An attendee at an October 2021 political rally hosted by right-wing activist Charlie Kirk asked: “How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?”
The attendee was referring to the baseless allegation that Joe Biden stole the 2020 U.S. presidential election and that he unfairly denied Donald Trump reelection.
The U.S. is in an information war with itself. The public sphere, where Americans discuss public issues, is broken. There’s little discussion – and lots of fighting.
One reason why: Persuasion is difficult, slow, and time-consuming – it doesn’t make good television or social media content – and so there aren’t a lot of good examples of it in our public discourse.
What’s worse, a new form of propaganda has emerged – and it’s enlisted us all as propagandists.
