Dividing a United Nation Through Weaponized Information
My Grandmama’s kitchen table was big - she kept three leaves in it year-round so it could seat over 20 people at a moment's notice. “Feeding folks” as she called it, was one of her deepest sources of joy. She was the human embodiment of the Crowded Table song by The Highwomen (Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris, and Amanda Shires).
From the time I stumbled out of my bedroom at 5 AM, to when I finally turned in for the night at 11 PM, there seemed to always be someone sitting and visiting at that mahogany masterpiece. She cooked “big” - always three to four times what was necessary for a meal - so there was always cold fried chicken, a cast iron skillet of biscuits, and an extra chocolate meringue pie or two ready to distribute to the neighbors, relatives, and random new friend she’d made when they plopped down at the table. Her hospitality was a defining characteristic that extends beyond her 90-some-odd years on this earth.
Check Yer Guns and Politics at the Door
Everybody that knew her, came through the back door - only evangelists, salesmen, and “up-to-no-good-lawyers” committed the abominable sin of knocking on her front door. When she’d hear the chimes on the backdoor ring, she’d holler out a memorable greeting to her guests, “Check yer guns and politics at the door, and c’mon in here so I can hug your neck!”
My cousin used to tease her, “We can’t talk politics in your house, but what about sex and religion? Are those taboo topics off the table, too?”
“Grandmama loves exorcism orgasms, so why would you deny her conversation on her favorite subjects?” my Granddaddy teased back.
Connections vs. Divisions
As we’ve navigated some of the most contentious political elections of our lifetime, I’ve found myself frequently reflecting on my grandmother’s unifying kitchen table.
We routinely ate supper with folks of different political parties - hell, our own family included candidates from all major political parties - Republicans, Democrats, and Independents (in its many iterations). Winter holidays included meals with snake-handling evangelical preachers, Jewish Holocaust survivors, and hoodoo-practicing folks that you’re careful not to piss off, just in case the voodoo dolls are real.
We expressed wildly differing opinions on pretty much everything, were respectful of each other’s lived experiences, and made sure everyone got at least two, maybe three, pieces of Grandmama’s six-layer cake with butter-cream icing sweet enough to land you in a sugar coma.
The only time I remember a fight nearly breaking out at her kitchen table was over the Egg Bowl - Mississippi’s annual epic football game between two rivals Ole Miss vs. State - and, looking back, the half-a-dozen mason jars of homemade hootch served up beforehand may have had something to do with the flaring tempers.
“People these days, are different,” I find myself muttering more and more often as I try to comprehend the disconnect observed both on a national scale and in my own little corner of the world. Folks I’ve known for decades, people I worked with, friends I’ve bared my drunken-most soul to have severed the social ties that once bound us together as neighbors, colleagues, and loved ones. The networks of community and organizations appear to be tearing apart at the seams in response to politics.
I have friends on both sides of the political aisle, and it’s been heartbreaking to see the breakdown in relationships across the board. On more than one occasion, I’ve found myself wanting to echo my Grandmama’s memorable greeting of, “Check yer guns and politics at the door…” to break up a particularly contentious conversation. Maybe she was on to something.
The Weaponization of Information
I’ve spent the past few years of my career studying increasing polarization in our society as exacerbated by the weaponization of information (“mis- and disinformation”, if you’re up on those terms). I’ve focused my work on how information can be weaponized to exacerbate fault lines in our society with the purpose of increasing divides across our should-be united nation.
Every day, Americans are bombarded with incorrect, manipulative information designed to involve strong emotions, propagate fear and hate, and attempt to turn us against each other. It’s a highly concerted digital assault that leaves us confused as to who’s friend and who’s foe, and makes us distrust pretty much everything we formerly relied on, including our government, our communities, and even each other.
If you know anything about the history of democracy, it should come as no surprise that the three key nation-state offenders - China, Iran, and Russia - of disinformation have invested so heavily in mortaring us with these digital weapons. It’s an incredibly low-cost way to wage a war - one that requires no bullets, no missiles, and no storming of the beach. Their steady stream of disinformation encourages us to disconnect from everything that reminds us we’re in this together, sowing distrust and driving irreconcilable divides between neighbors.
Given the priority that Freedom of Speech has in our rights as Americans, I do not find it a coincidence that our enemies are hitting this front in terms of a destabilizing attack on one of the world’s greatest democracies. As I, like many of you, attempt to wade through all the vitriol, partisanship, and perceived social distrust post-election, I growing increasingly frustrated with the realization that our enemies’ attack has done some damage. Now, it’s time for us to fix it.
Solutions: Rebuilding What Was Broken
Throughout my years of research in this area, I have not found a single solution for the destabilizing divisions that exist within our nation. I have, however, identified multiple defenses we can utilize to secure our communities against disinformation, and have several proposed approaches for repairing what damage has been done.
1. Enhanced Awareness is Needed
Americans need to be aware of the way in which disinformation is being used to hurt them. Your neighbor who has a different political sign than you in their yard is not your enemy. Our actual enemies - adversaries and terrorist groups - want you to think that everyone who believes differently than you is out to get you. Not true. Stop drinking the Kool-Aid served up by national states who hate our democracy, our freedoms, and, when we’re united, our strength.
2. Personal Responsibility is Critical
We all have a responsibility to repair our communities. No, you and I didn’t cause the problem; however, we have a responsibility to repair the damage and lead our nation into a more secure and resilient position. This means enhancing our own digital literacy, so your ignorance doesn’t make you an inadvertent ally for our enemies who wish to dismantle our nation from within. Do your part in combatting the destructive influences of weaponized information and its subsequent assaults on our nation, and help equip your friends and family in this often-neglected area of needed citizen capabilities and personal accountability.
3. Rebuild Physical Networks
Many proposed “solutions” for disinformation infringe on the First Amendment (Freedom of Speech) and generally propagate massive government oversteps of our rights as Americans. We need to support (and by support, I don’t mean hit “Like” on social media…I mean actually, physically, get involved in making things better for humankind!) in enhancing the networks of real-life connections. Talk to your neighbors, invite a friend out to dinner, call up an old colleague, organize a group hike, and volunteer in your community. When the battle is digital, we tend to neglect the physical world. This creates a soft underbelly societally that makes us more vulnerable to attacks.
Final Thoughts on a Divided Nation
I’ve been talking and writing on mis/disinformation for years. If you know me from a work-related function, chances are you heard me on some panel or sat through one of my presentations on the “digital blast radius” of weaponized information distributed across social media. Most of my projections were bleak. I joke that I’m one of the few scholars who hope their work is proven way wrong by reality…I love our country and didn’t want the damage of disinformation to undermine our democracy. I really hoped my early out-of-the-gate, hellfire-and-brimstone warnings on mis/disinformation would be headed, and our nation would secure the threat, but we didn’t and here we are.
Weaponized information is a very real threat; however, it’s not always effective, and we are not completely at its mercy. I plan on spending the next few months hosting dinners, visiting folks, and getting more involved in my community. I can’t make the disinformation attacks from our enemies stop, but I can ensure my own cognitive space is equipped with the awareness needed to navigate a world where information is weaponized against the country that I love.
I’d encourage you to do the same, and if you’re struggling to bridge divides among friends during this season of rather electric dissension and disagreement, I’d encourage you to take a play out of Grandmama’s playbook and remind them to check their politics at the door, or, if all else fails, spark up some memorable conversation on “exorcismic orgasms”.
C’mon, even the prudiest of priests among us would prefer to talk about that over politics.