The Machinations of the "War Room" Disinformation Campaign
This video with Joy Reid is a perfect example of Bannon's Putinesque disinformation campaign that was so hyped upon Trump's return from dancing with autocrats and sowing distrust with our allies. Trump's "War Room" to push back against the Russian probe was widely reported four days ago. Since then, we're seeing signs of its awakening. It offers a perfect, real-time study in the Art of Deception by some of the slyest artisans in the business.
The disinformation pipeline is clear: Dig up dirt in the corners of the internet, spread the filth among the bottom feeders, then use its rising "popularity" as proof it deserves attention by the MSM. Here, it's the Wall Street Journal's columnist and Trump propagandist Kimberely Strassel who tries to smokebomb viewers' thoughts re: Kushner by hyping an obscure Breitbart (Bannon) article claiming alleged false equivalencies from the Obama administration (thanks, Obama!).
Here, Joy Reid and the other guests push back on the disinformation and try to set the conversation back on track. But the Trumpers and GOP loyalists settling in to Fox & Friends are getting 5 Kimberely Strassels all chumming the waters with actual fake news. Since the administration can't be honest and claim the damaging stories are factually false, their master strategy is blatantly lie, obfuscate, and cry "Fake News" until the news cycle (hopefully) moves on....
...Trumpist Twitter Bots Awaken. Travis Gettys of RawStory: "A two-year-old report on 'Obama's secret outreach to Russia' hit the top spot on the conservative Drudge Report after hundreds of bot accounts flooded Twitter with links to the article.... The original Bloomberg report largely disappeared from Twitter after interest died down a few weeks after its publication, but it began recirculating over the weekend. Two posts appeared to have been shared directly from the Bloomberg site early Saturday morning and Sunday evening, but then a deluge of posts using the same phrasing and tags burst forth starting at 12:48 a.m. and continuing every two or three minutes for the next 11 hours. Many of those accounts, at least in the early hours of the social media push, display the distinctive traits of bots -- with highly unbalanced posting-to-followers ratios, inscrutable account names, few public interactions and almost no original content phrasing." --safari (Also linked yesterday)...
...The initial revealings of the War Room's "Alternative Facts" campaign bring to mind the Steve. M. post linked earlier by Marie about Steve Bannon's supposed "messaging savviness": "Bannon might not actually change what most Americans are talking about. What he's skilled at doing is changing what right-wingers are talking about. And maybe that's worth it to Trump, because he seems to believe he can save his presidency as long as 80+ percent of Republicans still support him without question."...
...Trump's administration and the GOP in general have moved so far right (just look at all the legislation they're proposing) that they seem incapable of messaging to the center or 'independents', let alone the scary lefty communists. Democrats don't even merit conversation (again, look at Congress). So the question remains: Can this obfuscation campaign endure for years on end, only messaging to the Loyalists who hold the keys to their reelection? Bannon,
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Reader Comments (2)
Regarding the Fake News onslaught from the Trump WH, it seems Trump has no other choice than to scream that every new revelation of wrongdoing and criminality on the part of himself and his cronies/family members/apparatchiks is a lie. For a while he was screeching about leaks but that made it sound like whatever was oozing out from under his desk was true and he was now engaged in hanging the leaker out to dry. But tacit admissions of guilt aren't the best way to run a counterintelligence campaign, thus the bellowing about fake news.
Since Trump is the source of so much fake news, it really is counter intelligence, or, rather, contra intelligence.
Regarding the Begley, "Stat" piece on Drumpf's linguistic deterioration: you pointed out the characteristics of dementia he expressed before the election, to no avail; now we have him and imo the line of succession is equally, if not more, fraught with danger. The only way out I envision is Mueller's investigation causing such turmoil that any substantive actions are virtually impossible until at least the 2018 elections. My sense is that Drumpf's executive orders will be mired in the courts; damage will be done for sure, but if the Democrats get their act together and begin representing their entire constituency there is still hope. owen