It is hard to know what the American people really think about Donald Trump and the war in Iran. The common perception, one that, in my opinion, Trump is desperately trying to manage, is that he is widely supported by the MAGA base, and they are behind every decision he makes. Is that true, though? After his address on April 1, 2026, it seems he would have lost a great deal of support, as it was a disaster. Everything about the war in Iran is an utter mess, and truthfully, there is no winning. He has isolated himself from our allies while bringing undue hardship to nations dependent on oil from the region. It is only a matter of time before the people of the United States begin feeling those hardships as well. Just keep in mind, it is for long-term gain. It also seems that the Epstein issue would have been the line in the sand for many Trump supporters. If you remember—and I am not sure many people do because they do a great job of moving us from one crisis to the next—he said he didn’t want your support if you believed the Epstein hoax. Since when did it become a hoax? One of the primary promises made by Trump, and people like Dan Bongino, was to bring justice and closure to the issue. Is there still a large number of voters out there chanting the MAGA song? It is hard to know for sure because the news and social media are working to manage perceptions and keep the divide of the false right/left paradigm alive.
Much of what is seen in social media is algorithm-driven, meaning the algorithm is feeding what is shared the most, not the truth. Bots and fake accounts are growing rapidly, making it hard to know if users are engaging with real people, or AI-generated opinions simply reflecting popular sentiment. All of this, along with a news media that keeps us trapped in our perspective political narratives, works as a tool of perception management. What is that? According to an article entitled Perception Management in the Media, published in the International Journal of Social and Economic Sciences, it is a method of propaganda intended to bring people into compliance with the propagandist’s perspective, through media narratives. In other words, it is a method of persuasion meant to manipulate the cognitions of the target audience. How do they do this? Just as it is with all propaganda, they first gain an understanding of the target audience’s values, beliefs, and culture. They are essentially reflecting back to you what you already believe to be true. Perception management can go by different names, like public relations or public diplomacy. This largely depends on whether it is being employed internationally, or within a country’s borders. Either way, the intent is the same. To gain control of the perceptions and opinions of the target audience through the use of media communications.
It would be safe to say that all governments engage in this type of propaganda. John Dewey wrote in his article, The New Paternalism, that the opinions held by people in Democratic societies are shaped by the information they take in, and that propaganda disguised as news is the most effective way of ensuring that people develop the correct point of view. This was in 1918. With today’s technology, which according to Derman, the art of managing perceptions has kept up with the advancement in communications technology; perceptions are easily manipulated because most people spend more time on a screen, paying attention to what reflects their personal biases more than anything else. To quote Derman, he says that “it is believed people tend to be more interested and open-minded when it comes to the visuals and voices they are seeing and hearing rather than what they have learned or read from a book.” In other words, people are spending more time reaffirming their views through the media that reflects them, than doing any original research of their own. This is an important concept to understand for those seeking truth because it is a sentiment also shared in a book called Psychology and Modern Warfare. The authors say that propaganda in the media is almost impossible to prove, unless one does original research. Which most people, they claim, are incapable of doing.
What is the perception that is being managed by the media? There is one narrative that is dominating American minds, though it is perceived very differently depending on which side of the fake paradigm people ascribe to. The perception is that there is a fierce, ideological battle occurring between the political right and left. It can be further broken down into the idea that Trump alone is heroically fighting this battle against the deep state, and that every move he makes is a brilliant four-dimensional chess move. This perception is reinforced by the other side, which portrays Trump as a racist, fascist dictator. Interestingly, research in narrative persuasion has shown that greater attitude change, or compliance, can occur when it is perceived that the antagonist of the story is causing problems for the protagonist. Narrative persuasion is the study of how attitude change occurs due to the result of a story or movie. In this case, the more the left is triggered by Trump, the more it reinforces the right’s support for him. Considering this concept exists within the journals of persuasion psychology, you have to wonder if it is being done on purpose, or if they are experimenting with it.
What is the root cause of this perception? Propaganda is always most effective when it reflects the existing beliefs and biases of the audience. Even Anatoliy Golitsyn, in New Lies for Old, says that deception works best when the message reflects the beliefs of those being deceived. Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 was a complete repudiation of Obama-style liberalism and driven by the fear that Hillary Clinton would bring the same. Under the fear-then-relief model of persuasion, it is believed that being relived of a fear-based stimulus places one in a mindless state of compliance. His victory was viewed as a massive blow to the world government agenda, and from then on, everything coming from conservative media was framed in this way. With talking heads like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and Mark Levin, all working to maintain this perception, Trump became an unquestionable, pop culture-like icon. The next four years saw an explosion in the use of catchphrases like drain the swamp and trust the plan. A mysterious figure known as Q-Anon had convinced the MAGA base that a secret plan, involving the military no less, was underway to arrest the deep state and restore American freedom. This illusion persisted all the way through the 2020 election, where it was believed that Mike Pence was going to refuse to certify the election results. The perception was that the election was stolen. Maybe it was, but it was more likely planned that way. In any case, Q was a massively successful psychological operation based on something very similar called Operation Trust, from the old Soviet Union. The communists, posing as the monarchial government, convinced the peasants that there was an operation underway to defeat the radicals and restore the monarchy. Sound familiar? To this day, people cling to the four-dimensional chess explanation for anything Trump does that defies reason.
“These agents confided in their contacts that the anti-Soviet monarchist movement that they represented was now well established in Soviet Russia, had penetrated into the higher levels of the army, the security service, and even the government, and would in time take power and restore the monarchy. They convinced the emigre leaders that the regime had undergone a radical change. Communism had completely failed; ideology was dead; the present leaders had nothing in common with the fanatical revolutionaries of the past. (Anatoliy Golitsyn, New Lies for Old)
Remember, propaganda works best when it reflects the beliefs and values of the target audience. Donald Trump, and most likely Hillary Clinton as well, employed a big data company called Cambridge Analytica to analyze the beliefs of what were called “twenty-million persuadable voters in key battleground states.” What is the common belief among most conservative voters? That the left is bankrupting the country and trying to impose a socialist system. A belief shared by me as well, by the way. According to the linked article, claims were circulating that Cambridge Analytica was able to develop personality profiles on these voters and target them with specified ad campaigns that were essentially “weaponized AI propaganda” that was telling the voters what they wanted to hear based on their existing beliefs. Whether they were able to do that is the question. The linked paper offers up some criticisms of that claim. A paper entitled Governance by Algorithms: Reality Construction by Algorithmic Selection on the Internet, however, also discusses how our perceptions of reality, on the personal level, are very much shaped by the algorithms on our social media feeds. These algorithms are created by what we choose to expose ourselves to online. In other words, when we continually share only those memes and stories that reflect our views, the algorithm will continually feed us what we like to see. It has, in a roundabout way, become a system where we are propagandizing ourselves. Our data is being collected online, our beliefs and attitudes are being analyzed, and the system feeds it right back to us in a way that solidifies our biases, beliefs and attitudes towards political topics. It is called participatory propaganda.
Be looking for my new book, The Psychology of Persuasive Propaganda: The Things You Should Know, coming this summer! In the meantime, you can check out.
Without a Shot Indeed: Inducing Compliance to Tyranny Through Conditioning and Persuasion.
and A Critical Look at CRT in Education, Research and Social Policy
Article posted with permission from David Risselada
