

Naval officer turned Goldman Sachs banker turned right-wing media executive, Trump advisor and Cambridge Analytica board member.Īs part of what he calls “The Movement,” Bannon’s influence is evident in populist parties across Europe, South America and Asia. One common thread in the global implementation of The Playbook? Steve Bannon, a U.S. Conflate national identity with religious identity.ĭivide and Conquer - Use hate speech and encourage violent actors to widen social rifts and use manufactured crises to seize more power.Įrode Truth - Attack the press as an “enemy of the people” dismiss negative reports as “fake news,” counter legitimate information with disinformation, or “alternative facts.” Blast the media landscape with endless scandal and contradiction to overwhelm the traditional fail-safes. Rewrite History - Exert control over schools and the media to indoctrinate the public with beliefs that reinforce autocratic power.Įxploit Religion - Appeal to the religious majority while targeting minorities.
THE PHOTOGRAPHERS PLAYBOOK PDF FOR FREE
Undermine Institutions - Take over the courts, eliminate checks and balances, undo established treaties and legislation that limits executive power, weaken protections for free and fair elections. Blame domestic problems including economic woes on these scapegoats, and depict political opponents as sympathetic to these imagined enemies. Target Outsiders - Stoke the fires of xenophobia by demonizing immigrants and foreigners. Give critics reason to believe they’ll be harmed if they oppose. Weaponize Fear – Embrace a language of violence, promote a more punitive culture, leverage military might at home. Scholars on democracy say they seem eager to join China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and other leading authoritarian states in stamping out democratic protections and reshaping the global order. The reporting is not intended to suggest that each of these countries is now under an authoritarian regime, but that their leaders are showing instincts and inclinations that lead to a brand of populist nationalism that, if history is a guide, can lead to authoritarian government. It is a playbook that our reporting team has pieced together from the speeches and techniques in use by an interconnected web of populist leaders and their strategists as a way to gain power, impose their values and implement their agenda. In this project, Democracy Undone: The Authoritarian’s Playbook, GroundTruth reporting fellows in India, Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Poland, Italy and the United States chronicled how seven nationalist leaders in each of these countries seem to be working from the same playbook. In these, and many other countries, elected leaders are flirting with aspects of authoritarianism in an extreme era of digital disruption, mass migration and the mounting effects of climate change. Octo – The hallmarks of populist nationalism are gaining ground in many of the world’s largest democracies from Modi’s India to Bolsonaro’s Brazil and Trump’s America.
