Trump's Spinning Reality
May 13th 2020
Trump Uncle Sam (geralt)
By Thomas Klikauer and Nadine Campbell
Ever since the Catholic Church gave the world propaganda in its Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Congregatio de Propaganda Fide) in the year 1622, propaganda has been with us. At times, it has been called public relations or spin. Propaganda, PR and Spin is the act of knowingly providing biased information. Spin can be misinformation which is providing false and inaccurate information, and it can be deliberate and targeted disinformation which includes malicious propaganda. One of the masterminds of modern PR was Rockefeller's henchman known as Poison Ivy. Poison Ivy's real name was Ivy Lee. Lee once said propaganda got to be a bad word because of the Germans … using it [in 1914-18]. So what I did was to try to find some other words … we found public relations.
A prime example of the most advanced version of PR or spin can currently be seen in the USA. It reached a new high with the election of Donald Trump. Additionally, right-wing propaganda also works its mind-numbing magic in various European countries like Hungary and Poland, for example. European policy advisor Johannes Hillje, calls the newest version of spin, Propaganda 4.0. His propaganda 4.0 needs to be differentiated from its previous versions:
Catholicism Spin 1.0: invented by the Catholic Church relies on religious sermons;
Stalin Spin 2.0 (1920 to 1953) relied on party organization, newspapers and posters;
Nazi Spin 3.0 (1930 to 1945) relied on Ministry of Propaganda and radio (Volksempfänger);
Trump Spin 4.0 (since 2016) is relying on Fox, the Internet, Twitter, etc.
Spin 1.0 relied on preaching by Catholic priests in churches. Spin 2.0 and 3.0 relied on printed newspapers, radio and later TV. By contrast, Spin 4.0 uses mainstream media mostly as support functions. More importantly, Spin 4.0 relies heavily on the Internet, websites, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp, etc. It uses these in two ways. First, the Internet separates Trump supporters and voters from mainstream media. This traps Trump supporters inside what has become known as echo chambers. In the context of Donald Trump, these are virtual places reinforcing Trump's ideology.
Second, Spin 4.0 works with mainstream media such as Fox, for example. Corporate media are increasingly driven by attention-getting methods. Every click means advertising revenue. For propagandists, this means creating attention while granting right-wing populists like Trump disproportional importance. On Trump's populism, one might make two arguments:
Trump's authoritarian populism is successful because he communicates it successfully; and
that Trump and other right-wing populists have established an entirely new form of spin.
Together with the imperatives of the attention economy, these two factors underwrite the electoral success of right-wing populists, catapulting their parties and people into many parliaments around the world. Today, they are represented in various local and state parliaments – almost whenever and wherever they put up candidates often introduced party conventions that have become mere spectacles.
Spin 4.0 in Europe – Party Conventions and New Enemies
During the last decade, the anti-democratic forces of Spin 4.0 have grown stronger, enabling it to propagate and broadcast lies systematically. Today, right-wing party conventions are carefully choreographed for maximum impact. The process works by eliminating open forums for discussion, debate, and critique. These have been replaced with Spin 4.0 Conventions of mindless multi-media shows. The PR show always begins with the entrance of the heroic leader – Stalin in Spin 2.0, the Führer in Spin 3.0, and Trump in Spin 4.0.
This is not to say that Trump is the new Stalin or Hitler. He most obviously is not. There is no Gulag in the USA and no Auschwitz-style death camps. The SS is not seen on the street. Nonetheless, after the heroic leader spoke at a Spin 4.0 styled party convention, a few short, sharp and polemic speeches are made, again with no debate or discussion. After that, well-dressed politicians deliver a group photo for the press with smiling faces. Then comes a lengthy press conference where right-wing ideology is rolled out. All this is rounded up with a dinner for the selected few. This formula demonstrates that Spin 4.0 works well in Europe and elsewhere. In Europe, Spin 4.0 displays four key commonalities:
Authoritarian populism has established a successful trans-national network of resources;
There is a Euro-wide commonality of ideologies (anti-Muslim, anti-EU, law-&-order, etc.);
European populists exchange marketing methods (conspiracy theories, spin, PR, etc); and
Right-wing parties have set up Internet TV channels propagating right-wing ideology.
