[FRIAM] populism and propaganda

[glen ☣]

Cyber expert drops Senate intel bombshell: Russia targets Trump with fake news because he’ll repeat it
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/cyber-expert-drops-senate-intel-bombshell-russia-targets-trump-with-fake-news-because-hell-repeat-it/

I think it's interesting that the article (or the ... ugh, "cyber expert") places both Bernie Bros and Trump (and supporters) in the same class.  Others do that, but this is the first time I've seen someone put in the same class because they're equally susceptible to propaganda.  So, there seems to be a common thread here amongst populism, "dog whistling" (e.g. Lakoff's interpretation of Trump's language), fake news, confirmation bias, etc.

Since many of us deal with simulation and concepts like reproducibility and fallacious rhetoric, it's fair to include the more sophisticated versions of it, above and beyond retweets and facebook shares.  And we've talked about it before.  The common thread is pareidolia.  When an Eddington typewriter like Trump farts out a thin-ideology token, whose details can be filled out with muliple thicker ideologies, even in the near-random word salad ways like a Sarah Palin, our evolutionarily designed brains kick in and begin their "sense making".  If it's true that Clinton supporters were less likely to succumb to the "active measures", then our analysis of what makes someone elite is supported.  Clinton is a geek/wonk and probably attracted the support of most of the people who lean geek/wonk ... excepting the pathological like Thiel.

I propose that the distinction between a member of an elite and a regular Joe is the granularity and organization of their domain-specific epistemology.  Unversed people may not know the difference between a CIA agent versus officer, or induction vs deduction, or IRS Form 1120 vs 1120S, etc.  The idea that some/many elites are snotty and wear their sophisticated epistemology on their sleeves plays a role in the extent to which a regular Joe identifies as a populist (of some stripe) and resents whatever vague sub-group they see as "the elite".  To the extent that we can analogize between the middle class tea partiers and the (similarly endowed, but in different ways -- lazyboys vs laptops) occupy movement, would depend on identifying the snotty behavior.

An equally plausible counter-idea, though, is that this is less about belief and ideology and more about whatever trait makes some people pass along propaganda.  I consume a lot of alternative and conspiratorial nonsense because it entertains me.  But I don't really repeat much of that stuff because I know it's counterfactual.  I even hesitate to pass on RawStory.com stories because they're prone to hyperbole (like calling this a "bombshell").  But given the context, everyone on this list should realize that nothing is trustable, no fact incontrovertible, no source authoritative.  So, I don't worry about you being fooled.  Here, populism would be directly a function of whatever homogenization effect that causes things to become popular ... so Katie Perry's success ~= Jenny McCarthy's anti-vaxxer status ~= Trump's tweet about Obama wiretapping his phones ... as well as batboys, alien babies, and holding your breath when you drive past a cemetary.  There _must_ be a body of research that addresses the viscosity of a memetic medium.

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☣ glen