REQUIRED READING:
"It is impossible to overstate how wrong BLM and reform activists were on this count."
I have been a successful propagandist, and I have thoughts about this. Believing your own propaganda too much is risky even when it's true, and extremely dangerous when it's false.
This is a… https://t.co/jQko8ja21B
— Eric S. Raymond (@esrtweet) October 28, 2026
Key takeaway:
This is a chronic problem with left-wing propaganda. In an ideal world, or at least an ideal world from the point of view of a left-wing organizer, propaganda would usefully deceive and demoralize everyone outside the movement while the movement itself remains in contact with reality.
But it doesn’t work that way. Really skillful propaganda has the emotional hooks to deceive everybody, including your own people. This divorces them from reality and sets them up for rude shocks when the divorce is no longer deniable.
The result seems to manifest itself as increasingly violent temper tantrums at best, and outright authoritarianism at worst.
Or, “At worse… so far,” as Homer Simpson might say.