Political scientist Samuel Bagg explains why social identity is at the root of the misinformation crisis -- which calls for something deeper than factchecking.
The only counter to misinformation.....is direct experience that refutes it. What we're seeing now is 40 years of Dems not doing or being FOR anything visceral.
If you are willing to throw one of your group under the bus 'to keep the lights on/to always comprise with Lucy and the football'...every other group sees that.
The latest Senate cave after 40 days of shutdown for literally nothing makes misinformation's point for it.
This is why I get so upset with the "Third Way" types on energy... "Oh let's innovate on 'clean energy' with fusion fantasy and geothermal jive and SMR simplicity," and "Let's be bipartisan and not even mention climate or GHGs or particularly solar and wind, especially offshore wind because that might alienate some demographic which some DC pundit tells us we need." Which leaves all the narrative in the hands of the delayers with their litany of woes.
I teach at a college in North Idaho. I have found Kathleen Belew's book Bring the War Home: the White Power Movement and America's Paramilitaries to be a profound study that shows the connection between lack of trust and the rise of the white power movement in the US. Her point is that social context for racist movements is definitive.
So… 2029 reeducation camps need to be heavy on trauma and light on lecture? I’m saying this to provoke obviously, but I think we can’t discount the fact that collective cruelty towards an out-group is one of the most effective in-group formation and bonding rituals. Our side has been very squeamish about tapping into this energy and rightly so, but there are such genuine monsters at loose in the world today that I think we have to find some channel to access that darker energy and direct it against the right people.
TRIBALISM the Putin/GOP/Project 2025 Playbook secret weapon.
- Morally Disturbed/Disordered people run these systems
- Doesn’t detract from cunningness, charismatic manipulation, and the co-optiing of groupiness for evil purpose.
- Sociopathic/Psychopathic/Malignant Narcissistic people appear to be the majority of billionaires
- ‘’We’ve succeeded in buying up the main vectors of Tribal Control. MSM and Social Media are OURS!!!” YOU BE OUR MEAT!!!
- Brilliant Prime Ministers (Trudeau our charismatic, Carney our economist), Presidents (Obama and Biden our moral touchstones and successful jobs and institutions managers), ARE SO VERY DANGEROUSLY BLIND TO THE VECTORS OF VIRAL TRIBAL DISEASE.
To understand in more detail about Mr. Bragg points, I would suggest reading the research paper titled, “Belief in the Law of Small Numbers” by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. This along with their other research documented how humans make decisions — laying the ground work for creating the field of behavioral economics. I look at Mr. Bragg’s points as another use case to the work of these two men.
I learned about Tversky and Kahneman from reading “The Undoing Project” by Michael Lewis who wrote about their personal and professional relationship.
What an amazing interview. I have been a free subscriber for quite a while. Immediately after reading this interview, I became a paid subscriber. Thank you for interviewing Samuel Bagg. You are both members of my "trusted sources".
David, I loved your comment/question about what we are trying to advocate for. You mentioned the glaring difference between trying to convince someone of a static truth, vs a truth that is always revising itself as in science. it is questions/comments like this, the ones that zero in on the essence of the idea among other things that keep me coming back to the podcast.
This is an essential discussion for effective climate action. Too bad the right is so darn good at creating that perfect smoothie blend of racism, misogyny, trans phobia, and....fossil fuels? People gotta learn the hard way: An interesting identity shift we actually have seen in real time is the flip in sentiment about Israel, and all it took was a genocide.
Hmmm. Yes for sure there is a lot of identity-based politics going on. And most of right populism seems to have thrown in with the idea that either global warming isn't real, or serious, or the "establishment" solutions are too expensive. There is also some "horseshoe" agreement between left and right populists against batteries filled w/toxics, ready to burst into flames, made via extraction far worse than FFs, and against wind/solar destroying views, ag land, and wildlife, filled w/toxic lead, etc., spreading EMFs, and made using with imported components using slave labor, and installed by non-union labor for giant foreign profiteering corporations. And of course, it's raising your rates, cost-of-living, etc.
I like the framing of an "American" identity that doesn't seem to leave out white hetero men unless they flagellate themselves incessantly about their evil settler/colonialist ancestors.
I try to point out that wind farms and solar farms are farms, are "cool" in the harvesting of "natural" energy, are providing cheap electricity, are mostly installed by good ol' boys and gals, etc. And that above litany of harms is vastly exaggerated. But....
Anyway, you're right that part of getting "populist" support is to involve or at least show directly what can and is being done. And I think there is also a counter attack to right populism distrust of "elites" which is to show that their "leaders" are often from elites or espousing policies which benefit elites and maybe they can't be trusted. And, and, and. Many moving parts.
