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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   7048 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026

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It's not a difficult mystery at all https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_propaganda

The Republican midterm strategy has been to repeatedly yell transgender and immigration over and over and over again at voters like the 9/11 family guy skit, hoping to get people to look past the financial disaster/corruption/etc.

We have motive. We have means. We have opportunity. They seem to be targeting right wing families in particular.

The thing that twinges my antennae a bit is that it was addressed to "Students of the XXX family," where XXX is the family that lived here about 10 years ago, for whom we still get mail from time to time, all sent from super right-wing organizations.

And we have evidence of it being a psyop already given the supposed group has no previous history and the only existing organization it has any attachment to has said it's an unauthorized usage of their name.

To be clear, your position here is "Republicans are truthfully spreading the things their opponents believe, and this is a bad thing"?

If so, I'm confused at why you're comparing it to "Black Propaganda", which is definitionally about untrue stuff (according to Wikipedia, which is only honest).

If your position is that Republicans are untruthfully spreading things their opponents don't actually support: which things? It might help your comment to be explicit.

The organization is not a serious activist group and does not seem to exist for any other purpose except as a psyop, how does that not inherently count as untrue?

The created story here "the trans are trying to reach your kids through the mail" is not real.

The created story is 'the trans believe X,Y,Z thing that horrifies the normies', which is indeed real.

Could you try replying to the words in my comment?

Sure

To be clear, your position here is "Republicans are truthfully spreading the things their opponents believe, and this is a bad thing"?

Never said either A or B of this.

So back at your words, try replying to what is in my comment.

If so, I'm confused at why you're comparing it to "Black Propaganda", which is definitionally about untrue stuff (according to Wikipedia, which is only honest).

Is there a more proper term for pretending to be from an "enemy organization" in this way? From what I can tell black propaganda is the closest one.

I'm also not sure it is definitionally about untrue stuff only. "Black propaganda definition" on Google gets me "Black propaganda is a deceptive form of communication that hides its true origin and falsely attributes the message to an enemy, rival, or a fake authority to damage their reputation, undermine morale, or manipulate public opinion."

Nothing there requires the message to be misrepresenting.

And dictionary.com strictly says "propaganda that does not come from the source it claims to come from".

Again nothing there requires it to be misrepresented, merely that the source is a lie. Although I guess they actually made the organization as an LLC, so it's not strictly a lie to say it came from the "Texas transgender student union" as that does exist and was created a month ago for this purpose, it's just purposefully deceptive in the intention is to make people think this is some trans activists.

If your position is that Republicans are untruthfully spreading things their opponents don't actually support: which things? It might help your comment to be explicit.

It's a fake organization. Again not strictly fake, but the way people are meant to interpret it is obvious. And that intended interpretation is false.

Is there a more proper term for pretending to be from an "enemy organization" in this way?

I mean, the OP used "false flag", which is the general term (including non-propaganda stuff, like the Nazi false-flag attacks on themselves used as a pretext for the invasion of Poland).

And dictionary.com strictly says "propaganda that does not come from the source it claims to come from".

This is on par with "I asked the AI and that's what it said".

I gave you two sources but sure let's check some more from my Google search of "black propaganda definition"

The next result is Collins dictionary which says https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/black-propaganda#google_vignette

propaganda that does not come from the source it claims to come from.

Next is Salisbury University https://libapps.salisbury.edu/nabb-online/exhibits/show/propaganda/what-is-propaganda-/the-colors-of-propaganda

Black Propaganda

One of the most deceptive forms of propaganda involves material created by one group but attributed to another. Black propaganda falsely claims a message or image was created by the opposition in order to discredit them.

Then is the Southern Methodist University https://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/Propaganda/black.html

Black propaganda is any kind of material that is not obviously propaganda and whose origin is completely concealed. The item is accepted for something other than what it really is.

And last here's the "media manipulation casebook" https://mediamanipulation.org/definitions/propaganda/

black referring to propaganda that disguises its origins, often portraying itself as the target it is trying to discredit.

Weird how none of these links mention falsehood or misrepresentation of material as a necessary detail. Why did they all coincidentally miss that memo? If you can not provide a valid explanation for why all of these preexisting sources all happen to make the same mistake, then kindly stop arguing this point.

