'s message?

Conservative content creators have galvanized around a single phrase lifted from the "I Have a Dream" speech that allows them to take all of Martin Luther King's work out of context.

A huge number of conservative content creators have galvanized around the phrase lifted from the "I Have a Dream" speech, that King had a dream that his children would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. So by focusing in on this one very specific line, it allows these political elites whether that be media pundits or politicians to take all of Martin Luther King's work out of context. King very much advocated for civil rights under the notion that Black people were not being treated equally in the United States, and I find it interesting that he's now being used as an example of conservative embodiment, when at the time he was classified as a Communist threat and was monitored by the FBI as a potential domestic terrorist. It's a classic example of taking one line and pretending it means something that it does not.

How does this fit into the framework of "closing the loop?" What do you mean by that, and what does it tell us?

So the "loop," I think, is two things. One of the things I describe in the last chapter to close it all together is the cyclical nature of these narratives about outside agitators and radical leftists, which have been around for a very long time. I show how this well-worn path of disinformation has been flowing through this information landscape for the last hundred years.

The other thing I talk about is what I refer to as the IKEA effect of disinformation. Business scholars have found that when people put together low-quality furniture on their own, they're more likely to value it, and think that it's better quality than it actually is. The same tangible, do-it-yourself quality of saying, "Well, don't trust us, go online and Google it for yourself" or "DuckDuckGo it yourself," whichever one they're saying activates audiences to take part in this scavenger hunt, not really recognizing that because of the keywords that have been provided to them, specific returns are going to be provided to them, and that these have been written and vetted by those who are telling them to go out and do it themselves. So this is how the loop actually closes, and why it's all interconnected.

Finally, what's the most important question I didn't ask, and what's the answer?

One thing I'm worried about is that people will say, "Well, this is why I don't go to Google," as if it's their fault. While Google has its issues, I'm not a techno-apologist it's definitely selling our data, there's problems with the platform the information-seeking process, whether we go through Google or whatever search engine you choose, is ultimately going to return us largely the same information if we aren't critical about the keywords we start with. So one thing I think we need to be more mindful of is not thinking the fix is going to come from tech companies, but rather thinking about how the fix is contingent on different social interactions with these search engines.

So that's a message for consumers, but also for progressive producers.

Sure. People will say, "Isn't this happening on the left?" And I would say, "Sure, it could." Anyone can use search engine optimization. But it isn't, based on the data I have. It isn't happening to the same capacity. And then, part two is to be mindful. That was my dedication: "To the information seekers everywhere: be mindful where the journey leads." I think a lot of people go, "Be wary of what you're seeing on Facebook" or "Be careful of what you're seeing on Twitter" or "Don't trust what you're seeing on TikTok." So a lot of people will see things, and then go, "Oh, let me go find out." Then they'll take these same concepts and they'll go to Google, and often what's returned to them is the same bad content they saw on Facebook, Twitter or TikTok.

So if you're just kind of input-in/input-out, taking these same ideas and just searching for them, without really recognizing how that works or understanding that search engines aren't neutral arbiters of truth if you're trying to make sure you're getting the right information, you need to take a little more time in assessing the quality of your sources, and you need to understand that Google is not a helpful librarian.

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