Comment by kjkjadksj
19 hours ago
If you don’t understand that advertisement and public relations are merely propaganda, I’m not sure what to tell you beyond that. We think in terms of wholly different realities I guess. Nothing can convince you of my side and nothing can convince me against this conclusion that advertisement is fundamentally propaganda, and as long as we allow for it in politics we allow for the opportunity of malicious intent on the part of moneyed individuals.
Suppose we allow only short published stump speeches and nothing else.
What prevents the green team from registering 200 yellow candidates who will all submit yellow-sounding platforms in order to split the vote?
Don’t we want to allow the public to judge candidates on more than their ability to write a single speech? Politics and representation is picking someone to perform tasks as our agent that go well beyond writing a single short speech with lots of lead time.
Well that doesn’t happen currently so it probably won’t happen in this scenario. Nor does it really happen in countries that have implemented bans on private campaign financing.
Propaganda is definitionally just strategic spread of information. You shouldn't expect people to turn their brains off just because you've said propaganda. Any political speech done with forethought and intent is propaganda.