One disadvantage of these propaganda tricks (for those who employ them) is that if they are used often enough their target audiences become innoculated to them, and after a while, nothing the propagandist says is taken seriously, whether there's any truth to it or not. The propagandist, on the other hand, becomes so dependent on the rhetorical tactic and its short-term successes on the unprepared that he finds it difficult to frame any argument without resorting to the same cliches and phraseology, the verbal fetishes of his position. You can spot 'em a mile away and just tune them out. They all start to sound the same, all the time, everywhere, about everything. Like the boy who cried wolf, no one pays any attention to them any more, even when they do tell the truth.

The propagandist's reliance on these same patterns, both rhetorical and logical, makes it difficult for him to spot the increasing implausibility and shrill tone of his message because he mistakes the rejection of his style with an objection to his message. Their reaction is so predictable that even if you agree with them on some issue, they cannot resist getting in the last word and driving one final, and totally unnecessary, point home. They act as if everyone is their enemy, and sure enough, given enough time, everyone will be.

Propaganda of this nature is so ineffective that even those sympathetic to it soon become immune to it. I can only think of those Soviet Party members who tuned into the BBC and the VOA when they wanted to know what was really going on. But cynical functionaries are still capable of some appreciation of reality, the True Believers are so seduced by their own rhetoric that they are often the last to realize they are just shouting into the worldwind.