I mostly concur, though I suspect the Russian psy-ops have been grooming the US populace for this since the early 2000s at least, making people more open and susceptible to conspiracies. Amplifying emotional responses, biases, investment [1], tribalism, in-group out-group, etc. Now they’re reaping the fruit of that long game.
One thing they understand that I’m not sure US leadership does is that the fringe eventually becomes the center, and shaping the fringe has been a key to their long term strategy. Now in some respects it’s becoming the center.
I’m not sure the Chinese are involved though, b/c the CCP has never been very good at propaganda, simply because in China they don’t have to be. From their idiotic “wolf warrior” diplomacy to just about everything written in CCP mouthpieces like the Global Times, there’s a complete lack of subtlety, sophistication, and therefore believability.
It’s all produced from the point of view that the populace is required to think this, instead of having to convince the populace to believe this by anticipating and addressing the reasons they may not believe it.
But who knows, maybe they have some secret elite team somewhere that does understand how to do propaganda and psy-ops in the West.
There are definitely people in China that understand western culture and know how to do imperceptible propaganda. China is a huge country with long and deep ties to the west. It's probably intentional that they put out propaganda that seems naive. It diverts from more subtle programs. Look at TikTok. Does that strike you as not good at manipulating western audiences? My experience with China is that a large majority of people are simple and naive, but there is an elite core that is beyond most of the rest of the world in skills and knowledge, as you allude to.
One thing they understand that I’m not sure US leadership does is that the fringe eventually becomes the center, and shaping the fringe has been a key to their long term strategy. Now in some respects it’s becoming the center.
I’m not sure the Chinese are involved though, b/c the CCP has never been very good at propaganda, simply because in China they don’t have to be. From their idiotic “wolf warrior” diplomacy to just about everything written in CCP mouthpieces like the Global Times, there’s a complete lack of subtlety, sophistication, and therefore believability.
It’s all produced from the point of view that the populace is required to think this, instead of having to convince the populace to believe this by anticipating and addressing the reasons they may not believe it.
But who knows, maybe they have some secret elite team somewhere that does understand how to do propaganda and psy-ops in the West.
[1]: https://fs.blog/great-talks/psychology-human-misjudgment/. (Munger: investment - financial, ideological, emotional, etc. - is one of the main root causes of bias and misjudgement)