Trump
and Goebbels
These Joseph Goebbels quotes sound a lot
like Donald Trump's media strategy
Alternative facts, truthful hyperbole - how
Donald Trump handles the media sounds worryingly familiar.
January 30, 2017 14:46 GMT
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'You are fake news': Watch as Donald Trump
rows with CNN reporter Facebook/Donald J
Trump
At 106-years-old, Brunhilde Pomsel,
war-time secretary to Nazi Germany's notorious chief propagandist Joseph
Goebbels, has died.
She only spoke late on in her life about her
role working for Goebbels, which she secured because of her skill as a typist.
But she said she did not share in the blame for the Holocaust, in which six
million Jews were murdered by the Nazis.
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"I wouldn't see myself as being
guilty," Pomsel said during a documentary called A German Life.
"Unless you end up blaming the entire German population for ultimately
enabling that government to take control. That was all of us, including
me."
Goebbels, who Pomsel called
"arrogant", was an appalling man who killed himself in the final days
of the war as the Allies march on Berlin, and therefore could not be brought to
justice for his Nazi crimes.
But he was also a very smart man who
understood the huge power of propaganda and how it could be deployed with chilling
effect. Even today, over 70 years after his death, we can see his theories
resonating in political propaganda.
Most politicians and governments deploy spin
and rhetoric to some degree. But there are troubling echoes of Goebbels in
Donald Trump's campaign for the White House and early presidency. In
particular, Goebbels's understanding of how effective propaganda could be if it
is used aggressively and without scruples.
Here is how Goebbels's theories in his own
words can be seen deployed in practice by today's Trump presidency, whether or
not the administration realizes the similarities in its tactics.
Joseph Goebbels (Getty)
It would not be impossible to prove with
sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned
that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded
until they clothe ideas and disguise.
Trump's spokesman Sean Spicer was sent out during the
administration's first press conference to berate the media for its coverage of inauguration crowds.
During that press conference, Spicer called it "the largest audience ever
to witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe",
for which there is no evidence, and images from the day suggest otherwise.
He made a number of other misleading assertions about the size
of the inauguration crowd, based on a faulty comparison with Obama's second
inauguration, using the number of travellers on the Metro. Later, he peddled
Trump's unevidenced claim that millions of people voted illegally in the
election.
Trump himself falsely claimed to have saved
and created thousands of American jobs since he won the election. In one
example, he claimed credit for the creation of 5,000 jobs by Sprint, even
though they had been announced before the election.
The Trump team know that there is enough doubt and mistrust of
the media that they can put out their own "alternative facts", as top Trump adviser Kellyanne
Conway put it, and many
people will believe them over journalists. This is a postmodern view of facts —
that there is no objective truth, but many 'truths'. It's a question of who the
audience trusts more.
Plus, this is a test of loyalty for those who
back Trump or work for him. Do they support him enough – is his power over them
sufficiently strong – to sacrifice their own integrity by propagating and
defending his untruths and distortions?
The
most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one
fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a
few points and repeat them over and over.
Trump's campaign was very effective at pushing
slogans that reflected its most important values and ideals. Think: Build The
Wall, America First, Lock Her Up, Low-Energy Jeb, Muslim Ban. These were
simple, often-repeated messages that defined the narrative around Trump and his
rivals.
Propaganda
should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of
propaganda to discover intellectual truths.
Trump is characterised by his populist flair. Demagoguery, in
other words. What is important to him is the power of emotion. He and his team are very good at grabbing people by their
heart and gut, as shown by his rapturous supporter rallies around the
countries. He speaks to many Americans directly about their fears and concerns
– adopting and amplifying them – and gives them the simple solutions they want
to hear. The difficult practical realities of policymaking, which must be
navigated by any responsible government, appear largely unimportant to him.
The president's attitude is probably best
summed up in a now infamous quote from his ghostwritten book, The Art of the
Deal: "I play to people's fantasies...People want to believe that
something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it
truthful hyperbole. It's an innocent form of exaggeration — and it's a very
effective form of promotion."
Think
of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.
Trump and his team's attitude towards the media is hostile. And it's fair to say the feeling is largely mutual. But Team
Trump's belief is that the media should be much more sympathetic to his
presidency, and they have given what sounds like threats to journalists who
don't soften their tone about the administration.
Sean Spicer said the government would "hold the press
accountable" when talking about the inauguration crowd debacle. Trump, who
describes himself as in "a running war" with the media, refused to take a question from a CNN journalist during a press conference, saying "you
are fake news". Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist, told the New York
Times the media "should
be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a
while...The media here is the opposition party."
Source for Goebbels quotes: Goodreads
Don’t
forget locker room banter …. If you don’t remember, he’ll grab you by the b….!
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