The resistible rise of the right-wing puppet masters

Phase one, in which Doris gets her oats

I’ve been reading articles and books and listening to podcasts about the way in which new forms of polarisation and political manipulation are overrunning our politics. The topic is so hot right now.

The thrust of these works is that public debate is being driven by master manipulators who are using the tools of modern communication technology to divide us into tribes who have lost the ability to speak to each other. Hate and anger are being tweaked—weaponsised!—by algorithms; trust is being destroyed; the zone is being flood with shit, and we are hurtling, it feels inevitably, towards a dystopia of right-wing populism so irresistible there is little we can do about it.

In his book, On Disinformation, Lee McIntyre writes:

The post-truth playbook goes like this: attack the truth tellers, lie about anything and everything, manufacture disinformation, encourage distrust and polarization, create confusion and cynicism, then claim that the truth is available only from the leader himself. The …