“Father of public relations” Edward Bernays “…crafted the modern idea of America, a country haunted by hidden forces and whose citizens’ lives are inundated with dangerous manipulations,” wrote Jared Yates Sexton in American Rule: How a Nation Conquered the World but Failed Its People.
“Bernays helped usher into the world a new reality … On the surface was what Walter Lippmann called a ‘pseudo-environment’ wherein citizens bought products based on psychological appeals and voted for candidates who played to their base instincts while blissfully unaware of the constant manipulations brewing right under the surface.”
“This strategy constituted the new world of public opinion, a social science dedicated not to understanding what the electorate and public wanted but to how to convince them to want what the ruling elite wanted to sell them.”
FYI, our welfare-recipient neighbors were just on their porch, discussing their opposition to taxation.
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