Please consider sharing this newsletter with someone whom you appreciate, like or just want to help. If this newsletter has been shared with you by someone who likes you please consider subscribing, our aim is to help you get more of what you want. Just enter your email address at the bottom of this email to get started and you’ll immediately have access to other great articles, tips and techniques – there’s no cost to you, it’s completely at our expense!
To view past articles, issues and post visit https://influenceletter.brainhacker.ca/ and scroll down
Table of Contents
Did you like this article? |
Key Takeaways:
-
Propaganda isn’t about truth; it’s about control. Get that straight.
-
Repetition works—say a lie enough times, and people believe it.
-
Fear sells. Prey on people’s fears, and they’ll do whatever you suggest.
-
Authority is a shortcut to credibility. Find (or fabricate) an expert.
-
Make it simple. Nuance is the enemy of obedience.
-
Social pressure is your best friend. No one wants to be the odd one out.
-
The enemy of propaganda is critical thinking
Introduction
Hello my friend and welcome to Authoritarian Propaganda 101! The difference between Propaganda 101 and Copywriting 101 is that Copywriting 101 requires some level of truthfulness and dare I say it, honesty. Propaganda isn’t concerned with facts, science, objective reality, its only purpose is to convince someone of something, at any cost.
If you’re not planning on being or working for an evil authoritarian despot don’t worry. Everything in this article works and is incredibly useful for small business owners, copywriters and bureaucrats as well. Just be honest. This article is also a good primer for helping recognizing propaganda so keep reading.
A brief personal and political note:
I want to be clear about one thing: propaganda is evil. And while it has always existed we are going through a terrifying period in history where it is resurging and spreading. Entire swathes of the political spectrum, including in Canada and North America no longer even pretend honesty, truth or even basic accuracy are relevant. Propaganda, lies, and disinformation are the enemies of science, reason and democracy.
The United States has a President who has a history of repeating long debunked Russian propaganda. And he is spreading new and dangerous falsehoods from them right now. His party doesn’t care.
All joking about how to write propaganda vs copywriting aside, be aware, see where these techniques are being used and undermine them.
The best defense against propaganda, the best defense against authoritarianism, is critical thinking.
I’ll get off my soap box now.
Introduction Continued…
Copywriting is writing with purpose. The purpose is either to make the reader take a specific action or to impart to the reader a specific belief. Propaganda is copywriting without morality or ethics.
It’s the same set of tools, the same target subjects, the same cognitive processes and biases, the same processes. The tools can be wielded like scalpels or sledge hammers and both ways have their purposes. These words are used to shape perceptions, drive actions, and in the case of propaganda instill fear and compel compliance.
The One Sentence Persuasion Course
The One Sentence Persuasion Course was a book written by Blair Warren that is no longer available. In it he wrote 27 words that every propagandist and marketer should have above their desk.
People will do anything for those who:
Encourage their dreams,
Allay their fears,
Confirm their suspicions,
Throw rocks at their enemies and
Justify their failures.
Five Traits of Effective Propaganda:
-
Emotional Manipulation: Facts bore people; feelings move them.
-
Selective Truths: Show one side, hide the rest.
-
Endless Repetition: Drill it into their skulls. If you hear something often enough, you will believe it.
-
Authority Figures: Not experts, authorities. Slap a lab coat on someone, and people listen. Or if you’re in the United States or Canada you start think tanks.
-
Enemy Creation: There’s nothing like a good hate. Ideally combined with fear. A common enemy unites the masses.
Now, let’s dissect the tactics with real-world examples.
The Power of Fear
The primary missions of the human brain and human mind are survival and procreation. Your brain has evolved to keep you alive.
Unfortunately for well over 5 million years we really only needed fear to avoid getting eaten or otherwise injured. Imagine that you live in a jungle filled with ravenous creatures that want to eat you. The hunter-gatherer who hears rustling in the bushes and gets scared presuming it is a predator and legs it in the opposite direction doesn’t get eaten as often as the hunter gather to hangs around to find out. This is known as error management theory – where overestimating risk leads to safer outcomes despite the fact that your assumptions may be wrong most of the time (a hunter gatherer, or any human really, who presumes “all dark clouds mean a dangerous storm” may overreact occasionally but is less likely to be caught unprepared in life-threatening weather).