Sometimes I'm not sure if I'm making sense, but I'm kinda flipped out by the extent of negativity against wind and solar and electrification from those with "environmental" identity based on that list of exaggerated "harms." And by those with "progressive" identity, based on ideas of unaffordability. These are then picked up by media and become viral or memes or whatever. Oh yeah, also here in CO, the "union/blue collar" identity is now pretty much opposing expansion of the currently-functioning decarbonization strategies (wind, solar, heat pumps as of now) in favor of nuke and geo dreams.
But, IMHO, we are the sum of multiple identities and the decarbonization, or not, beliefs that are part of each identity have indeed been influenced by discourse through recent years, and it's not impossible to influence them in different ways.
Wall St runs our world, including the press, media, social media.
It's not psychology. It's profit incentives.
Now propaganda can be a revenue producer as long as it's "engaging".
The biggest industries and their captured regulators aka publicly financed trade associations, manufacture a narrative and suppress anything that hurts profits.
The Military Industrial Congressionals Complex supports it. Congress gets some stock tips and does very well.
Innovation is suprressed because the status quo industry wants an Innovation Free Zone where they can charge escalating prices and not have to update products and can prevent any competitors.
Just count up the ads on a TV program to see who their sponsors are. If it's nearly half Pharma, will M Snow ever say anything bad about Phama? Will they even carry water for them, pretending that cheap old safe drugs are worse than new expensive Blockbuster drugs? If they don't they go out of business....
We have a reality distortion field the size of Wall Street.
Nu? It's all civil society we're talking about? (There is a repeated invocation of "you" in this interview: who else could it be?) What is the role of the state in identity building? None? There goes public education, and maybe the state itself. (The Germans would so argue.) Strong? There goes the First Amendment, or at least many conceptions of it.
Otherwise, I agree. Left civil society is in positions of power, but weak among ordinary people. I suppose that's the logic of meritocracy.
The only counter to misinformation.....is direct experience that refutes it. What we're seeing now is 40 years of Dems not doing or being FOR anything visceral.
If you are willing to throw one of your group under the bus 'to keep the lights on/to always comprise with Lucy and the football'...every other group sees that.
The latest Senate cave after 40 days of shutdown for literally nothing makes misinformation's point for it.
This is why I get so upset with the "Third Way" types on energy... "Oh let's innovate on 'clean energy' with fusion fantasy and geothermal jive and SMR simplicity," and "Let's be bipartisan and not even mention climate or GHGs or particularly solar and wind, especially offshore wind because that might alienate some demographic which some DC pundit tells us we need." Which leaves all the narrative in the hands of the delayers with their litany of woes.
Agree with everything but 'geothermal jive' lol that's something we do actually need to invest in.
I teach at a college in North Idaho. I have found Kathleen Belew's book Bring the War Home: the White Power Movement and America's Paramilitaries to be a profound study that shows the connection between lack of trust and the rise of the white power movement in the US. Her point is that social context for racist movements is definitive.
While lack of trust definitely plays a role, we need to ask why institutions have been degraded and who benefits.
https://alexwhite.org/2025/12/what-if-inequality-creates-right-wing-extremism/
So… 2029 reeducation camps need to be heavy on trauma and light on lecture? I’m saying this to provoke obviously, but I think we can’t discount the fact that collective cruelty towards an out-group is one of the most effective in-group formation and bonding rituals. Our side has been very squeamish about tapping into this energy and rightly so, but there are such genuine monsters at loose in the world today that I think we have to find some channel to access that darker energy and direct it against the right people.
TRIBALISM the Putin/GOP/Project 2025 Playbook secret weapon.
- Morally Disturbed/Disordered people run these systems
- Doesn’t detract from cunningness, charismatic manipulation, and the co-optiing of groupiness for evil purpose.
- Sociopathic/Psychopathic/Malignant Narcissistic people appear to be the majority of billionaires
- ‘’We’ve succeeded in buying up the main vectors of Tribal Control. MSM and Social Media are OURS!!!” YOU BE OUR MEAT!!!
- Brilliant Prime Ministers (Trudeau our charismatic, Carney our economist), Presidents (Obama and Biden our moral touchstones and successful jobs and institutions managers), ARE SO VERY DANGEROUSLY BLIND TO THE VECTORS OF VIRAL TRIBAL DISEASE.
- Pray god this changes
Interesting. I wrote about the challenge of "facts don't matter" back in 2014.
