Are you watching closely?
Real magic afoot in America
Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled.
— Cutter, The Prestige
2025 has been The Greatest Show on Earth. It’s only late-April but it feels like we’ve been in this theatre of chaos and confusion forever. Like many Americans, I’m watching the stage closely but still have more questions than answers. Or more accurately, I still have more concerns than comforts.
What’s troubling me most is how half of America thinks our democracy is under siege while the other half (I’m using “half” loosely) thinks our president and his loyalists are simply shrewd businessmen working their magic to clean this place up.
It’s like we’re all in the same theatre but watching different shows. In a nightmarish vision, half the crowd laughs hysterically while the other half weeps. How can our realities be so distant? Are we actually watching the same show? Look closely. What magic is afoot here?
Abracadabra, it’s propaganda.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen of the audience, bad actors have effectively used a dangerous concoction of media bias and digital propaganda to seize control of our government. And now they intend to destroy it right before our eyes. We’re in a dangerous new era of propaganda. Goebbels’ cinema is MAGA’s internet.
Like real magic, propaganda is paradoxical. It’s elusive yet everywhere. It’s manipulative and dishonest but accepted as truth. It reinforces our biases. It plays on our fears. It appeals to our emotions and therefore shapes our realities. Propaganda is a dizzying construct.
Merriam-Webster defines propaganda as “the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person.” It’s a modern Latin word with origins in the Catholic Church as it spread (propagated) the word of Catholicism to non-Catholic countries. As a recovering Cathloholic, much respect.
Fascism in the World War II era, arguably the "Golden Age of Propaganda,” redefined propaganda. And now it’s being redefined again in the Information Age. As Nicola Tesla (played by David Bowie) in Christopher Nolan’s film The Prestige said, “The world is on the brink of new and terrifying possibilities.”
Elon Musk spread propaganda early this year during the tragic dismantling of USAID. Rather than providing a pragmatic, thoughtful explanation behind the layoffs of thousands of foreign-aid workers—as one might expect from a normal government in a civil society—Musk used a massive social media platform (that he owns) to indulge in good old-fashioned name-calling, card-stacking, and bandwagon propaganda, bluntly calling USAID a “criminal organization.”
And guess what? That’s all the explanation MAGA required. This is their guy and they don’t have time to dig deeper. Misinformation becomes “truth”—USAID becomes a criminal organization—in the blink of an eye. With technology, we see the dark side of propaganda clearly: instantaneous mass communication is destroying, not bettering, democratic conversation.
If Goebbels were alive and had access to X, we would be doomed. The Nazis would have conquered the world.
— Alexandre de Moraes
Social media is omnipresent, so propaganda is too. In 2023, when Brazilian Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes picked a fight with online right-wing extremism and malicious propaganda, Musk called him an “evil dictator cosplaying as a judge“—sound familiar? The far-right politician that Musk sided with in Brazil reportedly established a “hate cabinet” and his supporters formed “digital militias” to generate and disseminate digital propaganda. These trends are truly Orwellian.
Propaganda doesn’t rest. In February, U.S. Congressman Rich McCormick wrote a letter to Trump and Rubio (hi friends!) saying de Moraes is a threat to the United States and has tried to “undermine American digital sovereignty.” Huh? He cites a lawsuit by Trump Media (a clear sign of injustice!) and the fines Musk’s X “suffered” at the hands of de Moraes. McCormick’s performative letter concludes that “The United States must stand for democracy, free speech, and the rule of law—before it’s too late.” (I promise this isn’t creative writing.) McCormick is clearly backing Trump’s political doppelganger, far-right populist and former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
Humanity’s misuse of technology isn’t new, but what I find enigmatic is that people actually believe Musk and other propagandists. On paper, on film, or on social media, propaganda is immeasurably powerful. It’s real magic. Combined with modern technology, it’s a digital Death Star.
But what happened to the truth here? What are the facts behind USAID? What were the facts in Brazil? This quickly becomes irrelevant. Doom scrolling is easy. Filtering through propaganda is hard. Sifting and weighing evidence takes time, as Martin Luther King Jr. wrote while he was still in college:
To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.