These networks allow European populists to learn from each other. By connecting with each other, right-wing populists can intensify the broadcasting of their ideology using the methods of Spin 4.0. In general, authoritarian populism sets the pure white Volk (the people) against a corrupt elite. The people are moral while the elite is immoral. In the ideological world of right-wing populism, the elite is not a clearly defined entity. Instead, the l'idée fixe of a so-called elite is deliberately kept nebulous. What remains significant in Spin 4.0 is that some "hazy" elite wants to degrade the Volk.
These white-vs.-non-white are to be separated – we here and you over there. Defining the nebulous but infamous "we", German right-wing extremists, for example, suggest one must be of German stock [the Aryan Abstammungsprinzip], e.g. being of German blood. The in-vs-out group ideology also defines foreigners as enemies – Mexican rapists, Chinese who bring viruses, etc. Through this populists view, the only true representatives of the pure Volk, embodying the uncontaminated will of a Volk, is imagined as an anti-pluralist, illiberal, and anti-democratic entity. For right-wing populists like Trump, the spoiled and contaminated is represented by democratic parties, trade unions, churches, progressives, and the ever-illusive elite. Trump – although being part of the US business elite – has convinced others that he represents the non-elite, the average American, the little man.
Since a decade or more, we have seen somewhat of a run to the right with election after election won by right-wing populists like Donald Trump. Generously, supported by corporate mass media, right-wing populists use Spin 4.0 to move the public debate further and further towards the right. Many recent elections - Trump to Duterte to Modi to Bolsonaro to Johnson (the list continues) - show how their election campaigns can be seen as perfect examples of Spin 4.0. Their success in applying Spin 4.0 means nothing good for democracy as Spin 4.0 engineers a digital counter-revolution.
Spin 4.0 means the packaging of reality that is relevant to a specific audience and channelling it to deliver Trump's right-wing spin and ideology. Like natural catastrophes, the arrival of refugees, for example, is framed as a refugee flood. This occurs despite the fact that migration has been a source of wealth in many countries. The USA is a prime example. Perhaps one of the key mottos of Spin 4.0 is, never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Spin 4.0 and the Lying Press
Anyone disagreeing with populists viewpoints or challenging such hallucinations and conspiracy theories (i.e. pathological mythologies) is abused. Donald Trump sees them as being part of the Lying Press. This is yet another Nazi term. With Spin 4.0, many Nazi words of Spin 3.0 have made a comeback. Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels used the term lying press [Lügenpresse]. Nonetheless, lying press has become increasingly used. The l'idée fixe of a lying press was used just under 1,000 times in 2014; this increased to 4,396 times in 2015 and 6,212 times in 2016.
Already Nazi demagogue, Alfred Rosenberg, saw the lying press as the enemy of the people. Donald Trump and many other right-wing populists also use the expression lying press. In the case of Trump, there are many borderline comments. Unlike the Nazi’s Spin 3.0, Spin 4.0 is less direct. In 2017, Trump called Nazis that killed an anti-Nazi protestor in Charlottesville, very fine people. What remains is a link between Spin 3.0 and today's Spin 4.0.
Spin 4.0 works particularly well when it defines the debate in Nazi terms. Increasingly, this happens whenever the media deals with populism, asylum, migration, terrorism and crime in an ideological way that is underwritten by Spin 4.0. It creates the impression that these right-wing issues are pressing issues and that only populists like Donald Trump can address them. In such debates, the Spin 4.0 trained populists use provocation as a communication technique. Spin 4.0 lives from breaking taboos, e.g. using Nazi language and calling Neo-Nazi very fine people. Mainstream media reports such provocations as they are newsworthy. They create attention. They create Internet clicks. They create revenue.
