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The Anatomy of Ideological Capture: How Wikipedia Whitewashes Mao Recently, I posted a passing aside making fun of how Wikipedia frames Mao's legacy, assuming that what I saw was self-evident. I got predictable pushback from Maoists and tankies, which didn't surprise me. What surprised me was the number of generally good-faith left-leaning people in my circles who treated my assertion as absurd, asserted that the article was fine and balanced, and accused me of just wanting propaganda for my side. Now, I should be clear—brace yourself for controversy—I am no fan of Mao. I toss him in a bin alongside Hitler and Stalin as one of the three most catastrophic leaders of the twentieth century, one who had such an extraordinary combination of malice and will to power that he killed more people than perhaps any other one individual in history. As far as I'm concerned, his name is mud, and the good that has come to China should be recognized as a result of Deng Xiaoping, a man he purged twice, doing everything possible to reverse his policy short of undermining his own claim to rule. But I digress. That's not what I'm objecting to. I'm not asking Wikipedia to make a prosecutor's case against the man; I can do that myself. I'm upset because the section looks precisely how I would approach a statement were I Mao Zedong's defense attorney. First: start with glowing praise, every word technically defensible. Lead with all your good facts, looking for every convenient data point or stock line. Phrase them in ways that most everyone reading will instinctively parse as good. He's important, influential. He's a political intellect, a theorist, a military strategist, a poet, a visionary. He drove imperialism out of China, he unified China, he ended civil war (don't press too hard on the details of that war!). Find reforms you can claim for him, find a sympathetic survey or two, note that he reduced poverty. Spend a whole paragraph laying out nothing but praise for him. But people know he killed people! What do you do with that? Well, any lawyer whose client has some bad facts will tell you precisely what you do with it. You don't hide it—that just lets the other side bring it up. Makes you look dishonest. Be upfront about it, but massage it a bit. Tell the story from your protagonist's view. Make it land smoothly. You start by sandwiching it between good facts, naturally. Everyone's just had a paragraph about how great this guy is. Now you're ready to slide in that tens of millions of people died. But wait! Mostly, you can add, it was starvation (probably unintentional!), but also mumble mumble mumble executions etc. But he didn't usually give direct orders to kill! And according to one sympathetic writer, most deaths were unintentional, and the rest were "necessary victims in the struggle to transform China." Use his voice! Then, yes, yes, it's been described as autocratic and totalitarian, and people called him a tyrant. Yada yada yada, we know this. Anyway, he was compared to the first emperor of a unified China. Isn't that neat? Finally, tie it off with a neat bow: Forget about the deaths, the population grew! His strategies continue to be used; his ideology is popular and influential today! It's a picture-perfect defense. Would it be made stronger by omitting the killings? No! You've given people just enough to say that you're being honest, presenting a nuanced, thorough picture of a complicated man. Enough about Mao. People objected to my Hitler comparison because we're supposed to treat mass murderers who win and whose ideas remain popular as fundamentally different to mass murderers who lose. Very well. Commenters proposed Franco. Let's see what happens when you have a mix of defense and prosecution on a case, with the prosecution winning out. How do you start out this time? He's controversial. He ruled for a long time, he suppressed opposition, he ran propaganda campaigns. Hard to evaluate in a detached way—and look, his citizens were subjected to constant messages that he was good. You can't trust their objectivity! When you praise him, note that he's "significant"—who can deny that! but it's not Good, per se—and a successful counter-revolutionary—good if you hate revolution! None of the glowing praise to start things off. None of the fawning. Mao ran propaganda campaigns as well, Mao suppressed opposition as well—but it only merits mention with Franco. Onward! Note again that he's controversial and divisive. Present the supporter's case, making sure to frame it in ideological terms rather than the absolute-good terms used for Mao's positives. Good if you like anti-communism and nationalism, good if you hate socialism. And supporters credit those ideological stances for Spain's economic success! Add a bit about who praises and supports him and who opposes him. Next, find someone readers will have particularly divided opinions about, and be sure to contextualize him. While Philip Short is just Philip Short, William F. Buckley, Jr. is an American Conservative Commentator. Be sure to note that he praised Franco in explicitly divisive ideological terms, and recontextualize his statement: Franco wrested government "from the democratically elected government of the country." Then present the critics' case unsparingly and directly, using examples everyone will agree are bad things: thousands of deaths,political repression, complicity in Axis crimes. (The legacy section continues for many more paragraphs of minutia, most of it negative.) --- Do you see the difference? Do you see the shape of each? Franco is presented unsparingly, his crimes understood, with most praise presented in divisive ideological terms and criticism presented in universal terms. Mao's entry is practically a coronation speech for a paragraph, followed by carefully mitigated bad facts before ending strong. Maybe it's obsessive or neurotic or what-have-you to write all of this, but—to use the internet's erstwhile favorite term of abuse—I genuinely feel gaslit. You guys are reading the same article as I am, aren't you? You're seeing the same paragraphs I am. It's propaganda! It's clearly propaganda! You're not reading a thoughtful, nuanced, balanced take on a complex individual, you're reading propaganda for a mass murderer and then telling me I'm being silly and ideologically captured when I point out it's a bit weird. Propaganda does not stop being propaganda because it acknowledges bad facts. A defense attorney does not stop being a defense attorney when they let some criticism slip in. Glowing praise followed by a concession to reality does not a balanced portrait of a mass murderer make.

Unironically, Senators should be paid $500k - $1m/ year, but the exchange is that you are unequivocally banned from lobbying/consulting and stock trading for 15+ years

she wickard on my filburn til i interstate my commerce

you could probably both increasing liberty and destroy the gambling companies by passing pro bettor reforms like prohibiting them from banning successful gamblers from their apps

Trump: I'm going to be going to China in April. I said, but we have to put on the biggest display you've ever had in the history of China. Last time I went to China, president XI treated me so well, a display, never saw so many soldiers the same height within a quarter of an inch. You can do that when you have 1.4 billion people. If they put their helmets down you could have played pool on top of their heads.