In How Propaganda Works, author and professor of philosophy Jason Stanley aims “to explain how sincere well-meaning people, under the grips of flawed ideology, can unknowingly produce and consume propaganda.” I found Stanley’s book challenging; it’s academic political philosophy, including a discussion of flawed ideology and supporting (versus undermining) propaganda. I tried to keep up.
But if I understand Stanley correctly, what he calls “undermining demagoguery” is the description of MAGA I was looking for. According to Stanley, undermining demagoguery is the most insidious of all propaganda; it is “a contribution to public discourse that is presented as an embodiment of certain ideals, yet is of a kind that tends to erode those very ideals.”
In my view, MAGA is undermining demagoguery because it appeals to American ideals—freedom, justice, law and order, nostalgia, exceptionalism, patriotism—in order to justify the dismantling of liberal democracy and effectively erode these ideals. With words and symbols, MAGA employs a propagandistic device known as “glittering generalities”—essentially meaningless words and symbols that are often intentionally dishonest. I’ve have had my fill of glittering generalities. Big Macs have more substance.
In The Atlantic, author George Packer said:
The belief that America stands for an idea beyond blood and soil makes its identity fragile, because an idea lives in people’s minds, where it is subject to lies, hatred, ignorance, despair, even extinction.
Further, Stanley says propaganda undermines reasonableness, which is particularly dangerous in a liberal democracy because reason helps us uphold the rule of law. Unrestricted propaganda, therefore, is a serious threat to democracy.
Historian and author Yuval Noah Harari points to another catalyst of propaganda: too much information. In his book Nexus, Harari says, “When people can no longer make sense of the world, and when they feel overwhelmed by immense amounts of information they cannot digest, they become easy prey for conspiracy theories.” This pairs well with “flooding the zone,” as we are seeing from the Trump administration. Spread enough lies or misinformation about immigrants (or Zelenskyy, or those dirty libs, or anyone) and it becomes harder to dismiss all of it as untrue. This is the illusory truth effect. Repetition is one reason advertising works (tell me those Big Macs don’t look good).
Truth requires patience. According to Harari, truth and reality are complicated, costly, and painful; while lies, conspiracies, and misinformation are fast and cheap. They’re fast and cheap because they’re junk. This is one of the primary reasons the Trump administration is after our journalists, our universities, our intellectuals, our researchers and scientists. These Americans are interested in truth, and truth requires time and money. Destroy these institutions and the truth dies along with them.
But here’s the trick: How do we convince America that destroying these institutions is in their best interests? With real magic—propaganda—of course: American institutions are cabals; the system is rigged; DEI is discrimination; USAID is criminal; dissenting judges are dictators; vaccines are pseudoscience; immigrants are destructive; Hillary is a baby-eating witch and counter-corruption is bad for business. Flood the zone with flying monkeys and get the people scared. When people are scared, no remedy is unreasonable. No retribution is irrational.
In The Atlantic, David Brooks said, “The truth itself is a restraint on power, so it must be abandoned. Lying becomes the language of the state.” As people often say after magic acts, Brooks’ article is titled “I SHOULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING.”
As for digital (or computational) propaganda, Harari argues that truth is an editorial matter. On social media, algorithms are editing and they aren’t editing for the truth; they’re editing for engagement. And if the algorithm says hate, fear, and greed increases engagement, this is the content we are fed. Humans, Harari argues, must be editing. Humans should be empowered to censure algorithms. It’s astonishing that these arguments need to be made, yet here we are.
It’s similar to the argument de Moraes made in Brazil:
Freedom of speech is not freedom to destroy democracy. Freedom of speech is not freedom to spread hatred and prejudice. Freedom of speech does not allow the spreading of hate speech and ideas contrary to the constitutional order.
De Moraes says social media is now the greatest power of all, the defining force of our time, especially now that it has proven to influence elections. I think most Americans would agree.
I add only one suggestion on using the machine: Destroy it. Drop it to the bottom of the deepest ocean. Such a thing will bring you only misery.
— Nikola Tesla, The Prestige
Researching propaganda and illusion had me thinking of Christopher Nolan’s 2006 thriller, The Prestige, so I recently rewatched it. The film opens with the line, “Are you watching closely?”
