THE MANIPULATION OF AMERICA

The next time you feel insecure, remember our culture manufactures insecurity, and you’ve been consuming an illusion.

--Bunny Michael, Hello Higher Self

MARKETING

Run faster! Jump higher! Red Ball Jets!

Wouldn’t you really rather have a Buick?

Built Ford tough.

The world’s first print ads were published in 1622, in the weekly magazine Relations News. In 1704, the Boston News-Letter, a newspaper heavily subsidized by the occupying British, carried the first paid-for ad, selling a Long Island estate, to run in British North America. It wasn’t until 1741 when the first paid magazine ad made its debut in General Magazine, thanks to the notoriously entrepreneurial Benjamin Franklin. This brought professionalism to the previously largely amateur business of advertising.

Franklin successfully persuaded retailers and other businesses to advertise their goods and services, placing them prominently in his publications. Before Franklin, newspapers survived on their cover-price. After him, the expense of producing them was largely covered by ad revenue.

In 1941, when the FCC lifted its ban on TV advertising, Americans would see the first ad (for Bulova watches) aired on TV. The ten-second commercial, which cost $9, spawned a multi-billion dollar industry. Since then, it seems everything we touch or see has marketing tied to it. The right marketing can launch a product, so a great deal of psychology and testing goes into each campaign. In 2024, over $550B was spent on marketing targeted to each demographic to specifically convince us that our car isn’t good enough, our phone is out of date, our skin needs help.

Have you read George Orwell’s 1984? If not, a quick recap: 1984 is a dystopian novel that explores the dangers of a totalitarian government’s control over every aspect of life. Written in 1948, the author merely reversed the last two numbers of the year to arrive at a future where propaganda and surveillance is used to manipulate the population into conformity.

We’ve long passed 1984, but I would posit that we are well entrenched in the propaganda and surveillance, and it is most definitely being used to manipulate us all. The most amazing part? We’re paying for the privilege of being marketed to. Whether a newspaper subscription, a cable TV program, or playing a game on your smart phone, we are continuously inundated with advertising. And much of it is subtle. A well-placed brand in a movie. A social media reel from a celebrity. An ad based on our internet searches. It’s always there, reminding us to buy, buy, buy. In 1984, Winston was not given an option to have the big monitoring screen installed in his home. He was not given the choice to have every move he made be watched. But here we are, vying to lay out our hard-earned cash for the Next Big Thing, standing in line for hours to have the latest gadget and device, all of which are used to identify who we are, where we are, and convince us that we need things that we can, in many cases, live very well without.

Bear in mind, though, that marketing isn’t there just to get us to buy something. It’s used to sway our opinion. Enter the political machine.

POLITICS

Candidates asking for contributions to fund campaigns was a completely foreign concept to George Washington. The early politicians of the United States would never have considered political ads or direct solicitation of donations from constituents, let alone accept large sums of money from PACs. Candidates of that time were usually wealthy and well-connected with the ability to finance their own campaigns. (Perhaps a diatribe for another time?)

Fundraising and campaigning as we know it may have begun with Andrew Jackson. Prior to that time, it was considered inappropriate for presidential candidates to directly ask voters to vote for them. It was left to local supporters to organize campaign events and speak on their behalf. Parades, rallies, and stump speeches and even Election Day voter drives in taverns and on the streets were how the word was spread. Partisan newspapers aligned themselves with a particular party and offered openly slanted news coverage to excoriate enemies and favor allies. Commercial publishers jumped on the bandwagon with broadsides, cards, and prints depicting the candidates of all parties.

As Jackson lacked the prestigious family background, wealth and connections, his bid for the White House kicked off the first organized campaign, using the power of the media and forming an early grassroots movement to win the presidency.

“In the decades following the Jackson presidency, elections increasingly were financed by the people — and often, those in power solicited contributions with a heavy hand. In 1867, Congress enacted legislation that attempted to prevent such abuses. The Naval Appropriations Bill prohibited officers and employees of the federal government from soliciting money for political campaigns from naval yard workers.” (emphasis added) (https://www.opensecrets.org/resources/learn/timeline)

Only 30 years later in 1896, it became evident that more parameters needed to be set on campaign finances when William McKinley received more than $16 million ($600 billion today) in contributions for his campaign. Additionally, McKinley’s campaign and that of his opponent, William Jennings Bryan, were plagued with accusations of unethical behavior, including bribery. McKinley’s chief fundraiser, Mark Hanna, was famously quoted as saying, “There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money and I can't remember what the second one is."

These donations don’t come without strings, of course, so the influx of big money is paid back through administration agendas and power grabs. In the 1920s for example, the recompense for this type of donations and support became evident in the Teapot Dome scandal under the administration of Warren G. Harding. This controversy emerged around the leasing of federal oil reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming and Elk Hills in California to private oil companies. Orchestrated by Albert Fall, the Secretary of the Interior, the lease agreements with oil magnates Harry Sinclair and Edward Doheny were accomplished in secret and without benefit of competitive bidding. Fall was later found to have received bribes and kickbacks in exchange for granting these leases.

Today, largely due to Supreme Court rulings such as Citizens United, substantial financial resources significantly influence political campaigns in ways not witnessed for decades. Super PACs enable wealthy individuals to contribute unlimited sums to campaigns, thereby overshadowing the voices of everyday citizens. Additionally, dark money organizations conceal the identities of their contributors, which prevents voters from understanding who is attempting to sway their opinions. Irrespective of the origin of this funding, it is evident that these financial sources are the ones controlling the narrative and selecting the candidates.

