Catapulting the propaganda
by Tom Sullivan
Ted Cruz is bringing in some techsperts. POLITICO (we spell our name in all caps, see?) reports that the GOP’s scary clown has hired an analytics firm owned in part by the family of hedge fund manager Robert Mercer, who funds several Cruz-supporting, super PACs:
Cambridge Analytica is connected to a British firm called SCL Group, which provides governments, political groups and companies around the world with services ranging from military disinformation campaigns to social media branding and voter targeting.
So far, SCL’s political work has been mostly in the developing world — where it has boasted of its ability to help foment coups.
Their secret weapon? “Psychographics.” Makes you wonder why the GOP presidential field hasn’t already gay married Cambridge Analytica.
That last link takes you to a 2005 Slate story about SCL and how, in a pitch sounding “like a rejected plot twist from a mediocre Bond flick,” its “ops center” could spread disinformation through the media to stop a smallpox outbreak. Propaganda, you say? Nah!
“If your definition of propaganda is framing communications to do something that’s going to save lives, that’s fine,” says Mark Broughton, SCL’s public affairs director. “That’s not a word I would use for that.”
[snip]
If SCL weren’t so earnest, it might actually seem to be mocking itself, or perhaps George Orwell. As the end of the smallpox scenario, dramatic music fades out to a taped message urging people to “embrace” strategic communications, which it describes as “the most powerful weapon in the world.” And the company Web page offers some decidedly creepy asides. “The [ops center] can override all national radio and TV broadcasts in time of crisis,” it says, alluding to work the company has done in an unspecified Asian country.
Of course, Cambridge Analytica is not SCL Worldwide, and that sort of thing sounds so un-American.
Cambridge Analytica has also done campaign work for Republicans Sen. Thom Tillis and Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, as well as for the North Carolina Republican Party. And for Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who would never advocate a coup.