The Propaganda Machine Has Hijacked Our Brains

We are being played, and we are losing the game.

Jun 19, 2025

This is a real threat happening right now.

It started about 15 years ago with computer algorithms that decided what we see online. It started as a money making tool, but now it's been hijacked by some really bad actors.

It’s All Around Us

Propaganda is everywhere now. It's on TV and social media all day long. It's aggressive and constant.

The truly scary part is how well it's working. We've all become unpaid workers spreading it for them. Every time we share a post or forward a video, we're doing their job for free. Because we believe it, we parrot it in all our interactions. We’ve been turned into propaganda machines.

Why It Works

Our brains evolved for a world that no longer exists, leaving us vulnerable to manipulation in today’s fast-changing society.

We trust information from people we know, which was useful in small tribes and is now exploited by those spreading misinformation.
We build our beliefs on what we already know, making it hard to adapt when the world changes rapidly.
Repetition makes us more likely to believe something, even if it’s false.
We make quick, emotion-driven decisions. This was helpful for survival in the past. Now it makes us vulnerable to manipulation.
Stress reduces our ability to think critically, making us more reactive and less thoughtful.

These ancient instincts were vital for survival, and today they are used against us.

The Money Players

Some powerful actors are exploiting our psychological instincts to manipulate and divide Americans for their own gain.

Political operatives use coordinated propaganda to create a sense of constant danger and threat, amplifying rare events to stoke fear.
News and media industries highlight sensational stories, overshadowing everyday realities and fueling anxiety.
These tactics twist our perceptions, making us distrustful and reactive, which serves the interests of political machines and wealthy elites.

The result is a public that’s easier to control and less able to work together for the common good.

This manipulation benefits a select few, while damaging America and Americans. It’s undermining our democracy.

The middle class has been gutted.

Here’s what’s happened:

The rich bought the government, with the politicians’ full cooperation. The government helped them squeeze working families for more profit and power.

In 1980, CEOs made 42 times what workers did. Now it’s over 400 times.
Houses that cost $47,000 in 1980 now cost $400,000, but wages have barely changed.
Most people can’t handle a $400 emergency, let alone buy a home or raise a family.
$72,000,000,000,000 (that’s 72 TRILLION DOLLARS) have moved from the middle class to the top 1% since 1980. No wonder we can’t afford shoes for our kids.

This financial stress makes people desperate and angry. When you're working two jobs and still can't pay rent, when you can't afford to take your kid to the doctor, when you're one paycheck away from losing everything — you know there’s someone to blame. You're scared, you're exhausted, and you're vulnerable. This is exactly what the propaganda machine wants.

They feed you targets. They tell you it's the immigrants taking your jobs, or the other political party destroying America, or people who are different are getting special treatment. Instead of looking at the people who rigged the system against you, you end up hating your neighbors, fighting your family, and demonizing other working people who are just as screwed as you are. Meanwhile, the rich get richer and more powerful while we tear each other apart.

What it’s doing to us

This system has created serious problems:

Americans can't agree on basic facts anymore. We can't make decisions together as a country. When it's like this, we can't very well solve problems together or make reasonable decisions as a nation.
The government can't even function. Congress can't pass anything. People are trying to rig elections and grab more power. The whole system that's supposed to preserve our freedom is breaking down.
People don’t trust doctors, scientists, and others who have dedicated themselves to studying problems. Nobody trusts the government anymore. Most Americans think the people in charge don't give a damn about them.
Families are destroyed. People are afraid to talk politics with their own relatives. Parents and children, brothers and sisters have completely different views of what's happening in the country.

And here's the really scary part — a lot of Americans are starting to agree maybe we need a dictator to fix things. A few people have become violent because they believe the lies they’ve been fed. The propaganda machine is really working.

Democracy experts now rank America as a "flawed democracy", and warn it is deteriorating rapidly in 2025. But instead of fixing the real problems, we just keep fighting each other while the people who caused this mess get richer and more powerful.

What do we do?

Reconnect with Others

We need to start talking to people again and quit cutting them out of our lives because they were in a different pipeline. This is hard to do when everybody believes somebody else is their enemy, but we can do it locally. People can work together on local issues regardless of their political beliefs.

Protect Yourself

We can slow down when we find ourselves reacting — getting angry or scared about something coming from the media. Ask ourselves questions instead of just reacting. Who told me this? Who benefits from me believing this?

Check around. Don't let the algorithms control the information you get.
You can use tools like Ground News, AllSides, or NewsGuard to see what different sources are saying. You don’t have to change your mind so much as see the bigger picture.

Make sure your social media feeds include a mix of viewpoints so you aren’t trapped in one perspective.

Talk with other people about how this system works. The more we understand their system, the less power it has over us. There are already small victories: communities across the country are starting to bridge divides by focusing on local issues — like food banks, neighborhood safety, or school projects — where people with different political views are finding common ground and rebuilding trust. These stories remind us that change is possible, and that reconnection can start right where we live.

What’s at Stake

A handful of tech companies now control what billions of people think every day. The wealthy and powerful are using this system to keep us fighting each other while they rob us blind.

They’ve figured out how to turn our own brains against us. Every day you spend angry at your neighbors is another day you're not paying attention to who's really screwing you over. Every family fight about politics is a victory for the people who want us divided and powerless.

Americans have always valued independent thinking and freedom. But we can't be free if our thoughts aren't our own. We need to get our brains back.

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The Propaganda Machine Has Hijacked Our Brains

We are being played, and we are losing the game.

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