Okay, but how does that relate to manipulating Americans?

MANUFACTURED DIVISIVENESS

First, a bit of history. In the 1950s, Kermit Roosevelt, grandson to Teddy Roosevelt, desired to make his mark in the world. As a CIA agent, Kermit launched Operation Ajax, a joint CIA/MI6 venture which toppled Iran’s power structure through an earnest and planned propaganda campaign against the last democratically elected prime minister in Iran. This campaign unleashed decades of internal chaos and hate between Iran and the United States. The mark he made is everlasting.

Importantly, Kermit Roosevelt’s operation in Iran became a template for CIA-orchestrated coups in the years that followed. Fast forward to present time where the divisiveness seems to be the point. Pitting American against American, taking over the government, and bringing down democracy is the end game. The power behind the presidency has ripped a page from Kermit Roosevelt’s playbook. Using twisted words, slanted viewpoints, and out-right propaganda, the money behind the candidates is marketing to the American voter. For years, it hid in the shadows but in recent election cycles it has come out into the open.

Sowing divisiveness is the means to the end, it seems. Social media sites: Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, and Truth Social; news outlets from the Washington Post to the New York Times, Breitbart to Fox News, the Washington Times to CNN, and so many more, allowing their platforms to be used as the proving ground, pitting American against American through fear and manipulation. Fear of someone taking a job, getting a benefit, rising up. A rampant fear of someone getting a little bit more than they had, propagated in large part by those people behind the scenes. The propaganda is in our faces every day, on devices we pay for, on billboards we drive by, on TV news shows we watch, on cable channels we, again, pay for, in ads targeted directly at individuals.

Their marketing convinces us that we want, feel, or need things that we don’t. That we must have what everyone else seems to have. It’s generated FOMO – the Fear of Missing Out. It’s convinced us that our life isn’t good enough without that thing, whatever it is. Worse. They’re creating a divisiveness based on falsehoods. The haves, the have nots, imagined slights, misconceptions, and out and out lies. They’re making it feel normal to rail against our neighbors. Never has the chasm been so wide.

“The only time you look in your neighbor's bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don't look in your neighbor's bowl to see if you have as much as them.” – Lewis CK

What if we turned away from it? What if we looked introspectively at our lives. Do you have a roof over your head, clothes on your back, and food in your belly? Is your life made measurably better by more stuff? Really? Truly?

THE POINT

I used to be a smoker. For 20 years, usually close to a pack a day. I knew they were bad for me. I knew they stank. I knew how much money I was wasting. Yet I persisted. Almost 27 years ago, I finally quit. My motivation? It dawned on me that the only people I was helping was the tobacco company. Every puff I took, every pack I bought did little for me but it definitely lined their pockets all the more. I decided I was tired of giving them my money. So I quit! It was the marketing that got me started, but it was that realization that got me to stop.

I don’t watch network TV for the most part. I get my news from sources I seek out, and even so, I limit my consumption while still doing a deep enough dive to see what’s below the surface. In a more recent effort to not be influenced by advertising and propaganda, I turned off social media. Removed the apps from my phone, deactivated my accounts. In the time since I have done that (just a few weeks, to be clear), I haven’t felt the need to buy anything except a pair of court shoes (mine were worn smooth) for my daily pickleball habit and groceries so we can eat. Just the basic necessities of my life. It’s freeing not being inundated with marketing, whether in my face or more subtly. I admit that it’s pretty awesome not having someone trying to convince me that I need, need, need. No more pop-up ads for the latest gadget. No more visions of sleek new cars tempting me. No more ads for silly games I don’t need to waste my time on. Even if I bowed to pressure and bought all those things, I’ve long known there is no magic cream that will change who I am inside, where it really counts.

But who am I inside? Who are you? There was a time when “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and “love your neighbor as yourself” were the words to live by. Now it feels more like “do unto others before they do unto you” is the mantra of the day. How did we get here? Deep down is that how you really feel? Or do you want to live in a world where kindness, caring, and helpfulness are the qualities that drive our lives? The things we need in life boil down to shelter, food, safety, and drinkable water. Once we have those, we have enough.

Again I ask, how did we get here?

Through the mass manipulation of marketing, I opine. It started as being persuaded what to wear, how to look, what to buy, and has devolved into being told what to think, who to like, who to hate. Have we been reprogrammed like so many Stepford Wives to never have an original thought of our own? Are we no longer free to form our own opinion? That is perhaps the scariest thought of all.

So break free from it. Put down your phone. Delete your social media. Turn off the TV. Think less about the material things of the world, and more about the world around you. Get out in the world and meet people. Smell the roses. Listen to the birds’ song. Get to know your neighbor, even (or especially) if they don’t look like you. Get insight into another culture. Find out what you have in common. Find a way to bridge the divides. You will learn far more by talking to them than by listening to talking heads and paid spokesmodels, I assure you.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense. – Robert Frost

SOURCES:

www.brennancenter.org/issues/reform-money-politics/influence-big-money

www.roosevelthouse.hunter.cuny.edu/seehowtheyran/portfolios/origins-of-modern-campaigning/

www.opensecrets.org/resources/learn/timeline

www.governing.com/assessments/the-rise-fall-and-mutation-of-political-machines

American Scandal podcast, The Teapot Dome Scandal

Redacted: Declassified Mysteries with Luke Lamana podcast, Operation Ajax: The CIA’s Secret War in Iran