Sleepers

Anyone remember non-political web sites going political before the '16 election? I, for one, was surprised by Teen Vogue, Vanity Fair, Buzzfeed, Gizmodo, Lifehacker (and many other sites that I forgot now) publishing political articles. Of course, these are all culture sites, and culture is dominated by the left, so may be this should not have been a surprise. Or, may be these web sites were all set up for propaganda. May be political propaganda is their primary function and the other stuff is just a cover. Like an Al Qaeda sleeper that comes to life when needed and executes his mission, may be these sites come to life when needed and do their part for the leftist propaganda.

This is an excellent strategy for propaganda. You pretend to be about some non-political pastime, like cooking, teen fashion, or tech stuff. You spend money, provide quality content on your primary topic, and build a loyal audience. If you do some leftist political propaganda when it becomes necessary, your audience is much less likely to resist. When someone is seen trying to push something on you, you tend to resist. It's human nature. These sideways attacks are much more successful against people's defenses. "Hillary is the most qualified candidate" goes down smoothly as does "safe and effective".

When people see lots of seemingly unrelated web sites all spouting one thing, it gives the impression to people that the whole world shares that view point. That these web sites normally seem to have nothing to do with politics is a huge factor in making them more credible and in making people more receptive.

The local TV channel people seem to be engaging in subterfuge too. Most of their coverage is on local, non-political matters. You watch them everyday for local news. They make small talk, they crack their little jokes about weather and other stuff, and they act like they are your friends. Some channels even call themselves friendly for the benefit of people that are slow on the uptake. But underneath the neutral facade, they are leftists as much as anyone else. They will lie to you about Covid and the vaccine. They will avoid talking about the Biden corruption. They will keep Trump indictments fresh in your mind. They will push the climate change lies, and even use a reddish background for weather reports during summer. And so on. All of these things become a little more acceptable coming from "friends". You don't even notice the op they are running on you.

Several of these "neutral" web sites blew their cover in '16. Though they moved back to their original specialty now, I know I will never look at them the same way.