So we have evolved in a way where the emotion of fear overrides nearly everything. Carrying home the greatest mammoth carcass you can imagine if you hear a tiger raw 10 feet away you’re not going to think twice, you’ll drop it and be downhill before you realize what’s happening. Fear gives you tunnel vision. Fear colours every perception and sense you have. If you can make someone scared you can change their reality. Fear removes nuance. Just ask any life insurance salesmen.
The Power of Fear: Nazi Germany’s Fear Machine
The Nazis spread fear-based propaganda, particularly in their depiction of Jews, as the source of Germany’s economic and social problems (and to be blamed for losing world war 1). The Stürmer newspaper, edited by Julius Streicher, ran grotesque caricatures of Jewish people and published fabricated stories of Jewish conspiracies. Films such as The Eternal Jew (1940), which pretended to be a documentary, manipulated the new medium of film to paint Jews as dirty, greedy, and dangerous. This fear-mongering wasn’t just rhetoric—it was weaponized to justify the Nuremberg Laws, which stripped Jews of citizenship, and ultimately facilitated mass genocide. More importantly the propaganda that enable anti-Jewish laws allowed the precedent to be set that it was okay to strip certain groups of people of their basic rights.
Propaganda made ordinary citizens complicit in Hitler’s vision. It made violence and murder of the innocent normal and acceptable.
The Power of Fear: Trump’s Border Panic
Trump’s fear-based rhetoric on immigration became a cornerstone of his political strategy. In his 2015 campaign announcement, he declared that Mexican immigrants were “rapists” and “bringing crime.” In the 2024 election they knowingly spread false rumours of immigrants murdering people’s pets for foods. Though discredited by the very sources whom these incidents were allegedly reported to they continued spreading the lies because, well, those who use propaganda have no shame. To them words have no value beyond their immediate utility – they just say what is convenient.
The dangers of immigrants, the ‘crisis’ was reinforced through relentless messaging, including the depiction of migrant caravans as an “invasion” and the promotion of individual cases of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. His administration showcased specific violent crimes, such as the 2018 murder of two teenage girls by MS-13 members, using them as a broad justification for aggressive immigration policies, including family separations at the border. Half of American’s are too stupid to even realize that people on American soil that a person on American soil, exercising their rights and petitions including habeas corpus are exercising legal rights. The Republican strategy of calling them ‘criminals’ and ‘illegals’ is all aimed at increasing fear and dehumanizing them. This strategy has created a climate of fear that led to widespread support among many American’s for harsh immigration crackdowns and the expansion of ICE’s authority.
This obviously isn’t the only fear stoking done by the Trump and the Republican’s but listing all of them is beyond the scope or purpose of this article.
Scientific Backing:
A 2011 study in The American Journal of Political Science found that fear-based political messaging significantly increases support for restrictive policies. People exposed to fear-inducing campaign ads were more likely to support authoritarian leaders and aggressive policies aimed at “security.”
Tips for the Up-and-Coming Autocratic Dictator
-
Frame opponents as dangerous outsiders who threaten the safety and the way of life of ‘your people’
-
Use emotionally charged visuals and soundbites to make fear visceral.
-
Push stories that highlight rare but shocking crimes to generalize fear.
Manufactured Credibility: The Power of Experts
A message doesn’t need to be true; it just needs to sound authoritative. People are far more likely to believe something if they think it comes from a trusted source, even when no real expertise exists.
Manufactured Credibility: Big Tobacco’s Fake Science
For much of the 20th century, tobacco companies funded misleading “research” and paid doctors to downplay the dangers of smoking. Advertisements featuring doctors endorsing specific cigarette brands reassured the public that smoking was not harmful. The industry also created front groups like the Tobacco Industry Research Committee to cast doubt on emerging studies linking smoking to cancer. Internal documents revealed in the 1990s showed that these companies were well aware of the dangers of smoking but deliberately obfuscated the science to protect profits.
Manufactured Credibility: Think Tanks
One of the most disgusting and disingenuous things ever done in any democracy is the right wings creation and embrace of the ‘think tank’. Think tanks were created because peer reviewed academic data with ‘open source’ methodologies from reputable academic sources kept providing data and conclusions at odds with conservative ideologies. While mature adults would change their opinions based on the facts the Republicans in the United States and the Conservatives in Canada instead decided to create an entire shadow system of think tanks to give legitimacy to their ideas. Despite their predictions having been wrong significantly more than those of educated professionals and despite their reports being frequently cited for being unscientific, misleading or just wrong open any newspaper and read about politics – you’ll see a reference to reports from these charlatans. Remember, it just must sound authorative.
