Republicans cosign Stalin’s disinformation strategies

One day last week, state Rep. John Kavanagh decided that while in service to the citizens of Arizona he would channel Russian communist dictator Joseph Stalin.

In the 1920s, Stalin, then editor of Pravda, the official newspaper of the Soviet Union’s communist party, embarked on a strategy of what he called “dezinformatsiya.”

Disinformation.

In simple terms, lies.

Stalin believed — correctly — that a dictator can tighten his grip on a country by spreading lies and punishing anyone who would dare try to refute them.

During last year’s election there was a lot of disinformation about Arizona’s voting system.

Secretary of State Katie Hobbs did what she could to combat the lies, a job made more difficult when Republicans in the Legislature refused to allow her to use state money to combat those lies. She found private funding.

When it was over, Gov. Doug Ducey posted a long, eloquent Twitter string defending Arizona’s election integrity.

He wrote in part, “In Arizona, we have some of the strongest election laws in the country, laws that prioritize accountability and clearly lay out procedures for conducting, canvassing, and even contesting the results of an election.”

But the disinformation persisted. And, uncontested, it could do irreparable damage in the future.

Which, apparently, is exactly what Arizona Republicans want to happen.

On a party-line vote the House Committee on Government and Elections last week they voted to move foreward a bill preventing the Secretary of State from trying to combat the spread of election disinformation.

House Bill 2569 would deny election officials from receiving either private or public funds to combat disinformation about elections.

During the discussion, Rep. Kavanagh, doing his best Uncle Joe Stalin imitation actually said, “One person’s

disinformation truth.”

No. Disinformation truth.

is

another

is

the

person’s

opposite

of

Supporting lies.

Worse than that, however, is a group of lawmakers not just supporting the spread of lies, but trying to protect those lies with a law.

It’s right out of the Communist Party playbook.

Social media has vastly advanced the ability to spread disinformation. We see

disinformation

is

supporting evidence of it everyday used against people of all political affiliations. Luckily, we have media entities who try to combat it.

Just this week fact checkers debunked a fake tweet attributed to Sen. Ted Cruz about climate change and Facebook posts saying President Joe Biden hadn’t responded to the crisis in Texas when he’d already approved an emergency declaration for the state and been in contact with the governor.

The government needs to pitch in as well, however, to get in on that fight.

Gov. Ducey did so after the last election.

He may need to do so again, with his veto pen.