Like almost all of Nolan’s films, The Prestige is a multilayered puzzle box that weaves several timelines and flashbacks within flashbacks. The movie’s writing credits go to Nolan, his brother Jonathan Nolan, and Christopher Priest (who wrote the book the screenplay was adapted from). If Nolan wasn’t such a master of his craft, you might be get lost in the film’s narrative maze.
One reason I love The Prestige so much is that it’s not just a movie about magicians, the movie itself is a magic trick using the grammar of film. It’s a magic trick about magic tricks. As Nolan puts it, most of his films tell stories about storytelling.
There are some timely themes in The Prestige, including Tesla’s Faustian warning about the pursuit of new technology and the price men pay for obsession. Indeed, the film’s competing magicians, Robert Angier and Alfred Borden, pay dearly for their pursuits of greatness. Angier's on-stage double, a former actor, proudly announces that he has played both Faust and Caesar. These characters were destroyed by their own ambition, as is Angier. MAGA appears to be a real-world Faustian pact playing out in real time.
Back to the film’s beginning, “Are you watching closely?” Angier’s assistant, Cutter, continues:
Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called "The Pledge"—the magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't. The second act is called "The Turn"—the magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige."
So right up front, like a magician, Nolan tells us that we’re about to be tricked, that we’re about to witness magic. That’s satisfying and simple enough on the surface, but nothing is ever simple with Nolan. Nothing is as it appears. What he’s really telling us is that, if we are watching closely, we’re about to witness “real magic”—ultimately the supernatural machine that Tesla builds for Algiers’ penultimate act, The Transported Man. And Borden has some real magic at play, too (no spoilers here).
In Tom Shone’s book, The Nolan Variations, Nolan says something interesting about his film:
What’s funny about The Prestige is we had taken great pain to try and indicate in the first act that there is real magic afoot in the film. We tried to be very up front with that, but a certain segment of the audience absolutely refused to accept that play and saw it as cheating.
In other words, a segment of the audience thought Nolan cheated by using the real magic of cinema to make magic? I would argue the opposite, that he was masterfully using every cinematic device at his disposal to entertain us. Borden and Algiers would have done the same.
Propaganda is like real magic. We are told right up front that it’s manipulative and often dishonest information intended to influence our emotions. Yet we go along for the ride. Why is that? Is it because we’re mostly simpleminded creatures seeking simple answers? Or could it be because we’re lazy, because finding the truth takes time? I know there are many sincere, well-meaning people that voted for Trump. But don’t they see the smoke and mirrors of flawed ideology hiding his corruption? Or are they not really looking because they don't really want to know, because they want to be fooled? Alas, democracies are fragile and things are getting bad out here; if they still think MAGA intends to make things better, I can only conclude that real magic is afoot in America.
As Nolan says in the book, “there is no real magic. There is reality and there’s magic.” But we’re dealing with facts, not fiction. Propaganda is real. And propaganda succeeds when it goes unrecognized, when our reason is clouded by ideology. Abracadabra.
P.S. As I was wrapping up this post, I saw a headline on Fox News: “President Trump’s ultimate magic trick—Trump's magic: getting stuff done for America while everyone else is watching the shiny objects.” Huh? The op-ed author, Ted Jenkin, discusses Trump’s brilliance with misdirection and real magic, calling him a “master negotiator” making “master magician” moves while the rest of us mere mortals keep “falling for the noise.” Jenkin goes so far as to label Trump’s handling of Ukraine a “noble cause” and his political comeback as “part Houdini, part heavyweight prizefighter.”
It gets better. Where did Trump master his magical skills in the ancient art of Gettingstuffdoneism? Why in America’s pride and joy, of course, Las Vegas. Forgive me, Tim, but Vegas doesn’t exactly conjure up the Golden Rule or apple pie for this American. I have another term for misdirection: lack of transparency, corruption’s stagehand. But hey, at least this administration is “getting stuff done.” Propaganda, not our president, is pulling the ultimate magic trick here. Just look at all of these shiny words used to describe a budding kleptocrat.