Trump's propaganda machine revs up, thanks to power of video

Over a century ago, anarchists embraced the idea of “propaganda of the deed.” This idea was rooted in the belief that dramatic political actions, often violent ones like assassinations, could spur the masses, instilling a spirit of revolt merely by being spectacular enough that they would command attention.

The acts themselves were seen as the message. Simply put, the idea was a form of political theater, performance in service of an ideology.

New York Times Opinion columnist Ezra Klein, in a January podcast, asserted that we are currently seeing a resurrection of the early 20th century anarchistic idea but with a twist. The Trump administration, he says, even though not an anarchist collective but the state itself, “often operates through propaganda of the deed.”

American presidential administrations are no strangers to using performance in the service of an ideology. We can look back to the Works Progress Administration of the 1930s, when the government funded actual performances, plays, concerts and traveling shows to promote the New Deal and inspire the masses.

However, when we invoke the idea of “propaganda of the deed,” we are not referencing inspirational messaging. We are talking about a theater of shock and awe meant to stimulate nervous systems and open floodgates of adrenaline, all in service of an ideology.

With his alleged 2024 shooting of United Healthcare CEO Bryan Thompson, Luigi Mangione enacted propaganda of the deed in its purest early 20th century form, performing a spectacular and violent political action that would reverberate through the zeitgeist of popular culture. Perhaps he was motivated by a mythology surrounding any number of political assassinations. Ultimately, though, as history has shown time and again, the action does not lead to the intended outcome. Political violence by small actors rarely produces a future consistent with the goals of the deed.

Violence performed by the state

It is different, though, when the spectacle of violence, the propagation of the deed, is performed by the state.

Which brings us home to Chicago.

Who could forget the 1968 Democratic National Convention held here? The spectacle of state violence was broadcast into people’s living rooms across America when police beat protesters bloody in Grant Park. The spectacle was the message. The message was clear: Challenge the system, and this will happen to you. The goal was not only to suppress protest in the city but also to discipline those viewing the news footage at home.

Most recently, this state-sanctioned propaganda of the deed made itself apparent in the brutal and widely circulated shooting deaths of Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis. Unlike the demonstrations at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, footage of this act was sent into our living rooms, reaching our eyes from a safe viewing distance, and it was directly in our faces, sent to our personal devices and shown multiple times, dissected from every angle imaginable.

In our new digital age, everything is performance because everyone is filming at all times. But the tables have turned. Citizen videography was once an effective tool for controlling the narrative and demanding accountability, as in the 1991 beating of Rodney King and the 2020 George Floyd murder, both perpetrated by police officers. Now it is being used to the advantage of the Trump administration.

This administration has perfected the art of taking a tool, the means by which activists have historically used to demand accountability, and manipulating it to serve their purposes. What was once video evidence of the violation of civil rights is now propaganda. What was once a powerful protective measure is now a warning. A far-reaching tool for citizen journalists gets turned into state media. And because this administration has no problem with spectacular acts of political violence, the message is clear: Challenge the system, and this will happen to you.

Propaganda of the deed, once an idea in pursuit of spurring a revolution, has become, in the digital age and at the hands of the current administration, an attempt at quelling one.

Janette DeFelice is a professional lecturer in health sciences at DePaul University and an author who writes about the intersection between medicine, politics and the stories we tell about who matters.