Scientific Backing:
A 2017 study in Cognition found that people are more likely to believe misinformation when it comes from an authoritative figure, even when the claim contradicts their prior knowledge. This effect is particularly strong when the supposed authority aligns with the audience’s existing beliefs or biases.
Tips for the Up-and-Coming Autocratic Dictator
-
Recruit or fabricate experts who support your message.
-
Discredit real experts by framing them as corrupt or politically motivated.
-
Use official-looking reports and scientific jargon to add credibility.
-
Repeat expert endorsements often to reinforce legitimacy.
-
Start your own ‘independent think tank’ and tell them what to think – you can even
The Power of Repetition
Repetition encourages belief. Repetition encourages belief. Repetition encourages belief. Repetition encourages belief.
The Power of Repetition: Saddam Hussein’s “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (WMDs) (2002–2003)
Everyone knew that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction in 2002. The reason everyone knew that is that Iraq had already complied with inspections for more than a decade that had overseen the disposal and destruction of their WMD’s. Yet the Bush administration, alongside mainstream media, repeatedly asserted that Iraq possessed WMDs, despite a total lack of any credible evidence. Through constant repetition in news cycles and speeches, the claim became widely accepted, leading to public support for the Iraq War in the United States and the rest of the world shaking their head. The only people American’s believed this was credible was repetition of lies.
The Power of Repetition: The Canadian Carbon Tax
The Canadian Conservative Party and their current leader have repeatedly deceived voters and fabricated their only reality regarding the federal carbon tax introduced by the current government. Despite evidence from unbiased economists, government agencies and peer reviewed academic consensuses Pierre Poilievre repeated this lie until Canadians, who really aren’t very much smarter than their southern neighbours, believed it. Despite clear, verifiable data showing that the tax is largely revenue-neutral and that external factors like global oil prices have a much greater impact on inflation, the Conservative party continues to repeat these claims. By hammering this narrative across social media, campaign speeches, and advertisements, they have convinced a significant portion of the public that the carbon tax is an economic disaster, despite data to the contrary and now those in contention to be the next Prime Minister of Canada have all agreed to scrap a program that was important for all Canadians. This is the power of repeating a lie.
Scientific Backing:
A 2015 study published in Journal of Experimental Psychology: General found that people are significantly more likely to believe false statements if they’ve heard them multiple times, even when they initially recognize them as false.
Tips for Using This Strategy for the Up-and-Coming Autocratic Dictator
-
Choose a simple, emotionally charged narrative and repeat it across all platforms.
-
When asked questions or challenged repeat it louder.
-
Ensure all media under your control pushes the same narrative to create an echo chamber.
-
Discredit and suppress counter-narratives by labeling them as false or harmful.
Us vs. Them: Creating an Enemy
Now if you load your rifle right
And if you fix your bayonet so
And if you kill that man my friend
The one we call the foe
And if you do it often lad
And if you do it right
You’ll be a hero overnight
You’ll save your country from her plight
Remember God is always right
If you survive to see the sight
A friend now greeting foe
Groups define themselves by how they are different from their neighbours. Identity, individual or group, is defined by how we are different from them.
Propaganda thrives on division. When you create an “us vs. them” narrative, you unify your base and dehumanize the opposition. This tactic makes it easier to justify extreme measures, from discrimination to genocide.
Us vs Them: McCarthyism and the Red Scare
In the 1940s and 1950s Senator Joseph McCarthy led a crusade against suspected communists in the United States. He portrayed communism as an existential threat to the very existence of American. Government committees interrogated and blacklisted hundreds of Americans, destroying careers and lives with little to no concern for evidence, fairness or due process. The press and Hollywood, then as now, cowards and simpletons, reinforced the messaging and convinced millions of American’s that that dangeerous, vicious, malevolent communists were lurking everywhere. This widespread paranoia led to the wide spread persecution of innocent people under the guise of protecting democracy.
