Trump, MAGA, and the Big Lie: Understanding Modern Propaganda

Propaganda does not succeed because it is true. It succeeds because it is emotional, repetitive and engineered to bypass critical thinking while making people feel powerful, afraid or righteous.

We have to start somewhere so why not what is and isn’t propaganda. It’s not just saying untrue things. It’s not just lying. We can all do that. What it is is information, ideas or rumors, deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc. It is political. It includes disinformation but isn’t limited to disinformation. Both the information and the act of spreading it deliberately are referred to as propaganda.

Propaganda also very often uses truth or some kernels of truth as the starting point of the lies and disinformation to follow. Propagandists will use a tiny piece of truth and wrap lie after lie around it and then use that small piece of truth to argue the veracity of the larger volume of information around it. Charlie Kirk used this method a lot during his face to face debates… his Prove Me Wrong schtick. He would take a very small piece of truth, construct a shell of mistruth and misinformation around it, spill it quickly and confidently and then challenge some college student by saying, “Prove Me Wrong.” This was his favorite rhetorical weapon. Kirk always appeared to win those debates but mostly because the persons on the other side were not prepared debaters. When he faced prepared debaters he’d lose because they would find the lies.. but it was his YouTube Channel and that shit never made it on.

The stuff that made it on to YouTube was propaganda. The process of creating and delivering that information, misinformation and lies widely (multiple social media platforms) is one form of propaganda. But propaganda is more than just that. It is a full blown system with multiple techniques for reaching and converting target audiences.

Propaganda is a back end hack into the minds and voting habits of the population at large… telling the willing what they want to hear and are more likely to believe… regardless of truthfulness. And if you are the type of person to question such information, there are methods available to propagandists to wear you down and convince you, in many cases, without you even knowing that you’ve been moved. It is a corrupted communication tool, used by authoritarians to move populations in a direction determined by unscrupulous leaders. Hitler comes to mind. So does Trump.

The following is a list of such methods and techniques:

BIG LIE Always choose the big lie over the small; the masses will believe it more readily. The “Big Lie” principle works because people often assume that something so outrageous or enormous could not possibly be fabricated. Small lies feel petty and suspicious, but giant claims can overwhelm skepticism simply through scale. When repeated confidently and without hesitation, the lie becomes emotionally familiar, and familiarity itself starts to feel like truth. Once people emotionally commit to believing it, admitting they were deceived becomes psychologically painful, so they defend the lie even harder. Trump convinced his followers that he, and as such, they, were all cheated by some vast conspiracy that stole the election from him with the only evidence being he said so.

FOCUS Use only one or at most two selling points. Propaganda is most effective when it keeps the message simple and narrow. Instead of presenting complicated policy details or nuanced arguments, propagandists reduce everything to one or two emotionally charged ideas. This prevents audiences from becoming distracted or intellectually engaged. A focused slogan or repeated theme is easier to remember, easier to repeat to others and easier to emotionally attach to than a complex explanation. Trump used immigration and the idea of a Deep State conspiracy trying to persecute him for being right and leading his people to victory over the liberal elites whom they’d been trained to hate by Roger Ailes and FOX News.

REPEAT Use them over and over until even your enemies know them by heart. Repetition is one of the oldest and most powerful persuasion tools because the human brain tends to associate familiarity with credibility. Hearing the same phrase, accusation or slogan over and over creates the illusion that it must have some basis in reality. Eventually the audience no longer evaluates the claim critically because it has become mentally normalized. Even opponents may unintentionally spread the message by constantly reacting to it and repeating it themselves. Trump used his rallies not to talk about policy but to reiterate over and over and over again those things that his crowd had responded to… Lock her up… Build the wall… Biden crime family… (insert name) is a very stupid person… etc.

BLAME Never waver, acknowledge no doubt; always blame, never credit the other side. Debase, defame, dehumanize. Blame-centered propaganda creates clear enemies and simple emotional targets. Instead of encouraging reflection or shared responsibility, it directs frustration outward toward political opponents, minorities, outsiders or critics. This keeps followers unified through anger and resentment while protecting the propagandist from accountability. Dehumanizing language is especially dangerous because once people see opponents as less than human, cruelty toward them becomes easier to justify. None of it has ever been Trump’s fault. It’s always Biden or Obama or Hillary. Everything wrong is them. Everything right is Trump. Repeat it over and over until it is rote knowledge… a reflexive response.

PROVOKE First attract attention, then appeal to emotions. Modern propaganda competes for attention in crowded information spaces, so shock and emotional provocation become essential tools. Outrage, fear, disgust and anger spread faster than calm reasoning because they trigger immediate emotional reactions. Once attention is captured emotionally, rational thinking often takes a back seat. The goal is not thoughtful understanding but emotional activation. Every successful politician has harnessed a new thing that the other candidates seemed to have trouble with. Hayes capitalized on newspapers earlier and better than those around him. FDR used the Radio to communicate with America. JFK beat Nixon mostly because he used the TV correctly (wore makeup and was more attractive). Trump has used his ability to completely dominate the media sphere and turn himself and the presidency into a daily episodic spectacle. Simply by being in the news every day, all day and on every single outlet or platform in a full 24 hour cycle he has not only been able to make himself the most famous person in the world but to also continuously poke the bear with repetitive attacks on everything and everybody who isn’t falling in line. He is inescapable and inexplicable.