Heck even if we want to go to "well that's not what Wikipedia says", actually it does too. For example we can see their short definition in this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Black_propaganda

Black propaganda is propaganda which purports to be from one side in a conflict but is actually produced by the opposing side

Or just by looking at the first paragraph of the main Wikipedia page!

Black propaganda is covert disinformation deliberately attributed to a false source—often the very group it aims to discredit—in order to undermine that group's credibility.[1][2] Black propaganda contrasts with gray propaganda, which does not identify its source, as well as white propaganda, which does not disguise its origins at all.

It's not about whether or not it misrepresented the source, it's about attribution to a false source. The disinformation is because it's literally not from the correct source, the sourcing is a lie.

Which is why the end of the paragraph is

It is typically used to vilify or embarrass the enemy through misrepresentation.

Typically is an odd word for something apparently necessary in the definition. Typically is a word used when there are exceptions!

Likewise it says later

Sometimes the source is concealed or credited to a false authority and spreads lies, fabrications, and deceptions.

Weird if it was a necessary part they would use "sometimes" and not "all times" for spreading lies, tabrications, and deceptions.

I am right, it is not a necessary part of the definition.

propaganda

in order to discredit them.

Are you claiming that the actual beliefs of real trans advocacy organizations are propaganda lies meant to discredit them, comparable to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?

Do you really not get the distinction people are drawing here?

The organization is not a serious activist group and does not seem to exist for any other purpose except as a psyop, how does that not inherently count as untrue?

By the organization being real and serious, and the evidence for it being in the OP?

The Republican midterm strategy has been to repeatedly yell transgender and immigration over and over and over again at voters like the 9/11 family guy skit, hoping to get people to look past the financial disaster/corruption/etc.

If those issues are so unimportant, then why don’t you just… give them up? Why not just capitulate and become anti-trans and anti-immigration so there will be nothing more to talk about, and we can get onto important issues like economics and corruption?

The fact that you resolutely will not do that under any circumstances shows that those issues are, in fact, important and worth talking about.

If those issues are so unimportant, then why don’t you just… give them up?

Because Dem primary voters aren't just out of step with the country as a whole. They're out of step with democrats as a whole.

I've argued with people on the sports thing many times. They believe sports is a salami-slicing strategy the right is using towards the end goal of criminalizing being trans. Thus they believe the appropriate response is to push back hard on the first slice and give the right no leverage. Well, that and to be precise, Dems have never claimed "protecting trans people/immigrants" is unimportant, just [insert scenario involving trans people] is unimportant.

They believe sports is a salami-slicing strategy the right is using towards the end goal of criminalizing being trans. Thus they believe the appropriate response is to push back hard on the first slice and give the right no leverage.

"I'd agree to this if I could trust you" is a respectable sentiment, but it's never uttered so I don't think the "salami-slicing" argument is what they actually believe.

Well, that and to be precise, Dems have never claimed "protecting trans people/immigrants" is unimportant, just [insert scenario involving trans people] is unimportant.

That's fine, but still means they should concede the issue around that specific scenario (sans the salami-slicing excuse).

Depends on A) who you're talking to and B) what you mean by "actually believe." I generally see three arguments from the left on sports, not always from the same people:

  1. Athletic ability isn't fair anyway, so it doesn't matter if trans people compete.

  2. Hormones reduce MTF athletic ability to the level of women

  3. Let the sports bodies decide.

Only a subset of the pro-sports even bother to argue 1 and 2, but pretty much all of them use point 3. They will never concede the argument because they think 3 is the true neutral option given their deference to science (specifically the science that confirms what they want to believe). The other part is that I don't think the left is entirely wrong about the right wanting to criminalize being trans, in that there are is a spectrum of resistance from "I'll use pronouns but internally I think this is kinda silly" to "Hell yes I want to criminalize being trans." The left, in keeping with their tendency to catastrophize, just treats the end of the spectrum as the norm. In keeping with that, they are genuine in believing the salami-slicing argument.

If those issues are so unimportant, then why don’t you just… give them up?

I think the most charitable answer to this question is that (1) there is a small core of True Believers in the Democratic party which would freak out and sabotage things if the Party adopted the popular positions on trans issues and immigration; and (2) the Democrats genuinely and in good faith believe that if they get into power, the True Believers won't actually get to set the agenda. Therefore, from the Democrat perspective these issues are moot and irrelevant.

