Reddit reviews How Propaganda Works

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The purpose of Milo's rhetoric isn't to create a rational, coherent, narrative. It's to piss people off and make rational conversation totally impossible. It is to fill every "discussion" with as much emotional detritus as possible so that people stop talking to each other altogether and actual lies end up getting spread and normalized by a deeply, deeply, sick society.

You can't argue with Milo because there is nothing there to argue with, it's all bullshit. And the more you engage with it the more you end up promoting it, the more you treat it as an actual proposition that has some sort of rational basis.

The "market place of ideas" liberals like to go on about is more like a fucking warzone

The democrats are soft and they refuse to acknowledge the kind of people they are opposed to. The whole "they go low, we go high!" thing was the most naive shit I ever heard in my life. And the Clinton campaign kept using it in response to Trump's demagoguery.

What they failed to understand is that your average American is an emotionally driven, subservient, sheeplike, cretin. They go by the balls, not the brains. If you don't believe me just watch Fox or listen to talk radio for five minutes. They don't deal in "facts", they deal in emotional catharsis, anger, horror. That's why it's effective. More than that the GOP strategy revolves around loading liberal rhetoric with emotional/racist detritus that works on a subconscious level more than a rational one. If you want a great explanation of all this then this and this are both great books. I'd highly recommend this also.

Whenever I hear a democrat say "I'll reach across the aisle!" I cringe. Tell me, who does that inspire? Why vote for you just so you can bend over backwards for people you hate? Bernie Sanders did as good as he did not because of policy specifics but because he knew how to capitalize on people's legitimate anger. Trump capitalized on racism. Bernie Sanders capitalized on the very obvious inequality and institutional crony capitalism that defines our government. One appealed to the worst in people, the other reminded people of how much they're getting screwed.

And that's the problem with democrats: they're stuck thinking in terms of political compromise, of moderation, of political correctness.

The most intelligent thing to come out of a democratic politician's mouth recently was when Perez said in public that republicans "don't give a shit about people". That's both true and sensationalist enough to make an impact.

You don't need to tell lies. You need to tell the truth so bluntly, brutally, and without any sort of veneer of compromise or civility. You need to be willing to look the entire GOP in the face and describe it as a corrupt octopus that is a threat to fucking civilization. You need to weigh down their language with subliminal associations with nazis marching down the street and mass slaughter of minorities.

Democrats need to stop treating republicans like people with good intentions and treat them as a fucking threat to our democracy. Then their base will get out and vote, then the spotlight will be shone brightly in the faces of the fucking dickheads. They need to attack, constantly. Instead they sit around defending.

The republicans offer nothing of substance. They do not treat political campaigns as debates but as a kind of mental warzone. The democrats try to appeal to people's better nature. People don't have a better nature, people are cynical shitheads. Roger Stone gets that.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Propaganda-Works-Jason-Stanley/dp/0691173427/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480962701&sr=8-1&keywords=how+propaganda+works+jason+stanley

relevant:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Propaganda-Works-Jason-Stanley/dp/0691173427

Jason Stanley, a Philosophy professor at Yale, has two recent books that might be of interest: How Propaganda Works, and How Fascism Works. Depending on how broadly you want to define "philosophy", US Naval War College professor Tom Nichols's book, The Death of Expertise, would also be fit the bill. The ideas in The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by NYU ethics/business professor Jonathan Haidt also come up frequently in conversation.

If you're willing to look further back (and perhaps define philosophy even more broadly), the late NYU education professor Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business might be of interest.