38 MARCH 2020
Meanwhile, experts worried about domestic disinformation
are looking to other countries for lessons. The most successful
recent example may be Indonesia, which cracked down on the
problem after a wave of viral lies and conspiracy theories pushed
by hard-line Islamists led to the defeat of a popular Christian
Chinese candidate for governor in 2016. To prevent a similar dis-
ruption in last year’s presidential election, a coalition of journalists
from more than two dozen top Indonesian news outlets worked
together to identify and debunk hoaxes before they gained trac-
tion online. But while that may sound like a promising model,
it was paired with aggressive efforts by the state to monitor and
arrest purveyors of fake news—an approach that would run afoul
of the First Amendment if attempted in the U.S.
Richard Stengel, who served as the undersecretary of state for
public diplomacy under President Obama, spent almost three years
trying to counter digital propaganda from the Islamic State and
Russia. By the time he left office, he told me, he was convinced
that disinformation would continue to thrive until big tech com-
panies were forced to take responsibility for it. Stengel has proposed
amending the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which shields
online platforms from liability for messages posted by third parties.
Companies such as Facebook and Twitter, he believes, should be
required by law to police their platforms for dis information and
abusive trolling. “It’s not going to solve the whole problem,” he
told me, “but it’s going to help with volume.”
There is one other case study to consider. During the Ukrainian
revolution in 2014, pro-democracy activists found that they could
defang much of the false information about their movement by
repeatedly exposing its Russian origins. But this kind of transpar-
ency comes with a cost, Stengel observed. Over time, alertness to
the prevalence of propaganda can curdle into paranoia. Russian
operatives have been known to encourage such anxiety by spreading
rumors that exaggerate their own influence. Eventually, the fear of
covert propaganda inflicts as much damage as the propaganda itself.
Once you internalize the possibility that you’re being manipu-
lated by some hidden hand, nothing can be trusted. Every dissent-
ing voice on Twitter becomes a Russian bot, every uncomfortable
headline a false flag, every political development part of an ever-
deepening conspiracy. By the time the information ecosystem
collapses under the weight of all this cynicism, you’re too vigilant
to notice that the disinformationists have won.
POWERS OF INCUMBENCY
If there’s one thing that can be said for Brad Parscale, it’s that he
runs a tight ship. Unauthorized leaks from inside the campaign
are rare; press stories on palace intrigue are virtually nonexistent.
When the staff first moved into its new offices last year, journalists
were periodically invited to tour the facility—but Parscale put
an end to the practice: He didn’t want them glimpsing a scrap of
paper or a whiteboard scribble that they weren’t supposed to see.
Notably, while the Trump White House has endured a seem-
ingly endless procession of shake-ups, the Trump reelection cam-
paign has seen very little turnover since Parscale took charge. His
staying power is one reason many Republicans—inside the organi-
zation or out—hesitate to talk about him on the record. But among
allies of the president, there appears to be a growing skepticism.
Former colleagues began noticing a change in Parscale after
his promotion. Suddenly, the quiet guy with his face buried in
a laptop was wearing designer suits, tossing out MAGA hats at
campaign rallies, and traveling to Europe to speak at a political-
marketing conference. In the past few years, Parscale has bought
a BMW, a Range Rover, a condo, and a $2.4 million waterfront
house in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. “He knows he has the confi-
dence of the family,” one former colleague told me, “which gives
him more swagger.” When the U.K.’s Daily Mail ran a story
spotlighting Parscale’s spending spree, he attempted deflection
through flattery. “The president is an excellent businessman,” he
told the tabloid, “and being associated with him for years has
been extremely beneficial to my family.”
But according to a former White House official with knowl-
edge of the incident, Trump was irritated by the coverage, and
the impression it created that his campaign manager was getting
rich off him. For a moment, Parscale’s standing appeared to be in
peril, but then Trump’s attention was diverted by the G7 summit
in France, and he never returned to the issue. (A spokesperson
for the campaign disputed this account.)
Some Republicans worry that for all Parscale’s digital exper-
tise, he doesn’t have the vision to guide Trump to reelection. The
president is historically unpopular, and even in red states, he has
struggled to mobilize his base for special elections. If Trump’s
message is growing stale with voters, is Parscale the man to help
overhaul it? “People start to ask the question—you’re building
this apparatus, and that’s great, but what’s the overarching nar-
rative?” said a former campaign staffer.
But whether Trump finds a new narrative or not, he has some-
thing this time around that he didn’t have in 2016—the powers
of the presidency. While every commander in chief looks for
ways to leverage his incumbency for reelection, Trump has shown
that he’s willing to go much further than most. In the run-up to
the 2018 midterm elections, he seized on reports of a migrant
caravan traveling to the U.S. from Central America to claim that
the southern border was facing a national-security crisis. Trump
warned of a coming “invasion” and claimed, without evidence,
that the caravan had been infiltrated by gang members.
Parscale aided this effort by creating a 30-second commercial
that interspersed footage of Hispanic migrants with clips of a con-
victed cop-killer. The ad ended with an urgent call to action: stop
the caravan. vote republican. In a final maneuver before the
election, Trump dispatched U.S. troops to the border. The presi-
dent insisted that the operation was necessary to keep America
safe—but within weeks the troops were quietly called back, the
“crisis” having apparently ended once votes were cast. Skeptics
were left to wonder: If Trump is willing to militarize the border
to pick up a few extra seats in the midterms, what will he and his
supporters do when his reelection is on the line?
It doesn’t require an overactive imagination to envision a worst-
case scenario: On Election Day, anonymous text messages direct
voters to the wrong polling locations, or maybe even circulate
rumors of security threats. Deepfakes of the Democratic nominee