A Republican bid to deny Biden’s victory is another worrying Trumpist disinformation ploy
So why would some Republicans lead a kamikaze mission against U.S. democracy?
Some congressional Republicans may actually believe that Biden somehow stole the election, with the help of a sprawling and secretive conspiracy involving many Republican and Democratic officials in multiple states, plus state courts and federal courts and the Supreme Court and voting machines and possibly a dead Venezuelan dictator. More likely, Republican politicians are pandering to pressure from their base and conservative media.
Above all, the Republicans’ challenge is part of an information-warfare campaign. They are using a classic propaganda tactic that might be called “conspiracy bootstrapping.” First, you introduce a false idea, spreading it by every available means. Then, once people are talking about it, and some believe it, you cite its prevalence as evidence that it might be true—an epistemic sleight-of-hand by which propaganda validates itself.
Trump is a master of this tactic. The “birther” conspiracy theory, which held that Barack Obama had not been born in the United States and thus was not legally the president, was Trump’s route into national politics. Once in office, he repeated and amplified conspiracy theories, no matter how ludicrous or vicious. If many people entertained a notion, he suggested, it should be looked into because—who knows?—it might be true, it probably is true, and anyway you can’t disprove it.
That is the technique that the 11 senators are deploying in their demand that Congress reconsider the election results. “By any measure, the allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetimes,” they write. “They are widespread.” Note the words that I italicized. People are repeating allegations, many believe them, so they might be true.
Lies are thus self-validating, and there is no end to the hall of mirrors. If Congress’s “emergency audit” were to occur and find no fraud, Trump would claim that it, too, had been rigged. His supporters would repeat and amplify his claim, and this would be cited as evidence of its credibility. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Disinformation tactics like “conspiracy bootstrapping” have been in common use by demagogues and dictators for a long time because they work. They are challenging for democracies to counter. Our system relies on elected officials to buffer disinformation, not amplify it—especially when they are conducting their most solemn and important constitutional duty. This week, many influential Republicans seem set on taking another unprecedented step toward normalizing the use of Russian-style disinformation in U.S. politics. In that lamentable respect, we are all Russians now.