CRISIS Shades of gray do not work; issues must be life/death, good/evil, freedom/slavery, love/hate. Propaganda thrives in environments where every issue is framed as an existential emergency. By portraying ordinary political disagreements as absolute battles between survival and destruction, propagandists eliminate room for compromise or nuance. People who are afraid are more willing to surrender skepticism, tolerate authoritarian behavior or accept extreme measures. A permanent sense of crisis keeps audiences emotionally dependent and constantly mobilized. Trump said, You’ve got to fight like hell or your won’t have a country anymore and his people stormed the capital to overthrow an election and a government. He has trained his followers to believe that everything non followers do will destroy the country, destroy democracy, destroy free speech and hand everything over to sharia law and transgender athletes pooping in cat boxes in kindergartens.

EMOTIONAL SYMBOLS Good slogans have no literal meaning, only a strong emotional appeal. Symbols, slogans and catchphrases often succeed precisely because they are emotionally powerful while remaining vague enough for people to project their own meanings onto them. Words like “freedom,” “patriotism,” “greatness” or “security” can unite large groups emotionally even when individuals define those words differently. Emotional symbols bypass detailed analysis and create instant group identity and belonging. Trump easily gets his crowds (ever-dwindling crowds) to chant things like Stop the Steal, Lock her up and Let’s go Brandon. They use the US flag and the red hat so much that non followers often have emotional trouble simply wearing a red hat or putting the American flag up on national holidays. I have red hats in my closet that I haven’t been able to wear for a decade and I’ll likely be dead before a simple red hat isn’t going to trigger most people.

PANDER Ignore intellectuals and reasonable arguments; target the unthinking masses with powerful emotional pitches. This principle recognizes that emotional appeals usually spread more effectively than careful reasoning. Propaganda frequently avoids detailed evidence because complex arguments require time, thought and critical evaluation. Instead, it relies on tribal identity, fear, resentment and emotional satisfaction. The audience is encouraged to feel rather than think, because emotional certainty is more politically useful than intellectual curiosity. Trump not only ignored intellectuals but he vilified them. Smart people are his kryptonite. He even said many times and in front of cameras and microphones that he really loved the poorly educated and there’s a good reason for that. People under an IQ of 90 are the largest part of his core voting block. The average American is about 100 IQ… not brilliant but able to read and make reasonable decisions. As the IQs rise above 100, fewer and fewer of those people fall for his bullshit. College educated people vote heavily on the democratic side in general. But it is fair to say that the dumber a person is, the more likely they are to be a Trump follower.

NO LIMITS Ignore all moral limits whenever you deem it useful. This final principle reflects the idea that propaganda becomes most dangerous when ethical boundaries disappear. If the objective is power, victory or control at any cost, then deception, manipulation, intimidation and cruelty can all be rationalized as necessary tools. Once moral restraint is abandoned, propaganda no longer merely persuades people, it reshapes reality itself by encouraging followers to accept behavior they would once have condemned. Trump has consistently broken norms. If it isn’t a law he has to follow, he will not. And the ones he has to follow, he probably won’t, choosing instead the favored strategy of just do it and ignore when they scream and never ask permission or apologize… essentially, fuck you.

When you look at these principles together it is an easy pattern to see. Nearly all propaganda depends on simplifying reality into emotionally satisfying stories. Complex problems become somebody else’s fault. Doubt becomes weakness. Opponents become enemies. Fear becomes a tool. The goal is not understanding, nuance or truth. The goal is emotional control. Once emotion overrides critical thinking, people can be guided toward conclusions they might otherwise reject. And once there it is easier to push them farther than it is for them to retreat

That is what makes propaganda so dangerous in the modern world. Technology allows emotionally charged misinformation to spread instantly across millions of people, repeated endlessly through algorithms that reward outrage and engagement over accuracy. The louder, angrier and more emotionally provocative the message, the more attention it receives. In that environment, propaganda no longer needs a government printing press or state-controlled radio station. It can spread through social media feeds, influencers, partisan news and ordinary citizens repeating slogans they never fully examined. It can even creep in from outside. It can be a tool of state craft where our enemies can move the population and push for a candidate that does more for them than they would do for us. (Putin comes to mind as does Netanyahu and Xi)

Understanding propaganda does not make anyone completely immune to it, but it does create a defensive framework against being unconsciously controlled by it. The moment people begin recognizing these patterns, the emotional spell weakens. Questions return. Skepticism returns. Independent thought returns. And ultimately, a healthy democracy depends on citizens who can recognize the difference between persuasion and manipulation, between passionate argument and psychological conditioning, between truth and a carefully engineered emotional reaction.

Some of Trump’s followers will never move on from Trump. Their devotion is faith based. To them he is as close to a godhead as they are willing to express out loud. And they will absolutely share through social media every image they’ve ever received depicting Trump as a partner with God, helped by Jesus and sent to wage war against woke agendas and lower healthcare costs because obviously Jesus would be against all of that stuff where we help people who need the help and protect people who need protection.

Originally published at http://tmotr.wordpress.com on May 28, 2026.