"Fire Hose of Falsehoods"

Authoritarian Tactics and New Orleans

Day 33—January 2, 2025

Americans continued to learn more about two horrific attacks that took place on New Year’s Day, one in New Orleans and one in Las Vegas. Even though both were perpetrated by Americans (one originally from Texas, the other with Ohio ties), Trump and his allies continued to blame immigration as well as the FBI itself for the violence.

In her book, Autocracy, Inc., Anne Applebaum explains the modern-day authoritarian’s tactic of spewing constant, blatant lies:

Studying “Putin’s Russia, Assad’s Syria, or Madura’s Venezuela,” she concludes that authoritarian “politicians and television personalities [] lie constantly, blatantly, obviously. But when they are exposed, they don’t bother to offer counterarguments.”

As she explains:

“This tactic, the so-called ‘fire hose of falsehoods’ produces not outrage but nihilism. Given so many explanations, how can you know what actually happened? What if you can never know? If you can’t understand what is going on around you, then you are not going to join a great movement for democracy…or listen when anyone speaks about positive political change. Instead, you will avoid politics altogether. Autocrats have an enormous incentive to spread that hopelessness and cynicism, not only in their own countries, but around the world.”

At another point, she explains: “They don’t offer their fellow citizens a vision of utopia, and they don’t inspire them to build a better world. Instead, they teach people to be cynical and passive, because there is no better world to build. Their goal is to persuade people to mind their own business, stay out of politics, and never hope for a democratic alternative….”

I read her words a few days ago, and as I watched Trump respond to the depraved attack in New Orleans, they echoed in my ears.

Trump’s initial “tweet” in response to the terrorism in New Orleans propagated a false narrative of what happened—making it about the border and his continued false rhetoric of record-high crime rate:

Even after Fox News retracted the falsehood, Trump—just as Applebaum writes—kept advancing his lie, and even broadened the attack, writing: “This is what happens when you have OPEN BORDERS, with weak, ineffective, and virtually nonexistent leadership. The DOJ, FBI, and Democrat state and local prosecutors have not done their job. They are incompetent and corrupt, having spent all of their waking hours unlawfully attacking their political opponent, ME, rather than focusing on protecting Americans from the outside and inside violent SCUM that has infiltrated all aspects of our government, and our Nation itself.”

Other politicians did the exact same thing, including turning the incident into a statement about DEI. A quick search online now finds a wild array of conspiracy theories emanating from America’s far right.

Just as Applebuam writes, what we saw yesterday was a “Fire Hose” of false narratives—right out of the authoritarian playbook.

Another authoritarian tactic is to use threats to security to advance elements of an anti-democratic agenda. As my friends at Resolute Square reminded us yesterday, quoting Steven Levistky, “Would-be autocrats often use economic crises, natural disasters and especially security threats—wars, armed insurgencies, or terrorist attacks—to justify antidemocratic measures.”

That very tactic played out yesterday as well, with Republican members of Congress arguing that the attacks mean that Trump’s national security nominees should be immediately approved.

The truth is, these incidents mean that his nominees should receive added scrutiny.

First, they are wholly unqualified for the job of actually making America safer—neither Kash Patel, Tulsi Gabbard nor Pete Hegseth are remotely qualified for the highly complex and challenging roles for which they are being nominated.

Second, if the long-term worry is that Trump’s response is to spread propaganda about events such as these to sow chaos and push his own false narratives, these nominees are doubly dangerous. Because that’s why he picked them in the first place!

In the last few days, it was the FBI and other agencies (still independent of Trump) who were the ones who clarified that these attackers were not immigrants. They provided a needed counter-balance to Trump’s and others’ lies.

Do we think Kash Patel would do that once in place as FBI director? Or do we think he’d be more inclined to amplify the Trump lie? Adding official credibility to the political lie.

What about Pete Hegseth and Gabbard?

I think the answer is pretty clear.

Trump put them there to amplify his messaging and to use these agencies to serve his political will—and that’s exactly what they will do. And the imprimatur of these official agencies will only give his lies more credibility.

Trump’s response to these horrific attacks shows just how dangerous all three nominees would be.