While the entire presentation was very interesting, I want to focus on a quote that summarizes his view on propaganda. The quote was spoken directly after he described his parents’ situation in Russia in which his parents were investigated for speaking the truth and moved to how today should have been. “We live in an era academics would call and information abundance, but the assumptions that underlay the struggles for rights and freedoms in the 20^th century between citizens armed with truth and regimes, with their senses and secret beliefs have been turned upside down… More information was supposed to mean more freedom to stand up to the powerful, but its also given them new ways to crush the silence descent. More information was supposed to mean a more informed debate, but we seem less capable to deliberation than ever. More information was supposed to mean mutual understanding across borders. It has also made possible new and more subtle forms of conflict and subversion. We live in a world of mass persuasion run amok where the means of manipulation have gone forth and multiplied. A world of dark hats, sci-ops, deepfakes, fake news, Putin, trolls, and Trump.”

Reflecting on this, I thought to the difference between propaganda before the internet and misinformation on social media Originally, propaganda was controlled by the government to portray a single narrative. An example Pomerantsev mentions is that the Soviet Union used to simply insisted on a truth and banned anything that was not their version of the truth. While some of this is happening in countries completely controlled by the government such as North Korea, China and Russia, most other countries are unaffected by this type of propaganda. The “new” form of propaganda is not even insisting on creating a narrative about on singular thing. Rather, they put out so much information that any reasonable person would not be able to decipher what is true. For example, on Twitter, people can talk about their political beliefs, but nobody is checking whether or not the information is true. After many people chime in on the topic, this narrative that may or may not be true, is the story people remember and build their political beliefs on.

Thinking about this, I believe more now than ever, we live in a post-truth world. It is not that the truth isn’t out there if you look for it, bur rather that for a casual consumer of political information, there is too much conflicting information that they are unable to determine what is the truth and what is fiction tied up in a compelling narrative. Since people cannot find or understand the truth, it puts democracies across the world in danger. Democracy relies on citizens to be informed consumers of information and vote according to who they think is the person that best represents them, their community, or their nation.

Overall, I believe that the goal of propaganda is not to persuade people toward a viewpoint, but rather confuse people to the point that they do know what is true. I hope that people can realize this and prevent the spread and effectiveness of propaganda and misinformation.

“We need to stop believe or deluding ourselves that bad things can’t happen- that people won’t do bad things. Because they will and they do.” Just minutes into Robert Kegan’s speech, he directly outlined the democracy as a cause of violence and the January 6^th attacks.

Kegan spends many minutes explaining how bad Trump was for democracy. He stated Trump’s attempt to threaten Georgia’s secretary of state to “find votes” that show he won, support for Pence to overturn the election, and how he was and still is a narcissist that can command the distrust and anger of the American public. More importantly, he discussed the capacity of the American people to do what they say, in this case, try to overturn the election. He compared this to the war in Ukraine in which Putin had the means to go to war, said he would go to war, and then invaded Ukraine. He finalizes his point that next election, in which Trump is likely to be the Republican nominee, he hopes people will realize that Trump is bad for democracy and there are some similarities between the attack on the capital on January 6^th and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

I want to reflect on how Trump took control of the American public. Kegan said his narcissism made him the best candidate for angry people. I agree that is what brought people in and that is what kept people coming back. I believe that Trump is more like a clown a circus than a former president in that he desires that people look at him, listen to him, and come back. He has done that to such a magnitude that I believe a couple years from now, studies will be done on how Trump marketed himself and he will be found in marketing textbooks. Once people realized that he was going to fight for the selfish needs of himself and thus, the selfish needs of Americans, people were attracted to him. This is at the expense of the American morals and the rise of bigotry in many forms- xenophobia, racism, sexism to name a few. Essentially, Trump was able to get millions of people who otherwise would not be as publicly bigoted to protect bigots such as stand up for white supremacists.

The second part I want to comment on is Trump’s return as a candidate that is likely to happen for the 2024 presidential election. Most political scholars agree that Trump will be the Republican candidate. However, this time will be different as there will be no more “I didn’t know what he’s like” from his allies. His advisors will likely be filled with “yes men” agreeing with everything he says with nobody able to persuade him of anything else. This is extremely dangerous to our democracy. On many occasions following the 2016 election, Trump said that if he had lost, he would not have accepted the result. Then after the 2020 election, he was actively trying to overturn the votes of millions of people. If he were elected back to office, my worry would be how much systematic damage could he do to democracy with nobody telling him he cannot do that. Maybe Republican Congressmen and Congresswomen will come to their senses, but that is unlikely to ever happen as they currently won’t speak out against him even though he isn’t in office.