Us vs Them: Russia’s Ukraine “Nazi” Narrative
Since 2014, Russian state media has labeled the Ukrainian government as a fascist regime infiltrated by Nazis, despite Ukraine’s leaders being democratically elected in monitored elections. Details like President Volodymyr Zelenskyy being Jewish do not diminish the volume or fervour with which these false claims are made. This messaging and the pretext that Russia is continuing to fight the evils of Nazism has led to a situation where many Russians support a war they know little or nothing about. Russian media repeatedly airs fabricated stories of Ukrainian war crimes while suppressing any stories about their own activities.
Scientific Backing:
A 2019 study in Cognitive Science found that people exposed to simplified “good vs. evil” narratives were more likely to support extreme policies. When an issue is framed as a moral battle rather than a complex situation, people are less likely to question authority and more willing to support drastic measures.
Tips for the Up-and-Coming Autocratic Dictator
-
Constantly portray opponents as existential threats to the nation or way of life.
-
Use emotionally charged language to ensure rational discussion is impossible.
-
Remember your side is righteous, under attack and is always treated unfairly.
-
Suppress counter-narratives and dissenting voices.
If you want to get ‘good’, or at least ordinary, people to do bad things, social pressure is key. We are pack animals and millions of years of evolution have ingrained in us that rejection from the pack or herd means death. Social pressure is the flip side of the Us vs Them. You create the bandwagon effect by suggesting that everyone, or a substantial number, of those in a group the subject identify with already agree.
Phrases like, “The vast majority of citizens support…” and “Don’t be the last to join…” Celebrity endorsements, influencers and other ways to make people identify are all examples of how we spread the bandwagon effect.
By portraying a movement, leader, or ideology as overwhelmingly supported, propagandists discourage dissent and make opposition seem futile, dangerous, or socially unacceptable.
Post World War 2 one of the most common defenses for German’s who committed the war crime of murdering civilians, was “Befehlsnotstand”, which we refer to in English as ‘following orders’. It may surprise you to know that in all of World War 2 there hasn’t been found a single case where refusal to execute civilians led to severe punishment for Wehrmacht or SS soldiers. And the Germans kept scrupulous records and did punish soldiers for not following orders etc. However in every known instance where a German soldier or SS guard refused to murder or torture an innocent civilian they only faced mild consequences like reassignment to different units. So what made tens of thousands of ‘decent’ people willing to kill innocent people?
In 1961 a German woman named Erna Petri, who had shot a number of innocent people, Jews, including young children was asked, “Why did you kill the Jewish men and children?”
Her response, “I was only 23 years old, still young and inexperienced. I lived only among men, who were in the SS and carried out shootings of Jewish persons. I seldom had contact with other women, so in the course of time I became more hardened. Not wanting to stand behind the SS men, I wanted to show them that I, as a woman, could conduct myself like a man. So I shot 4 Jews and 6 Jewish children. I wanted to prove myself to the men. Besides in those days in this region, everywhere one heard that Jewish persons and children were being shot, which also caused me to kill them.”
She killed innocent children in cold blood, without being asked to, because she wanted to fit in. Overwhelmingly when we look at those who participated in attrocities, yes there were a few psychopaths, but most of them were scared of not adhering to the social group that they had been conditioned to identify with.
Donald Trump frequently claimed that his supporters represented America’s “silent majority,” implying that those who opposed him were a radical minority. His rallies were designed as displays of overwhelming support, featuring massive crowds chanting in unison. Social media campaigns exaggerated the movement’s size and influence, creating the illusion that opposition was futile or unpatriotic. This strategy helped solidify Trump’s base and silence dissenters within the Republican Party.
Scientific Backing:
A 2018 study in Electoral Studies found that when people perceive an idea as overwhelmingly popular, they are less likely to voice opposition—even if they disagree. Social validation influences behavior more than logical reasoning.
Tips for Using This Strategy for the Up-and-Coming Autocratic Dictator
-
It doesn’t matter how much support you have, lie and claim that there is a massive number of people who love you
-
Inflate the size and enthusiasm of your base through media spectacle, perspective is everything, encourage public demonstrations of loyalty to make resistance seem futile
-
Dismiss dissenters as an insignificant, radical minority
-
Lie about crowd sizes or move your inauguration indoors to avoid embarrassment
And that’s all folks. A brief guide to Propaganda to get you started on your journey to undermine democracy and betray your neighbours. Good Luck.
Did you like this article? |
Social Pressure: The Bandwagon Effect