Once upon a time, propaganda meant giant posters, compulsory parades, and a man with an alarming mustache pointing at your soul. Today, in America, it is sleeker, shinier, and delivered through an exciting mix of social media, corporate consolidation, regulatory throat-clearing, and local news anchors reading identical scripts with the warm sincerity of people being held hostage by a teleprompter.
TRUTH SOCIAL: THE PRESIDENTIAL SELF-CHECKOUT LANE
Why rely on reporters asking rude follow-up questions when you can post directly into a pre-sorted digital cheering section? Truth Social helps turn propaganda into a perpetual motion machine: post, rage, recycle, monetize. It’s less a town hall than a fascist QVC channel, where Trump can threaten media outlets, flirt with atrocities abroad, and sell grift to the same audience in one convenient scroll.
LOCAL NEWS: NOW 80% MORE SYNERGIZED
In March 2026, the FCC approved Nexstar’s acquisition of TEGNA, expanding Nexstar’s reach to about 80% of U.S. TV households after waiving the usual ownership cap. This matters because local news is where Americans go to hear the weather, school closings, and apparently whatever management wants to describe as “independent editorial judgment.” On March 27, 2026, U.S. District Judge Troy Nunley issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) that effectively froze the merger in its tracks…for now. The case could potentially reach the Supreme Court, as it tests whether a presidential administration can use the FCC to bypass long-standing anti-monopoly laws.
THE FCC: FROM REFEREE TO VIBES ENFORCEMENT
The more old-fashioned part of this arrangement is the regulator hovering nearby with a blowtorch and a copy of the First Amendment marked up like a hostile book review. In September 2025, ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel after comments about Charlie Kirk; Reuters and AP reported that FCC Chair Brendan Carr had publicly pressured Disney/ABC, praised the suspension, and raised the temperature around broadcasters and licenses. Kimmel returned after six days, but the lesson had already been delivered in all-caps: NICE LITTLE LICENSE YOU GOT THERE.
SO WHAT’S NEW HERE?
Not the desire to bully the press. Nixon did that with an enemies list and all the subtlety of a raccoon in a pantry. What’s new is scale, speed, and plausible deniability. Yesterday’s propaganda came from one loud ministry. Today’s comes from a platform, a merger, a threat, a market signal, an algorithm, and three “independent” stations all mysteriously arriving at the same talking point before dinner. Reuters reported senators are already questioning how the Nexstar-TEGNA approval was handled.
AMERICA’S SPECIALTY: SOFT PROPAGANDA
The United States still has dissent, lawsuits, critics, comedians, angry professors, and several thousand podcasts hosted by men whispering into expensive microphones. So this is not hard propaganda in the old totalitarian sense. It is the more American version: market-tested, entertainment-friendly, wrapped in “choice,” and subtle enough that half the audience thinks propaganda only counts if somebody is marching in a square wearing the same hat. Which, to be fair, is also having a bit of a comeback.
