[hwillis]

> skewing their biases in a way that creates internal chaos and dissent, disrupting institutional order, and sewing distrust of thy neighbor.

I don't really have respect for this idea; we do this to ourselves far more effectively than people who frankly have a pretty hamfisted cultural understanding- just as we have of china or russia.

IMO influence over real concrete choices is much more alarming. Someone with household-level information has an insane amount of advantage in an election. You can target politcal messaging street by street to play up the worst aspects of your opposed candidate and the least repulsive aspects of your own candidate.

But if you're in china, the most you can do is try to push towards whatever of the two candidates is least bad for you. And spoiler, zero american politicians are pro-china.

[expedition32]

This is the difficulty with propaganda- you have to tailor it to a foreign audience but then the message is changed.

America has been trying to spread it's way of life for a hundred years. People liked the fridges and cars but never cared much for the Christianity and croony capitalism.

[nikkwong]

> And spoiler, zero american politicians are pro-china.

..Other than, well possibly, Trump. Maybe not directly, but the Tiktok deal, withdrawing from the TPP, the eventual outcome of the trade war, the praise for Xi—all stands to benefit China at the expense of the US.

> I don't really have respect for this idea; we do this to ourselves far more effectively than people who frankly have a pretty hamfisted cultural understanding- just as we have of china or russia.

The two need not be mutually exclusive.