Digital Civil War: Confronting the Far-Right Menace

by Peter Daou

Overview

A deep look into the raging social media battles between red and blue Americans and the growing threat to US democracy from right-wing extremism.

The Far Right’s rise to power has ignited a digital civil war that rages across multiple fronts and multiple platforms. It is waged with words and images that are designed to inflict psychological harm, to injure through verbal violence, to intimidate and incite, to wreak havoc with rhetoric. The combatants are citizens, activists, politicians, pundits, coders, conspiracists, trolls, agitators, hackers, and journalists. At stake are the nation’s bedrock principles: equal rights, fair elections, freedom of speech, racial justice, and the rule of law.

In Digital Civil War: Confronting the Far-Right Menace, Peter Daou, a veteran digital media adviser to major political figures, provides a firsthand account from the war’s front lines. He explains that the unceasing toxicity of social media—often treated as an aberration—is a feature, not a bug, of digital warfare.

A better understanding of how the underlying value systems and moral arguments of the warring parties play out online, Daou argues, aids us in confronting the Far Right’s takeover of the Republican Party and the consequent assault on truth, facts, and the foundations of our democracy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781612197883
Publisher:	Melville House Publishing
Publication date:	04/30/2019
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Peter Daou is an American raised in Beirut, where he survived the Lebanese Civil War to rise to the top of US politics, serving as a digital media strategist in two presidential campaign war rooms. He has advised major political figures, including Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, as well as leading organizations such as the United Nations Foundation, the Clinton Global Initiative, and Action Against Hunger. He has appeared regularly on CNN and MSNBC. He lives and works in New York.

Read an Excerpt

Digital Civil War: Confronting the Far-Right Menace
PROLOGUE FROM BEIRUT TO THE BELTWAY

 

War begins where reason ends.

—Frederick Douglass

On January 21, 2017, the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration, women across America led the biggest single-day protest in U.S. history, marking the beginning of a movement that twenty-two months later swept Republicans out of their majority in the House of Representatives. The blue wave of 2018 put a dent in the GOP’s political dominance and gave hope to millions of Americans that democracy was not lost. But in the early days of 2017, hope was in short supply for Democrats. A shell-shocked majority grappled with Hillary Clinton’s electoral college defeat and with the looming prospect of minority white-nationalist rule. In that atmosphere of dread and despair, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson took to his company’s website to share photos of a smiling Barack Obama kitesurfing at Branson’s private Caribbean island. The pictures sparked a social media firestorm.

“What THE HELL #obama ! #kitesurf !!! Did you notice that the cheeto in chief #TRUMP is ruining my #America? GET BACK TO WORK MAN!!!” yelled Twitter user “Jon Snow.” “Da Trumpstah,” a commenter on the right-wing Breitbart News, sneered, “That smile says it all. i f’d over millions of Americans and they still love me.” On Facebook, Nicholas McKenzie posted, “Fun day of kite surfing after 8 years of murdering civilians in the middle east…enjoy life.” New York Times columnist Frank Bruni later wrote about “the robustness of Barack Obama’s appetite for celebrity and luxury,” arguing that Obama “gave unfettered vent to that once he left the White House and, in the months immediately thereafter, went yachting with Tom Hanks and Bruce Springsteen in Tahiti, kite surfing with Richard Branson in the Virgin Islands, rafting in Indonesia, golfing on the Scottish coast and biking under the Tuscan sun.”1

Supporters quickly stepped up to defend the former president. “Barack Obama has GIVEN ENOUGH. He doesn’t owe us a goddamn thing and it’s not up to him to clean up this horrific mess. Let the man live. Let him kitesurf with moguls/make movies with Netflix/enjoy his life,” tweeted writer Jennifer Boeder. “Love to see the smile on his face…the weight of the world has been lifted off his shoulders…Enjoying life as you should!! #ForeverMyPresident,” Obama supporter Vicki Charlot wrote on Facebook. Journalist Brandon Gates tweeted, “Whether you disagree with his politics, or not, everyone should enjoy a vacation. Geez.” On Reddit, “DarthRusty” wrote that if he were in Obama’s position, “every picture taken of me by some paparazzi would have my middle finger fully extended.” YouTube commenter “Julius Caesar” taunted Obama’s detractors: “Just here to read all the comments from the butt hurt redneck Obama haters.”

For online activists accustomed to a steady stream of vitriol, it was a typical day on the digital battlefield. But the Washington establishment was slow to grasp the breach in the body politic fueling these ferocious social media clashes. By 2018, however, mainstream pundits had begun to acknowledge what the online community had known for years—that traditional media narratives were no longer adequate to describe the severity of the red-blue split. Appearing on CNN, Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein declared that America was in a “cold civil war” and that Trump’s bellicose rhetoric had brought it “to the point of ignition.”2 Bernstein’s bleak assessment was echoed by NBC’s Chuck Todd, who tweeted, “Let’s be blunt, our political parties are waging a ‘cold’ civil war.” New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman fretted, “I began my journalism career covering a civil war in Lebanon. I never thought I’d end my career covering a civil war in America.”3

Table of Contents

Prologue: From Beirut to the Beltway 3

1 Battle for Identity: The Real American 21

2 Battle for Truth: Enemies of the People 47

3 Battle for Trust: Democracy and Hypocrisy 69

4 Battle for Justice: The New Patriot 89

5 Battle for Faith: Un-Christian Values 109

6 Battle for Freedom: A Woman's Choice 131

7 Battle for Life: Blood in the Streets 153

8 Battle for Power: Obscene Money 169

9 Battle for Tomorrow: The Climate Warriors 187

Conclusion: Finding Our Moral Compass 203

Notes 215

Acknowledgments 265

Index 267

Editorial Reviews

If you want to understand how the Far Right is using social media to divide our country, deny science, disseminate hate, and destroy civil liberties, Peter Daou’s book is a must-read. No one will agree with everything in it, or all of his conclusions – but the power of the evidence he musters and the direct, straightforward way he makes his cases are effective and intriguing. Whether you are an ‘innocent bystander’ or ‘in the trenches’ of today’s Digital Civil War, you will learn something new and something interesting by reading this book.” —Ron Klain, former chief of staff under vice presidents Joe Biden and Al Gore

“Beautifully written and absolutely frightening. Peter Daou masterfully explores how the no-holds-barred battles on social media, which have framed the reality for millions of people, will be crucial in determining if American democracy has the strength to pull itself up from the precipice or plunge into a right-wing abyss.”—Carol Anderson, author of White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of our Racial Divide  

“Chilling. Having experienced many years in different combat zones and having seen physical destruction, I can say that the intellectual, emotional, and psychological devastation occurring in this digital civil war poses an exponentially greater threat to our existence. Peter Daou shows how values like compassion, equality, and belief in the ideas found in our Constitution are now somehow being thwarted by pretenders who call themselves ‘real Americans.’ An important book.”—Mark Hertling, former Commanding General of U.S. Army Europe

From the Publisher