By Carl Weinschenk
America’s collective psyche has been unnerved during the past decade. There have been two Trump terms, wars, a pandemic, global warming and other catastrophes large and small. We’re weary, wary and assume the worst.
Ethics seem dead. American exceptionalism, which many of us assumed, seems to be a joke. Everything is scary.
It comes to a head when people talk about voting. Scare tactics – especially those aimed at demographic groups that are being pummeled during the first half of Trump’s second term – immobilizes voters. It all becomes too much. The sensible thing to do is to just shut down.
The administration sees this all as an opportunity. The strategy is to extend the paralysis and solidify its hold on power by making things seem as chaotic and dark as possible. As the saying goes, exaggerations and lies are features, not bugs.
Those trying to suppress the vote would love to have an ICE agent or two at a every polling station. That’s not possible, however. But falsely promising to send them is the next best thing. It scares the people the administration wants to scare and pushes the false narrative that they are omnipotent and in control.
Fake News Embedded in Contracts
A story this week at Wired by David Gilbert illustrates the point. Gilbert writes that ICE is in the process of awarding a contract to create a massive database of voters. The winning bidder will be paid between $3 million and $5 million.
Scary, right? The very part of our government responsible for violence and murders during the past year or so will have a huge database they can use to kick folks off voter rolls – or worse.
Look at this sentence, though (“Next Monday” refers to September 7):
“The final contract is expected to be published next Monday, and is likely to be awarded soon after, given that the term of the contract will expire on September 30.”
I don’t know much, but I do know that you can’t build a database like that in a few weeks.
Presumably, this contract could have been put out there six months or a year ago. Instead, it is being published about eight weeks before the midterms. In addition to the technical hurdles, there will be legal challenges from the states and a variety of public interest groups that will add to the delays.
And that doesn’t include the waste, ineptness and baksheesh is a core element of any project undertaken by the Trump regime. It is unlikely that this project is going anywhere, especially before election day. And ICE knows it.
Its likely that the real goal is not to build a database. It is to scare some percentage of the voting public–folks who are easy to frighten or have the most to lose–to not vote. It’s a variation of what Donald Trump habitually does: Say things are untrue or highly misleading in an effort to create another reality and influence those who don’t closely follow events. Look at the SAFE Act. Look at Lake America. Look at our control of the Straits of Hormuz.
Along the same lines, the polling community has seen an increase in weaponized fakery as well. Political parties and their allies–often the Republicans, but the Democrats play the game as well–are trying to gain the system by releasing misleading or outrightly inaccurate polls to create a narrative that a particular candidate is ahead. We wrote about it last week.
The answer to all this is to keep your eye on the prize. More specifically, keep in mind that the news filters down to us for two reasons: It is important news and it is news that one side or the other wants us to hear. Of course, both reasons often are true. But in some cases, the first part — that it actually is news — is questionable.
None of this is particularly new. We’ve been dealing with fake news ever singe Trump became a viable politician. It’s interesting to see, however, how deeply it’s embedded itself in how things work. A contract from a government department generally would be considered dull and boring. In this case it is a very clear sign that one side is pushing a narrative, not creating a database.
Note: It’s hard to find images that are appropriate for “truth.” I did find the interesting public domain image above. Wikipedia says that the man behind the lie detector is Leonarde Keeler, who had come up with an advanced polygraph. He is demonstrating on Arthur Koehler, who was a witness at the 1935 trial of Richard Hauptmann, who was convicted in 135 of kidnapping and killer Charles Lindbergh’s son. The photograph was taken two years later.