Slipping into darkness
By E. Faye Williams, esq.
Trice Edney News Wire
“To attract people, to win over people to that which I have realized as being true, that is called propaganda…Propaganda is not a matter for average minds, but rather a matter for practitioners. It is not supposed to be lovely or theoretically correct. I do not care if I give wonderful, aesthetically elegant speeches, or speak so that women cry. The point of a political speech is to persuade people of what we think right. I speak differently in the country than I do in cities, and when I speak in Oklahoma, I say different things from what I say in the halls of Congress…Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of propaganda to discover intellectual truths. Those are found in other circumstances, I find them when thinking at my desk, but not in the meeting hall.”
From what many of us have been able to discern from experiences of the past 10 months, it’s not hard to believe that rather lengthy quotation as coming from the playbook of #45. Without apology, he has used communication to appeal to the basest instincts of humanity. He’s used the fears of his followers to cultivate suspicion, distrust and division among the populace. One can only wonder how permanent will be the damage he inflicts upon the world.
Every week since January, we ‘ve been inundated with a series of lies from #45, or his press secretary. For trumpeters, life’s easy. All they have to do is continue to “drink the kool-aid.” Their casual assessment of current news leaves them with only two alternatives – challenge themselves to sort through a maze of misinformation to determine the truth or, more commonly, ignore it. We non-believers weigh every word, facial expression, gesture and intonation to attempt to determine the ‘real truth’ of the words bombarding us. Most of the time we know a lie when we hear it, but our challenge has become an analysis of motivation.
Like falling into a deep, dark bottomless pit, I sometimes wonder just how low the “trump effect” will take us. When I think we have reached rock bottom, almost like purgatory, I find the surprise of another level to which we must sink.
I doubt that there is a person in the United States with access to a television who has not seen the infamous Access Hollywood video with #45 and Billy Bush—the one where #45 describes his methodology of sexual assault. In an act that must be characterized as ABSURD, #45 would now have us believe that the video was “doctored” and that the voice that we heard was not his. Video tape and the memories of concerned individuals can verify that #45 admitted making those “locker room” comments.
I can only believe that the recent, non-stop accusations of Sexual Harassment against famous and powerful men and the resulting condemnation and consequence for them has caused him to re-think his public admission. I think he has been forced to reevaluate the effectiveness of the “denial defense.” That defense isn’t really working for Roy Moore outside Alabama and any eventual Moore ‘pushback’ could eventually come back to bite #45. While #45 and Moore, have received little to no pushback yet, two otherwise good men–Conyers and Franken–have already been forced out. Why the difference?
The quotation with which I began WAS NOT a quote from #45. It came from the same voice that brought you the idea that, “A lie told once remains a lie, but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth.” He was Josef Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda for Germany from 1933 to 1945.
Knowing that, we’re left to ponder whether similarity of thought indicates similarity of purpose.
Dr. E. Faye Williams is President of the National Congress of Black Women, 202/678-6788, www.nationalcongressbw.org.
