George W. Bush: “Catapult the Propaganda”


As this video shows, former President George W. Bush, talking about privatizing Social Security in one of his phony Republican-stocked “town hall” events in May 2005, said:

in my line of work you gotta keep repeating things over and over and over again, for the truth to sink in. You gotta catapult the propaganda.

What Bush probably meant by “catapult” was to vault over what he called “propaganda”, i.e., reporting and political advocacy that disagreed with him, indicating that privatizing Social Security and leaving seniors’ finances to the forces of the stock market would be extremely risky, and, during the Bush years, when the stock market tanked, would have driven millions of seniors into poverty. But Bush was really following Messaging Maxim #2: Rinse and Repeat. Bush’s repetition of his message was the propaganda itself, and thus “catapult the propaganda” for Bush really meant to propel his own propaganda through repetition.  In the case of privatizing social security, it didn’t work.

One Response to George W. Bush: “Catapult the Propaganda”
  1. […] Läs mer: Dan Froomking, The Washington Post, förklarar bakgrunden till presidentens budskap om Social Security. Med utgångspunkt från politisk kommunikation resonerar Messaging Matters kring citatet på ”George W. Bush: ‘Catapult the Propaganda’” […]