Conservatives Use Hitler’s Propaganda Playbook to Hardwire Political Hate, Part 1

SUMMARY: This blog post begins Ye Olde Blogge’s two part — maybe three, if I’m being honest — exploration of the contemporary conservative movement’s use of Hitler’s propaganda techniques. We’ve discussed this before but there are two important updates to make note of. First, in this post not only will be review the techniques that are being used, but also new psychological findings that suggest metaphors circumvent the rational part of our brains and can easily become hardwired. Metaphors should be noted are the way hate mongers talk about their scapegoated groups. as in, LGBTQ+ folks are groomers, undocumented immigrants are criminals, and PoC are takers. The next blog post, or maybe two, will apply these findings to the Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action and LGBTQ+ rights as well as to a new climate change protest movement starting up.

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KEYWORDS: propaganda, hardwired hate, Hitler’s Propaganda Playbook, influence, effects, psychological, hate speech, dehumanizing language, cognitive processes, jumping to conclusions, thinking by analogy, contemporary politics, Supreme Court, climate change denial, disinformation, critical thinking, media literacy.

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Hitler’s Propaganda Playbook has made it to the Supreme Court and the useful idiots in the #COVID19 and vaccine conspiracy theory community have found new fertile ground in climate change to continue living the lifestyle to which they’ve become accustomed. There is a real reason to be sounding the alarm over these two occurrences because recent psychological findings suggest that once hate speech is repeatedly indulged it can become hardwired in the brain, making it difficult if not impossible to remove.

We’re going to explore at four issues in this post: (i) Hitler’s Propaganda Playbook; (ii) The way that propaganda hardwires itself into the brain; (iii) The outrageous legal “reasoning” used in the Supreme Court’s rulings on affirmative action and LGBTQ+ rights; and (iv) The protests against changes designed to curb emissions to slow climate change.

Unfortunately, to do all four topics justice would take TL;DR, so we’re going to divide it into two or maybe even three posts. This post will review and comment on the propaganda, which is always fun and interesting, and the research into how disinformation can become hardwired, leaving the application to the SCOTUS decisions and the climate change protesters for tomorrows post.

Hitler’s Propaganda Playbook

During the war, two studies of Hitler were commissioned to try and understand how he held Germany in such thrall. They resulted in what Ye Olde Blogge has come to call Hitler’s Propaganda Playbook. Here’s what they found:

• NEVER ALLOW THE PUBLIC TO COOL OFF: Now you know why the GOP is endlessly trafficking in culture wars; they absolutely need MAGA to be constantly outraged. It induces what is called mass psychosis. It keeps your followers stewing in stress literally softening their ability to reason and making them absorb lies like a sponge.
• TAKE ADVANTAGE OF EVERY OPPORTUNITY TO RAISE A POLITICAL WHIRLWIND: Another one that will keep the grievance machine going. Now you know why the shoes of MnM and Mr. Potato Head matters to the far right.
• NEVER ADMIT A FAULT OR WRONG or ACCEPT BLAME: Trump is a narcissist and is preternaturally incapable of admitting fault. Most. of the MAGA politicians have the dark tetrad personality characteristics and are disinclined to admit fault, either. Perhaps you saw the headline concerning the the Hitler-quoting Mom’s Against For Liberty group, Never Apologize. It ain’t no coincident. They are all reading from the same hymnal.
• NEVER CONCEDE THAT THERE MAY BE SOME GOOD IN YOUR ENEMY: Now you know why all liberals are devil worshipping pedophiles that hate us for our freedoms.
• NEVER LEAVE ROOM FOR ALTERNATIVES: Now you know why the GOP is hopelessly mired in groupthink and is continually making disastrous immoral decisions.
• CONCENTRATE ON ONE ENEMY AT A TIME AND BLAME HIM [SIC] FOR EVERYTHING THAT GOES WRONG: Right now the enemy de jour is trans kids and drag queens. It used to be social justice warriors (CRT) and immigrants. Before that Muslims. You see how it goes, right?
• PEOPLE WILL BELIEVE A BIG LIE SOONER THAN A LITTLE ONE: Most of us will believe a big lie because — at least at one time not too long ago — we wouldn’t think that anyone would be so audacious or stupid as to tell such a whopper. Cynical abusive people take advantage of the rules of politeness that say we don’t call a liar a liar to the liar’s face. Somehow the media hasn’t learned this.
• IF YOU REPEAT A IT [LIE] FREQUENTLY ENOUGH PEOPLE WILL SOONER OR LATER BELIEVE IT: We’ve seen this in action for years. And, it is true. When challenged with facts most people will double down on the lie and become very selective in the evidence they use to support their beliefs.

Funny how these rules follow the gaslighting techniques that narcissists use on family members and others close to them.