In attention-based economy news, reporting depend increasingly on advertising revenue, every look at a billboard and a TV screen, every click and every Internet search is relevant. It creates income for corporate media. It is the Internet that defines Spin 4.0 just as another technical invention defined Spin 3.0. Historically, Hitler's regime was based on a new spin medium – a radio called Volksempfänger. Today's success of right-wing populists is based yet on another new medium – the Internet.
Spin 4.0 has achieved two things. It has prevented the de-masking of right-wing spin, and it has led to a normalization of NS language. This is what has been called, the mainstreaming of fascism. Right-wing populists call its increasing use of Nazi language a fight against political correctness. The goal of Spin 4.0 is to shift the public debate towards right-wing agendas, i.e. anti-refugee politics, racism, etc. In other words, the moderate right has started a run towards the more extreme right, and many are running with it. The current success of Spin 4.0 even encouraged some right-wing populists to use aggressive NS rhetoric freely. Still, spin is never just spin; it always has a political, and often violent goal.
It appears as if Donald Trump's Spin 4.0 works best when it broadcasts its ideology in a new medium –the Internet and Twitter. Many right-wing populists have learned this from other populists. Some right-wing populists have already created their own ideological infrastructure. Still, one of the main ideological infrastructures of the right remains Facebook – www.facebook.com/DonaldTrump – with millions of followers. Not many of Donald Trump's opponents come close to Trumps' numbers of Facebook and Twitter followers. This is Spin 4.0's counter-offensive against mainstream media. Beyond Facebook and Twitter, a third crucial network is YouTube. Even something as boring as Donald Trump's "victory" speech has 6½ million views. Armed with social media platforms, Donald Trump's spin reaches millions of people while sidestepping traditional media. This allows right-wing populists to match viewing numbers of many popular TV news programmes.
Inside such right-wing echo chambers, truth and facts disappear. Now, algorithms define what goes to the top of the news cycle. These algorithms push catchy issues, provocations, insults, etc. Donald Trump thrives on them. These are pushed through the Internet on a daily basis, reaching millions of supporters. Not surprisingly, voting for right-wing populists parties strongly correlates with heavy Internet users – it may correlate less with the concept of democracy.
Spin 4. and Democracy 4.0
Increasingly separated from mainstream media, right-wing populist supporters believe that these echo chambers deliver an objective picture of politics. The fact that these supporters are confined to a form of intellectual isolation escapes the notice of those trapped by Spin 4.0's effects. Much of this is supported by what became known as confirmation bias, the favouring of news that supports one's own worldview. Such a confirmation bias eliminates contradictions. Worse, it gives the supporters of authoritarian populism two misleading ideas: it aids the impression that they are against the elite, and it supports the misconception that we are many.
At least partly, the electoral success of right-wing populists like Donald Trump who goes to the top of the news cycle is also due to mainstream media broadcast their ideologies. Mainstream media is used by populists to separate themselves from a perceived political enemy. Trump spouts his ideologies on his enemies almost daily: Mexican rapist, democrats, China, certain state governors and US mayors, etc. The enemies are to be eliminated. This is the future of democracy under Spin 4.0. To infiltrate and destroy democracy, Spin 4.0 issues four demands:
Spin should provoke the political enemy;
Spin should maximize attention;
Spin should polarise society; and
Spin should mobilize right-wing support.
Beyond that, Spin 4.0 creates Democracy 4.0. For authoritarian populism, voting is simply "one" vehicle to gain power. In any case, Spin 4.0 converts real democracy into Democracy 4.0. By early 2020, Hungary had become a prime example for this. How an illiberal Democracy 4.0 can be achieved is also shown in Poland and elsewhere issuing a dire warning. The key to understanding Spin 4.0 lies in comprehending its use of mainstream media and echo chambers to strengthen anti-democratic forces. To this end, Spin 4.0 relies heavily on a parallel sphere - the Internet is capable of isolating party supporters so that the ideologues and demagogues of authoritarian populism can dominate democracy until they have made democracy obsolete.
Thomas Klikauer is the author of The AfD– Germany's New Nazis or another Populist Party?
Nadine Campbell is the founder of Abydos Academy.