Propaganda is communications aimed towards influencing the attitude of a population toward some cause or position using partisan information to influence an audience and further an agenda. A primary feature of propaganda is presenting false facts or using lies of omission to encourage a particular synthesis, or using loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the false information presented. Next to Adolf Hitler’s minister of propaganda from 1933 to 1945, Joseph Goebbels, Republicans may be the most accomplished propagandists in history; at least in American history.
Republicans have been so successful at spreading blatantly false information about President Barack Obama that a fair share of the population gleefully votes against their own best self-interests to stop what Republicans claim is the President’s existential threat to America. It is unclear how voting for Republicans who have no intent or interest in ever doing anything for their constituents and everything for the rich will prevent anyone from shredding the Constitution, installing the Muslim brotherhood as overlords or handing the government over to communists, but that has been a primary component of propaganda from conservatives.
Throughout the President’s tenure several different conservatives and Republicans have either called for a violent revolution to “overthrow Obama” or wondered aloud when the military would do its constitutional duty to intervene and take control of the government in a coup d’état. It is true the calls for violence against the government originate from what any sane human being would consider disaffected extremists, but between Republican claims that President Obama is unconstitutional, and fear mongering that America is doomed because he was elected twice, a new poll reveals that the six-year Republican propaganda campaign has delivered the intended results.
The poll results revealed that when asked if “there is any situation in which you could support the U.S. military taking over the powers of the federal government,” a not-so-surprising 43 percent of Republicans said yes, they would support a military coup d’état to protect America and the Constitution. Now, for the past six years Republicans have preached, screamed, and warned Americans that President Barack Obama had shred the Constitution and destroyed “their America“ and their propaganda campaign produced the result Republicans lusted after; a plurality of Republicans support the military takeover of America. It is noteworthy that part and parcel of the Republicans’ propaganda and fear-mongering success is due to Americans’ ignorance of the Constitution and how government works, or the people would be recalling every Republican in Congress for violating the Constitution and calling for Justice Department prosecutions against Republicans in Congress for sedition and possibly treason.
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The reason such a large percentage of Republicans support a sudden and forced seizure of a government is because they have been conditioned and programmed for six years by a not-so-small group of conservative extremists. Whether they were instigating their followers to abolish the existing government to replace it with a new ruling body made up of the military according to the wishes of 43 percent of Republicans, or summoning “real patriots” to violent revolution, Republicans have nearly accomplished their goal of “taking their country back” to before the Civil War.
In a sense, supporting a military coup is a slight departure from the persistent calls for a second revolution, an assassination attempt on the President’s life, and “2nd Amendment remedies” to “take their country back,” but it is a dangerous concept all the same. A concept, by the way, that establishment Republicans have done absolutely nothing to stop; including never condemning the conservative calls for a violent overthrow or toning down their own lies and hateful rhetoric demonizing the President simply because he is an African American.
In fact, some Republicans have been the source of calls for violent rebellion such as Virginia’s GOP warning that if the President won re-election in 2012 good Republicans would start a violent revolution. In many former Confederate states Republican legislatures have passed legislation authorizing force against federal officials if they dare attempt to enforce federal laws Republicans oppose. During the Bundy ranch sedition and standoff, many Republicans rushed to defend the armed militias and Bundy they claimed were outstanding patriots who were being abused by an overbearing federal government because they executed a federal court order.
This call to war against the President began even before Obama was inaugurated in 2009. One conservative maniac, Rick Wiles said, “I warned in 2008 that Barack Obama’s mission is to deliberately rip the country apart and if the US Military doesn’t take action soon to arrest Barack Obama and remove him and his regime from the White House, there will be no country left for the military to defend. We are on the edge of collapse as a nation. Jesus Christ is America’s only hope. Let us pray that Almighty God delivers us from this very real tyranny that is persecuting the saints of God.” Likely, saints of god is code among conservatives, Republicans, and teabaggers for “real Americans” who support violence against their own government.
Just prior to Wiles’ call for a military coup, Erik Rush summoned patriots to drive Obama from office by any means necessary, and seriously sick fascist Larry Klayman and cohort Rick Joyner issued simultaneous calls for a military coup because calling for violence against their own government was how real Americans protect the Constitution. Six years of propaganda and fear-mongering that President Obama was abolishing the Constitution, coming for good Americans’ guns, and on the verge of rounding up god-fearing Christians and throwing them in FEMA camps achieved the desired goal; convincing 43 percent of Republicans to support a military takeover of the United States government.
Feeble-minded people, and those with pathological brain dysfunction, are driven by fear and emotions, so they may not bear responsibility for supporting a military coup against their own government. It is likely that even semi-sane people would be convinced that violence against ‘government tyranny, even if it did not exist, was acceptable after over six years of persistent propaganda warning them their existence was in jeopardy. However, it is more likely that Republicans have become so extreme in their response to not having everything go their way that their only recourse is supporting the violent overthrow of the government that none of the Republican leadership has taken even one minute to condemn as un-American.
Audio engineer and instructor for SAE. Writes op/ed commentary supporting Secular Humanist causes, and exposing suppression of women, the poor, and minorities. An advocate for freedom of religion and particularly, freedom of NO religion.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn’t look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
