Propaganda has a way of making the soberest and most responsible elements in our culture go all wiggy. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius filed a fretful column this week based on his interview with Richard Stengel, State Department undersecretary for public diplomacy. Ignatius and Stengel, America’s top counter-propagandists, advance all the most frightful clichés about propaganda.
The pair are on the same page with comments like, we’re living in a “post-truth world.” The Russians are waging “a war on information,” determined to make you think everybody is lying, they offer. The Russian hacks are “polluting the public information stream.” Our citizens are being exposed to “weaponized information, false information.” Ignatius concludes, “right now, the truth is losing.”
