Political Forgery Overview

Many say that the game of politics is based on the stretching of the truth for the public's approval. Essentially, many political campaigns are based on political propaganda tactics that purport that their perspective on the truth is superior to that of their opponents. There are very few laws that cover the content political speech.

Political speech is among the most heavily protected rights as far as the First Amendment goes. Political propaganda that is not true is considered political forgery because the information their advertisements claim are unfairly damaging to the opponent's chances of winning a political contest.

The legality of untrue political propaganda usually goes unchallenged. It is up to the public to punish a candidate for their unethical behavior. This is essentially why American political campaigns are notorious for their mudslinging propaganda tactics.

Distortion of the truth is perfectly legal yet its efficacy depends on the threshold at which the public catches on to the true nature of the distorted claim. Persons who are running for public office do not have the same protections against slander and libel that regular citizens do. This is because the American Government holds solemn a person's right to free political speech.

It is the duty of the media to inform the public as to the truth of the claims politicians make about themselves and of their opponents. The media is the only industry whose mere existence is Constitutionally protected under the First Amendment. The media must be free and independent of the Government to ensure its validity.

Nevertheless, politicians are shrewd enough to understand that the media is, after all, a business interested in generating revenue from the selling of advertisements. Politicians spend millions of dollars from corporate and individual donors on political propaganda ads to glorify or defend their own reputations.

There are campaign finance regulations that prevent conflict of interest but there are almost no laws that regulate the content of a politician’s advertisements.

However, not all forms of political propaganda take shots at political opponents. Some pieces of political propaganda glorify the candidate in an untruthful manner. A politician may create an association between a popular politician or public figure and their name to express that a candidate has similar beliefs and values with the politician.

This is technically political forgery but it is a viable political propaganda tactic as long as the public figure does not speak out against the fake endorsement.

Famously, Ronald Reagan briefly used the Bruce Springsteen song "Born in the USA" as the official song of his 1984 re-election campaign, but Springsteen denied Reagan the use of the song. Springsteen believed that Reagan's use of the song would misrepresent the meaning of his song.

Reagan thought the song was a song that glorified the traditional virtues of the American heartland. Springsteen wrote the song for homeless Vietnam War veterans who were forgotten by the Government upon repatriation. Subsequently, Reagan chose another song, Walter Mondale's "Gonna Fly Now." The song was less popular than Springsteen's but it was more characteristic of Ronald Reagan.

The Cold War is well-known for its Black Propaganda campaigns. Black Propaganda is a very deceptive propaganda tactic because it is almost always contains false information. It leaves the audience with the impression that it came from one side of the political faction when, in fact, it came from the opposing side.

It is a clandestine form of propaganda, known as a psychological operation, or psy-op. It is extremely clever and sophisticated. Famously, the KGB used covert media placements in American media to downplay the atrocities of Soviet Rule like the 1932 Ukrainian famine that could have been prevented had Stalin sent food to the Soviet Republic.

Black Propaganda is not limited to posters and media outlets. Black Propaganda-based psychological operations also come in the physical form. These are known as false-flag attacks. False-flag attacks are a very sophisticated form of Black Propaganda in which the political reasons for going to war with a nation are legitimized by a real state terrorist attack is initiated against a country's own people to make it look like a political opponent did it.

The most famous example of a false-flag attack is the 1933 Reichstag fire in Germany. The ambitious National Socialist (Nazi) party wished to come to power but they knew that their beliefs were too radical for a Germany without an enemy that posed a threat to national security.

The diametric political opponents of the Nazis were the Communists. The National Socialist Party covertly set fire to the German Parliament building and blamed it on the Communists. This piece of Black Propaganda was instrumental to the establishment of Nazi Germany and the invasion of Poland six years later to destroy the threat of Communism. False-flag attacks are the most evil form of political forgery because it deliberately kills innocent people for the public's support of a party's political agenda.