Extremist Describes Water as Wet

Labeling instead of describing; a narrative frame instead of factual discussion. Be grateful for Taylor Lorenz, because her cartoon journalism makes the game so gloriously obvious.

Cartoon Lady sort of “reports,” this morning, on the apparent demise of another cultural cartoon: Nina Jankowicz is on her way out at DHS, which is probably disbanding the Disinformation Governance Board. Here, via Revolver, is a non-paywalled copy of the story:

The story is an assemblage of right-out-of-the-gate assumptions, all relentlessly untested. Jankowicz is a “victim,” all disagreement with the decision to start the Disinformation Governance Board was part of a campaign of “coordinated online attacks,” the work of the board was good, disagreement with its creation was bad. None of that is established or explained — it merely is. Here’s the Big Frame, the here’s-what-it-all-means:

Jankowicz’s experience is a prime example of how the right-wing Internet apparatus operates, where far-right influencers attempt to identify a target, present a narrative and then repeat mischaracterizations across social media and websites with the aim of discrediting and attacking anyone who seeks to challenge them. It also shows what happens when institutions, when confronted with these attacks, don’t respond effectively.

The federal government created a new organization, and people discussed its existence. Criticism and questions necessarily centered on, wait for it, the person identified as the executive director of the new board, the only person publicly identified as a staff member at the organization. The far-right monsters used the tactic of attempting to “identify a target” by….talking about the person chosen, and publicly identified by government, as the leader and public face of a government operation. See how cleverly the extremists choose their targets!?!?!? I mean, who else would you talk about if you wanted to discuss the Disinformation Governance Board? She ran it.

Then, known demon Jack Posobiec tweeted stuff, the monster, and his “early tweets shaped the narrative and Jankowicz was positioned as the primary target.” Again, the person positioned as the primary target of criticism of a government board was the director of the board — after the building burned down, cruel extremists maliciously singled out the fire chief as their target — but Cartoon Lady presents it as a dark and ominous maneuver:

Just hours after Jankowicz tweeted about her new job, far-right influencer Jack Posobiec posted a tweets accusing the Biden administration of creating a “Ministry of Truth.” Posobiec’s 1.7 million followers quickly sprung into action. By the end of the day, there were at least 53,235 posts on Twitter mentioning “Disinformation Governance Board,” many referencing Jankowicz by name, according to a report by Advance Democracy, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that conducts public-interest research. In the days following, that number skyrocketed.

My goodness, people referenced her by name! They referenced the executive director of the board while discussing the creation of the board! nOw dO YoU SeE HOw thE DaRK ArTs oF thE NaZI tRolLs WoRk!?!?!?

Cartoon Lady has the most extraordinary gift for this — for typing sentences that ascribe dark motivation to ordinary action: “Dozens of websites including Breitbart, the Post Millennial, the Daily Caller and the New York Post began mining Jankowicz’s past social media posts and publishing articles to generate controversy.”

If you describe the background of a newly hired government official, using her available public statements, you’re not trying to describe or explain; your only intent is to “generate controversy,” to troll and smear. By this standard, no government official may ever be described. You’re just trying to generate controversy, Nazi!

Read the whole thing. Look for the part where Cartoon Lady tries to seriously consider the views of people who viewed the Disinformation Governance Board with any degree of skepticism, because I sure don’t see it. There is a new government agency; the director of the agency may not be criticized, because that’s hateful and an attack; the agency is good, and cannot be questioned. That’s it. That’s what Taylor Lorenz does for a living.

Democracy dies in darkness, and her job is to turn off the lights.