'Flood the zone with shit' - Steve Bannon
Counterprogramming tries to distract public attention (with BS) so people don't learn about the people behind the Jan 6th insurrection and attempt to topple American democracy.
It's an old trick. "Hillary Clinton was ahead in the polls in every contested state when the Access Hollywood tape dropped. "Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything." - WaPo
To distract public attention from the scandal, "Russian cyber spying group Fancy Bear dumped 20,000 pages of stolen 'Podesta Emails' minutes after the Washington Post published its Access Hollywood video. The document dump would be repeated dozens of times." - Rolling Stone
The Jan 6th insurrection televised hearings begin next week. "Trump and his allies, in conjunction with top House GOP leadership and conservative groups, have begun pulling documents and coordinating a behind-the-scenes effort to counterprogram the Jan. 6 committee's televised hearings this month." - Axios
Get ready. Understand how counterprogramming works. Don't fall for it again.
GOP - Trump plan to counterprogram the Jan 6th investigation
Why are Republicans pulling this? Because there’s going to be a war of words. The Jan. 6 committee has been gearing up for this for months, in the hopes that the wall of summer hearings will paint a vivid picture of just how close Trump and his minions came to destroying democracy. Republicans plan to deal with the wall-to-wall cable coverage... They hope to use this framing to minimize whatever negative revelations will be uncovered during the hearings.
Ex-president Donald Trump, his cronies, along with top House GOP leadership and conservative groups, has started compiling documents and making a major behind the scenes effort to bombard the Jan. 6 committee’s televised hearings with counter-program per Axios.
Axios reports Trump and his flying monkeys hope to rely on members of Congress to push the counter-programming. It looks like this is going to include House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Jim Banks (R-Indiana), and Elise Stefanik (R-New York), all of whom will do whatever they can to divert attention away from the hearings. Trump Considering a Public Appearance to Distract People From Watching First Primetime Jan 6 Riot Hearing." - Political Flare
Who is pushing the counterprogramming?
Many of the people who are leading the distraction from the Jan 6th televised hearings are also being investigated by the committee. There is a large cast of characters. Follow along with this relationship map:
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"Flood the zone with shit" - Steve Bannon
"Bannon told author Michael Lewis that “the real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”
This is the core of Bannon’s strategy and the threat of the larger Trumpist movement he represents. As Vox’s Sean Illing put it, “The press ideally should sift fact from fiction and give the public the information it needs to make enlightened political choices. If you short-circuit that process by saturating the ecosystem with misinformation and overwhelm the media’s ability to mediate, then you can disrupt the democratic process.” - Media Matters
Russian counterprogramming to save Trump
"Beyond the Access Hollywood tape, two other events transpired online that day. The first was official acknowledgement by the U.S. intelligence community that Russia had targeted the 2016 election by hacking the emails of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton proxies — a story of momentous importance that would be immediately lost in the “locker room talk” news cycle.
What followed was an online information campaign that essentially conquered the Internet. The Access Hollywood tape dominated headlines for roughly a week; “Wikileaks,” on the other hand, was an unrelenting drumbeat of rumors and wild allegations that left conservatives in a perpetual state of fury. Trump’s digital army helped ensure that Wikileaks stayed in the news while Access Hollywood gradually fell out of it. Most of these supporters had grown up on the Internet. They understood how to hijack conversations and — crucially — how to amplify their voices until no others could be heard. They helped manage a horde of 200,000 pro-Trump Twitter bots (roughly a quarter of which were built by Russians), ensuring that their messages trended and reached beyond Trump supporters to a wider audience... the effect was to mask any decline in Trump’s popularity while driving Clinton’s numbers steadily lower." - Rolling Stone
A special Thanks to Victoria with State Wide Indivisble Michigan (SWIM) for background information for this blog.
TakeAway: Democracy is on the ballot in 2022. Don't be distracted by counterprogramming. Watch the televised Jan 6th Insurrection hearings on June 9th for the facts.
Deepak
DemLabs
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