Facts are contestable because they are extrinsic. Morals are much harder to contest, because they are intrinsic.
https://alexwhite.org/2014/02/australian-progressives-pay-attention-george-lakoff/
David, I’d like to know what percent of this interview featured the voice of your guest. Seemed rather small.
A good read!
To understand in more detail about Mr. Bragg points, I would suggest reading the research paper titled, “Belief in the Law of Small Numbers” by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. This along with their other research documented how humans make decisions — laying the ground work for creating the field of behavioral economics. I look at Mr. Bragg’s points as another use case to the work of these two men.
I learned about Tversky and Kahneman from reading “The Undoing Project” by Michael Lewis who wrote about their personal and professional relationship.
What an amazing interview. I have been a free subscriber for quite a while. Immediately after reading this interview, I became a paid subscriber. Thank you for interviewing Samuel Bagg. You are both members of my "trusted sources".
David, I loved your comment/question about what we are trying to advocate for. You mentioned the glaring difference between trying to convince someone of a static truth, vs a truth that is always revising itself as in science. it is questions/comments like this, the ones that zero in on the essence of the idea among other things that keep me coming back to the podcast.
This is an essential discussion for effective climate action. Too bad the right is so darn good at creating that perfect smoothie blend of racism, misogyny, trans phobia, and....fossil fuels? People gotta learn the hard way: An interesting identity shift we actually have seen in real time is the flip in sentiment about Israel, and all it took was a genocide.
Hmmm. Yes for sure there is a lot of identity-based politics going on. And most of right populism seems to have thrown in with the idea that either global warming isn't real, or serious, or the "establishment" solutions are too expensive. There is also some "horseshoe" agreement between left and right populists against batteries filled w/toxics, ready to burst into flames, made via extraction far worse than FFs, and against wind/solar destroying views, ag land, and wildlife, filled w/toxic lead, etc., spreading EMFs, and made using with imported components using slave labor, and installed by non-union labor for giant foreign profiteering corporations. And of course, it's raising your rates, cost-of-living, etc.
I like the framing of an "American" identity that doesn't seem to leave out white hetero men unless they flagellate themselves incessantly about their evil settler/colonialist ancestors.
I try to point out that wind farms and solar farms are farms, are "cool" in the harvesting of "natural" energy, are providing cheap electricity, are mostly installed by good ol' boys and gals, etc. And that above litany of harms is vastly exaggerated. But....
Anyway, you're right that part of getting "populist" support is to involve or at least show directly what can and is being done. And I think there is also a counter attack to right populism distrust of "elites" which is to show that their "leaders" are often from elites or espousing policies which benefit elites and maybe they can't be trusted. And, and, and. Many moving parts.
Sometimes I'm not sure if I'm making sense, but I'm kinda flipped out by the extent of negativity against wind and solar and electrification from those with "environmental" identity based on that list of exaggerated "harms." And by those with "progressive" identity, based on ideas of unaffordability. These are then picked up by media and become viral or memes or whatever. Oh yeah, also here in CO, the "union/blue collar" identity is now pretty much opposing expansion of the currently-functioning decarbonization strategies (wind, solar, heat pumps as of now) in favor of nuke and geo dreams.
But, IMHO, we are the sum of multiple identities and the decarbonization, or not, beliefs that are part of each identity have indeed been influenced by discourse through recent years, and it's not impossible to influence them in different ways.
David if you ever want to do 🍄 in the woods and talk about this stuff we live in the same city.
You haven't got the skils to figure this out.
Gotta follow the money.
Wall St runs our world, including the press, media, social media.
It's not psychology. It's profit incentives.
Now propaganda can be a revenue producer as long as it's "engaging".
The biggest industries and their captured regulators aka publicly financed trade associations, manufacture a narrative and suppress anything that hurts profits.
The Military Industrial Congressionals Complex supports it. Congress gets some stock tips and does very well.
Innovation is suprressed because the status quo industry wants an Innovation Free Zone where they can charge escalating prices and not have to update products and can prevent any competitors.
Just count up the ads on a TV program to see who their sponsors are. If it's nearly half Pharma, will M Snow ever say anything bad about Phama? Will they even carry water for them, pretending that cheap old safe drugs are worse than new expensive Blockbuster drugs? If they don't they go out of business....
We have a reality distortion field the size of Wall Street.
And some how you haven't noticed?
Nu? It's all civil society we're talking about? (There is a repeated invocation of "you" in this interview: who else could it be?) What is the role of the state in identity building? None? There goes public education, and maybe the state itself. (The Germans would so argue.) Strong? There goes the First Amendment, or at least many conceptions of it.
Otherwise, I agree. Left civil society is in positions of power, but weak among ordinary people. I suppose that's the logic of meritocracy.