Episode Details

In 1975, Ronald Reagan famously remarked, “The problem with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t true.” The truth of that statement couldn’t be more apparent than it is today.

The advent of social media and interactive internet platforms has validated Reagan’s statement and proved that this truth is even more prevalent than we suspected.

At every turn—on any given day and on any given subject, erroneously advanced inaccuracies and untruths can be found because someone “liked,” forwarded, and/or posted a meme, statement, or opinion on something without actually taking the time to validate the meme or statement or read the provided content.

This intellectual cancer isn’t just an attribute of “our liberal friends.” It exists just as prevalently on the ideological Right, and instances of this are getting more frequent.

Recently, I had an old acquaintance from high school—by all accounts, a solid guy; thoughtful and an engaged member of the community, completely out himself as someone who finds it more important to opine on what he thinks he knows rather than what he actually would have known if he had taken the time to read what he was opining on.

He is not alone. I have been guilty of this at one time or another, although today I make a conscious effort never to do it. We will read a headline and maybe the first paragraph of an article, and because we believe we understand the gist of what the author is saying, we feel confident that the opinion we’re about to craft for the consumption of others is valid; and based on a full knowledge of the subject at hand. Yet it’s not because we didn’t read the full article, white paper, research, or book or listen to the full podcast or presentation.

This is a dangerous practice because when a not-fully-informed opinion is advanced—and then re-advanced, again and again, and liked and quoted—it takes on the appearance of fully researched truth, and a non-truth co-opts the appearance of legitimacy.

Disingenuous actors, those who manipulate the public for ideological and opportunistic purposes, prey on those who engage in such acts—those who exist intellectually vulnerable because of their “excitability”—to seed statements that sound legitimate but aren’t. This allows them to create division and discontent while capturing the power of narrative control. Think of the Steele Dosier and the Trump-Russia scam, the Hunter Biden laptop denial, or, today, the Obama-Jennifer Aniston rumor.

This intellectual susceptibility in our society makes us incredibly vulnerable to maleficent actors—government agencies as well as political organizations and ideological NGOs—employing PsyOps.

Some of the more egregious PsyOp campaigns in recent years include:

* Trump's Business Dealings: Accusations of money laundering and illegal business practices at the Trump Organization, circulated often without substantial evidence

* Republican Voter Suppression: The claim that Republicans are actively suppressing minority votes, an allegation repeatedly disproved and lacking in both evidence and context

* Trump's Mental Health: Speculation during Trump’s first term about the President’s cognitive abilities and mental fitness, allegations completely baseless and without evidence

* Republican War on Women: The notion that Republicans are waging a war on women's rights, even as conservatives are on record as supporting policies that empower women.

* COVID Mask Use: During the COVID pandemic, it has now been proven that a purposeful PsyOps campaign was employed to encourage the widespread use of face masks. This operation aimed to instill fear and compliance among the population by exaggerating the effectiveness of masks and the ineffectiveness of natural herd immunity. Inconsistent messaging from health authorities, along with the constant bombardment of frightening statistics and image