For those who just got here, we have a long running thread about the implications of Straussianism in the conservative movement. One aspect we've been particularly focused on was instability of a system operating within a relatively free society (as compared with cases where the state controls the media) that depends on channeling censored information and sometimes outright disinformation to the base while keeping the leadership well informed.
Here's how we put it in 2017:
The initial purpose of this "noble lie" approach was to use the propaganda to keep the base sending money and showing up for the polls through of a combination of rage and fear. As with all Straussian systems, it was assumed that those in power would be in on the joke while the people who believed the lies would simply serve as electoral cannon fodder.
At some point though (I suspect inevitably), a couple of things happen. First, the believers become leaders. This is become blindingly obvious with Trump, but the children of Fox News have been in control of the party since at least 2010 and the roots go back further. Remember how Dick Cheney insisted while traveling that all hotel televisions be tuned to Fox News?
The second, and possibly more dangerous problem is that a propaganda-fed base has no capacity to self correct, rather it continues follow unsustainable paths that only gain momentum, often exacerbated by ratcheting mechanisms. Soon you reach a point where, even if the leaders accurately perceive the situation and realized the best solution, they can no longer reconcile that reasonable course of action with what the vast majority of their supporters have been told to believe for decades.
We referred to leaders being caught up in the propaganda as "drinking from the wrong pipe."
Keeping all of that in mind, check out this insightful piece of analysis from Josh Marshall:
It’s a common refrain among non-Republicans that Fox News and the rest of the conservative media superstructure have essentially brainwashed 30 percent or 40 percent of the population over the last couple decades. But implicit in that belief is that it’s those people, voters, for lack of a better word the audience of national politics. Elites or high level appointees or operatives may cynically participate in this flimflam. But somehow they’re not part of the process, they not stewing in the same cauldron. They’re cynical, amoral, pick your description.
This is a major blindspot. Bill Barr is another Republican guy in his late 60s who’s been living, as Miller puts it, in that Fox News/GOP legal circles cocoon for two decades. Why would he be any different from your birther uncle you avoid at holiday dinners?
More to the point, why would we be in the current situation if the bacillus of Foxism or rightwing authoritarianism (whatever you want to call it) wasn’t as pervasive with the Bill Barrs of the GOP as the ordinary Joes you see at the Trump rallies? More articulate, yes. But different? Not really. And why would it be?
Beyond the stonewalling and outrageous comments from Barr yesterday, one thing that struck me is that more than a few times he didn’t seem familiar with basic facts of the case or the Report. I don’t mean points in dispute between pro and anti-Trump commentators. I mean, basic factual details. It wasn’t clear to me he’d actually read the Report itself. At least some of his arguments seemed based on Republican commentaries rather than the actual document. Much the same applies to his comments about 2016 “spying”. This isn’t to excuse any of Barr’s lawless and now, in at least certain cases, criminal behavior. But it’s not clear to me he’s even sweating the details on behalf of his authoritarian aims.
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