But to me, this is one of those partisan politics kind of things where partisan hacks from both sides engage in total and shameless hypocrisy. Democratic Party supporters don't hesitate for a millisecond to seize upon any issue which can be used to gain a political advantage, regardless of the overall importance of the issue and whether it's being used as a distraction. So it's hard to take this sort of complaint seriously.

(2). I think the most active Democrats in power believe they will just do the things they want after winning the election. Right side of history beliefs. So toning down and lying during the election is fine. (1) lie about your position (2). Do the thing (3) everyone likes the thing once it exists (4) continue winning elections.

The average Dem voter might believe they won’t do the thing when in power, but people who are more involved in politics are to the left of their voters.

Support for "victim" groups like trans and illegals is inseperable from leftist ideology. Low information voters may disagree with the object level but ideological believers and thinkers are overrepresented in the party power structure

I think the most charitable answer to this question is that (1) there is a small core of True Believers in the Democratic party which would freak out and sabotage things if the Party adopted the popular positions on trans issues and immigration; and (2) the Democrats genuinely and in good faith believe that if they get into power, the True Believers won't actually get to set the agenda. Therefore, from the Democrat perspective these issues are moot and irrelevant

I'm not following. If it's a small number of True Believers, and they wouldn't get to set the agenda, why not just openly oppose them and ignore their little freak-out?

I'm not following. If it's a small number of True Believers, and they wouldn't get to set the agenda, why not just openly oppose them and ignore their little freak-out?

To be clear, I'm not saying that they definitely wouldn't get to set the agenda, just that the mainstream Democrats sincerely believe that they won't.

But anyway, to answer your question, the primary issue I see is that major candidates need to have an organization supporting their candidacy. These organizations are staffed heavily with low paid and volunteer campaign workers, who tend to come heavily from the ranks of True Believers. So that if a candidate went against the True Believers on a hot button culture war issue, there would be a serious chance of a mutiny, sabotage, mass-quitting, etc. And the person's campaign would be in deep trouble even if the candidate's overall appeal to voters on the issues had improved.

Even putting aside the issue of campaign organizations, provoking a sense of betrayal among the True Believers could result in a lot of damage in obvious ways.

By contrast, once the candidate is elected, appeasing the campaign workers and other True Believers is less of a concern. And the agenda of the True Believers can be stalled in ways that are not overtly confrontational, for example if the candidate, having been elected, votes for some progressive bill but the Democratic party doesn't make an aggressive effort to get the bill through.

By the way, I'm not an expert on this issue but what really stuck in my mind was the most recent presidential election. Kamala Harris and other Democrats desperately needed support from male voters but were largely unable to release the kind of advertisements which would have resonated with male voters. And they were unable to release an ad countering Trump's infamous "they/them" ad. What I attribute this to is the campaign worker problem.

They can play kingmakers or saboteurs

So purge them, what's the issue?

The fact that you resolutely will not do that under any circumstances shows that those issues are, in fact, important and worth talking about.

I don't think that logic holds water. If A and B disagree on many things, A cares deeply about X, and X is largely indifferent to B, it may well be that B pretends to be extremely worked up about X to fight A. In fact, there is a clear strategic advantage in doing so: as long as B is attacking A about X, A will have to sink energy into defending X that it could be using to defend other things, but if A ever decisively wins the battle over X, B, who never actually cared, won't actually have lost anything it cared about, so it's all upside.

This could be true if contesting X costs B less than A, but that's certainly not true here: trans issues are losers at the ballot box for democrats and everyone knows it. 'Kamala supports free gender-affirming care for illegal immigrant convicts' was disastrous for her campaign. She certainly didn't bait right wingers into attack her on that point as some devious stratagem to waste their efforts, they dug and dug to find a statement that could be interpreted in that way because they knew it was a winning issue for them. She, very simply, would obviously have been better off giving the issue up -- her especially, given she skipped right over the primary.

A cares deeply about X, and X is largely indifferent to B, it may well be that B pretends to be extremely worked up about X to fight A.

