Disinformation is Older than You Think
The older I get, the less I seem to know. And the more I learn. I thought disinformation was something that belonged to the world of social media, and I thought artificial intelligence was its amplifier. But it really didn’t take the Internet to swamp us in misinformation. It has been in our midst all along, albeit with different tools.
I just finished reading ‘Prequel,’ Rachel Maddow’s new book about fascist activity in the United States leading up to World War II. Now we all know Maddow has a point of view (left) and that she’d be good at digging up enemies on the right.
But you would still be surprised at the lengths Americans went to during the Depression and the leadup to World War II to put German-inspired and German-produced propaganda in front of Americans. And you’d be equally surprised to know that analog disinformation was just as widespread and effective as what we have now.
Analogue disinformation even involved our own members of Congress, just as it does now.
How did disinformation spread back then? Through the new medium of radio, through magazines, and through direct mail.
In the 1930’s, the Canadian-American Catholic priest, Father Charles Coughlin, broadcast sermons from his Church, the Shrine of the Little Flower in Detroit, every Sunday afternoon. By the mid-1930’s his Sunday afternoon broadcasts, laced with anti-Semitism and isolationism, reached as many as one in four Americans. Ironically, Coughlin also started a magazine he called Social Justice. It took years until the mainstream media and the Church de-platformed him on the eve of World II.
More pervasive than Father Coughlin’s sermons was the medium of direct mail. Mail was a prime communications tool back as far as the country existed, and by the beginning of the 19th century unsolicited mail was something every American had experienced.
Direct mail and catalogs were used for sales purposes, but also for political communication. Duh..
Members of Congress have always had the franking privilege, which entitles them to send out free mail to their constituents.
This privilege has been used for propaganda purposes since way before the Internet. In the 30s, reporters who were trying to figure out how Hitler’s messages were so widely circulated traced bags of mail on their way to the post office from the offices of Congressional representatives. Dozens of them, believing in isolation, lent their privilege to the Nazi propaganda machine.
Now there’s nothing wrong with being an artificial isolationist per se, unless you are being paid by the German government to take that position and make it permeate the United States. Goebbels, who was Hitler’s communication chief, put feelers out to American citizens who had visited Germany and supplied them with propaganda, leaflets and messaging. Oh, and remuneration.
Among old-line patriot families involved was Hamilton Fish, as was a senator named Ed Lundeen who died in a mysterious plane crash just before being outed as a Nazi sympathizer.
These Nazi sympathizers were discovered partly through the efforts of a direct mail pioneer, Henry Hope. Hope’s "War in the Mails," provides an in-depth explanation of what he describes as the most significant direct mail fraud in the history of advertising. It outlines his investigation to uncover and expose the Nazi campaign of disruption through the United States mails.
Although Hope's work was groundbreaking in exposing these activities, it received mixed reviews regarding its depth and analytical approach. According to a review in Commentary Magazine, both "It's a Secret" and "Time Bomb" by E. A. Piller are seen as factual exposés of fascist groups and individuals in America. However, the review criticizes these works for lacking a theoretical understanding of fascism, merely identifying rather than analyzing fascist organizations. Despite these critiques, Hoke's work remains an important historical document for understanding the extent of Nazi propaganda efforts in the United States during this era.
Reading Maddow’s book made me realize that as a democracy, we have been subject to populist threats several times before our most recent run-in with Donald Trump. We know how to do this.
No matter what side you are on, let’s remember during this election year that propaganda will be all around us, and that in politics, critical thinking is a valid way to meet propaganda. In the case of Covid, doing our own research was discouraged because there really were medical experts, but in a democracy we are the experts.
To avoid being taken in by disinformation, exposure is the best medicine.