Have you noticed how his partisans always apply the most rigourous standards of evidence and the strictest peer review to everything his critics say (witness your last kerfuffle, mcfly!) but seem to never once notice Trump's continuous contradictions, inconsistencies and, yes, downright lies. We've seen a bit of that right here on the Zone lately, haven't we, my friend? When he gets caught out, his defenders say "Oh, all politicians do that", "Its an election year", change the subject, or distract you with some carefully documented but completely irrelevant triviality.

Its standard propaganda technique. Keep your opponent scurrying about
fact-checking references and debunking conspiracies, and simply overwhelm him with half-truths, rumours and insinuendoes. Remember, the purpose of propaganda is not to debunk your enemy's message, he knows you're lying, it's to keep your base happy and indignant so they'll be more ready to accept your own lies.

This is how propaganda works. It is not meant to convince your opponents, they already know you are lying; it is designed to reassure your followers and confound or sway those who are uncommitted or confused.

No one on the Right has yet to seriously chastise Trump for his birther nonsense, which he sprung on us prior to the 2012 election; and no Conservative objected to the Socialist/Muslim nonsense, not in the alt-right/Tparty press, the Rush Limbaugh radio circus, the "Establishment" GOP, or even right here on the Habitable Zone. You know perfectly well most of the people on the Right never believed any of that shit, but they still looked the other way, lit a cigarette, or bent down to tie their shoelaces whenever it came up.

In America, we're not as brutal and cynical as Lenin or Hitler's propagandists. There will probably be no round-up of journalists, or death camps and gulags for Progressive thinkers and writers. But journalism is a business, academia and publishing are businesses, they rely on advertisers and ratings, and for those willing to manipulate this environment with money and coercion, you will see gentle pressures to get out the "American" Side Of The Story. We don't send our newsmen and writers to re-education camps, or kidnap them off the street and drop them from helicopters into the ocean after interrogation. We just get them fired, make sure they don't get hired, and otherwise wreck their careers.

Yeah, I know. They can always start a blog, right? Sure, sure. The internet was supposed to bring us a real paradise of debate and openness. A real high school debating society of gentlemanly discourse. SHEEEEEIIIIT!