Well in that case, it wouldn't really make logical sense for B to argue that A's beating the drum on issue X is just an attempt to distract from some more important issue. Both sides are taking the position that issue X is important. Ok, so B is being dishonest and hypocritical, but so what?

I don't think that logic holds water. If A and B disagree on many things, A cares deeply about X, and X is largely indifferent to B, it may well be that B pretends to be extremely worked up about X to fight

Tell me which issue you want me to vocally support or oppose in return for vocally opposing immigration and transgenderism in progressive spaces, and I'm pretty sure I will give it to you.

If you think Reds are "largely indifferent" to trans ideology and its integration into taxpayer-funded schools, I think you will find the real world a very surprising place going forward.

I can't actually think of a single real-world example where this pattern plays out. A similar pattern, I think, is the one where objectively-small-potatoes policies are seen as a test of control, and so have massive resources dedicated to them, because both sides understand the power of precedent and control of the default.

This is in Texas. Trans ideology is illegal in government schools.

Now that doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but it does mean that at a government policy level, the sort of thing that might be changed by a single election(and if democrats win a trifecta in Texas then they've probably also won the power to override vetos in the federal government and will simply pass whatever they want) is a thing that the reds have decisively won.

I don't believe this, and I don't understand why you would claim it. Undocumented immigration is illegal. Affirmative action is illegal. Weed smoking is illegal, or was until very recently. The Constitution itself offers ironclad protections to free speech and the right to keep and bear arms, in a purely hypothetical way that has no actual impact anywhere Blues win political power.

Laws that can't and won't be enforced should not be referenced as reassurance that the things the law bans aren't a problem worth worrying about. Show me the people in jail for breaking the law, and then we can talk.

(tried to belatedly edit the following into the first post - here it is as a reply)

I'm not saying that in this case the right's opposition to trans rights or immigration is displaying this kind of hypocrisy. But I don't think the left's refusal to concede those points proves otherwise. Lawfare is a good example: the Left may keep suing Trump over January 6th without actually caring about it half as much as they pretend, because they already maximally hate Trump whether or not he really tried to do a coup - but whether Trump himself wants to be seen as a guy who attempted to do a coup is a completely different question and it would be hugely damaging for him if he conceded "yeah, whatever, I confess, I tried to become dictator-for-life" in some bizarre effort to prove his accusers don't actually care about that.

Black propaganda is disinformation. The things being sent here are actually beliefs of the groups being "impersonated"--they are just being sent to a hostile audience.

Black propaganda is disinformation

The organization isn't a serious one, it was created for the explicit purpose of doing something real activists weren't doing, sending out flyers to students.

The whole thing is a literal psyop.

The flyers accurately depicted the beliefs of the real organization. They did not misrepresent the organization's beliefs. The organization didn't authorize the mailings, but a misrepresentation normally means a substantial one, not just any old one. Lying about who sent the flyers, but accurately depicting their beliefs in the flyers, is not a substantial misrepresentation even though in some autistically literal way it's not true.

It's still black propaganda per basically every definition I found.

The organization is real and serious, it was created for the explicit purpose of trans advocacy. The OP contains an archive link dated prior to any of this drama, with statements proving that the texts were an accurate representation of their beliefs. The current version of the website contains cope about the texts, has removed any of the previously proudly shared resources, again indicating that the organization is real and pro-trans, rather than a false flag.

The whole thing is a literal psyop.

What specific evidence do you have of this?

The organization is real and serious, it was created for the explicit purpose of trans advocacy.

TENT ("Transgender Education Network of Texas) is real, the "Texas Transgender Student Union" (the ones supposedly behind the letter) is not real outside of an LLC set up last month.

TENT has publicly stated that the TTSU is not an authorized representative.

The TTSU is a fake activist organization.

TENT has publicly stated that the TTSU is not an authorized representative.

And? How is that relevant to the issue at all? How does being unauthorized make anything they said untrue?

Nefarious politics to MagicalKitty appears to be repeating true things the other side does that are highly unpopular.

In my view this is just well-run politics and normal.

I’m basically a 1-issue immigration voter now. So yes remind voters of Dems awful immigration policies.

If I had a second issue it’s boosting fertility. And transitioning people and trans culture is bad for fertility.

Budgetary stuff is unimportant compared to demographics. Money is fake. The Jews created Israel in 80 years with great demographics.

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