Every day the news seems to have a story that confirms the use of Nazi-style propaganda by the GOP, conservatives, MAGA, and their allies. It cannot be called a coincidence any longer. There is an organized concerted effort to use these rules everywhere from the Supreme Court to turfed parent groups challenging books and school boards.

Hardwired Hate: The Psychological Effects of Hate Speech

We all know that authoritarians need scapegoats to an in-group, foment social unrest, and create a mindset that will accept a suspension of civil liberties. The necessity of a budding authoritarian for scapegoats is so well known so as to have become cliche. What isn’t well known is how the language used to create scapegoats affects the plasticity of the brain.

Commonly, dehumanizing metaphors are used to create scapegoats. Hitler described Jews as rats, Hutus called Tutsis cockroaches before the Rwandan genocide, Orbán likened immigrants to a poison. This is metaphorical language. It is indirect, which helps it work its way into our subconscious or the foundations of our thinking.

If you present facts and figures and reasoning, then the rational thinking parts of the brain are engaged. People think about it. If you say two plus two is five, most people will catch that. However, if you ask how many commandments did Noah bring down from the mountain, they won’t. Why not?

First, thinking is hard. It uses a lot of energy in an organ that already uses far more energy than its size would warrant, so we avoid it whenever possible. We’ve evolved shortcuts to get us around thinking. There are two that are pertinent here: one is jumping to conclusions and the other is analogy.

When asked to do math, we assess the problem as being easy, in which case we do it, or difficult, in which case we don’t. Two plus two is easy, so we do it and catch the error. Authoritarians will never ask you to think, at least not right away. They always want to control the conclusions that you will come to.

Understanding the Cognitive Process of Jumping to Conclusions

Jumping to conclusions involves activating a network of linked concepts. So, when asking about the Ten Commandments, the Christian religion network gets activated. You know the answer. It is easy. TEN! You’ve arrived at a satisfactory answer, even the correct answer, so your brain stops thinking. Thinking is hard, so we avoid it. Once a satisfactory answer is arrived at, we stop. It takes effort to continue. Most of us just won’t do it.

The authoritarians job is to build that easy answer to be arrived at when any question or problem comes up, so you will stop thinking. It isn’t because you’re stupid, it’s because you’re human. It is the authoritarians who are taking cynical advantage of a very human tendency that we are all susceptible to.

How Thinking by Analogy is Hijacked by Propaganda

Another way to circumvent thinking when confronted with a hard question is to think of an easier, but related, question to answer. For example, how effective of a deterrent will a border wall be to unlawful entry to the country? To answer such a question directly, you’d have to know how many people cross physical border illegally versus how many use other ports of entry and how many overstay visas. It’s a hard question to answer. That’s a lot of work that most of us just won’t engage in. So, we answer an easier question, how effective of a deterrent is a wall to me? Since I don’t carry a ladder with me, most walls are very effective deterrents. Bing, whizzo, I wish to bang, you’ve got your answer, BUILD THE WALL! BUILD THE WALL!

Again, these people are not stupid. They are just human and being cynically exploited by politicians.

The power of dehumanizing metaphors in propaganda

When authoritarians use dehumanizing language to describe a specific identifiable group of people — rats, cockroaches, vermin, parasites, poison, GROOMERS — it hijacks the thinking part of our brain. It activates two networks of nodes simultaneously. One network is that about the group of people and the other is that of the dehumanizing language.

Neural plasticity research teaches us that when neurons fire together, they wire together, which means that neurons firing simultaneously assume that it is because their is a link in the environment or other cause, so they create a physical link between them so that when one fires, the other will, too.

Even if you object to the characterization of LGBTQ+ people as groomers, the two networks will fire together. To overcome and minimize the negative association, you have to THINK, and thinking is hard. Most of us are motivated to do the hard thinking of consciously objecting to linking LGBTQ+ people to pedophilia, but those of us who are already predisposed to disliking the gay and lesbian community are not.

It is the power of the metaphor, that is thinking by analogy rather than rationally, that switches off critical thinking and switches on jumping to conclusions. Neural plasticity also teaches us that the more often a network is used, the stronger it becomes. The more likely it will be invoked when a node in the network is activated, which creates a circular feedback loop.

The more often the network is used, the stronger the connections between those nodes become, which means the easier it is to activate this network. Activating this network will then supply an easy answer to a complex question. Once this process gets started and is reinforced, the harder it is to break the cycle.

How does this relate to the outrageous reasoning of the recent Supreme Court rulings and climate change denial conspiracy theorists? You’ll have to find out in tomorrow’s post.

Image Attribution

“Призрак пропаганды / Ghost of the propaganda” by spoilt.exile is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.