As someone whose job includes tracking misleading content, rumors, and myths, people often ask me "what do you recommend to deal with dis/misinformation?"
It's not an easy question, but I always start with this:
Most Americans, regardless of our ideology or political belief, are feeling the daily impacts of psychological warfare.
Russ Vought, who is a lead figure in the Trump regime, author of the extreme Project 2025 agenda, and a self-described Christian nationalist, defines it like this:
We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.
We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can't do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. We want to put them in trauma.
But Trump's lead people – the richest White House cabinet ever with 8 billionaires and 12+ millionaires – aren't reserving that trauma just for the EPA, over the last several weeks Trump/Musk & Co. have fired, threatened, and de-funded:
- Employees running the VA Crisis Hotline, a key lifeline for former service members struggling with PTSD, many who are veterans themselves
- Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) staff responsible for monitoring airplane safety and planning/mapping routes
- Immigration legal services for kids as young as 5 who are now facing judges alone in court, some of them victims of sexual abuse and trafficking
- Weather forecasting and monitoring staff at NOAA, who help firefighters, law enforcement, and local governments prepare for extreme weather events like wildfires and floods that are rapidly increasing due to climate change
- Key guardrails at the National Security Agency, U.S. Cyber Command as well as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, making it easier for bad actors like Russia to spread false information and hack into electricity, water, and communications systems
Combined with unstable, chaotic tariffs already acting as a "national sales tax," detaining/deporting college students simply for exercising free speech, personal attacks on law firms and news organizations, and now going after universities, the "put them in trauma" playbook is in full swing.
So, how do I/we respond to psychological warfare?
It depends a lot on your world – family, work, hobbies, community, etc. – but here are three core steps to take:
1) Practice separating thinking about what's happening vs. how it feels vs. what action(s) to take. Putting people in trauma relies on mixing us up, making us feel helpless, angry, and unsure all at once.
It's normal to tune out when faced with this, but our friends, families, and neighbors need us to tune in, with a purpose. We all owe that to each other.
2) Don't do it alone. The prerequisite for dis/misinformation and psychological warfare to work is isolation, disconnection, and confusion.
You need community, and some of it needs to be in small groups and/or in-person. Even a small group working together is powerful as an antidote to the fear & stress of psychological warfare.
Also, none of us have the answers individually, despite what the Big Tech press releases about AI suggest, innovation and creativity are a collaborative exercise with a lot of different answers, not some sort of magic behind the curtain that only the already powerful and well resourced can leverage.
3) Take small actions that reinforce and build on each other. The reality of what we’re facing is overwhelming, but authoritarian governments aren’t all knowing, they’re led by people whose personal greed, insecurity, and weak minds often overshadow basic common sense.
Keep trying new things, whether that’s putting up signs in your neighborhood, organizing a protest or boycott, or finding a way to block attacks on students, local news, nonprofits, and the rule of law/due process, all key elements that we’ve seen face down autocratic governments around the world in places like Poland, Brazil, and the Phillipines.
Also, keep asking “how can this thing I/we are doing reinforce other things.” As Brazil’s work to defeat Bolsonaro illustrates, figuring out and working with 3 levels of influence makes a huge difference.
Last but not least, all of the above is also a reminder to take breaks and rest…
There are many dimensions to what we’re facing (and I’m sure anyone reading this will have additional suggestions/ideas), but we know from experience around the world that imagination, rest, and hard work all go together.