A Firehose of Falsehood: The Story of Disinformation

Attorney Kanefield (Free to Be Ruth Bader Ginsberg) and cartoonist Dorian (Lon Chaney Speaks) join forces for a stylish if somewhat scattershot graphic primer on how the “concealed warfare” of disinformation has been deployed by unscrupulous politicians throughout history to smear opponents and deceive a credulous public. Kanefield reaches as far back as antiquity for examples of these political maneuvers by leaders such as India’s Chandragupta Maurya (350–295 BCE), who deployed undercover gossips to sow discord amongst the military leadership of his rivals, and traces the influence of these early exemplars to modern propaganda efforts by 20th-century bogeymen including Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini (who coined the future Trump campaign slogan “drain the swamp”). Shifting focus to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Kanefield analyzes America’s descent into “fake news” and online factionalism, underscoring how the present historical moment is distinguished by the fundamental lack of a shared, fact-based reality, leaving citizens as little more than “victims primed to believe entirely fabricated headlines.” The ambitious scope occasionally results in rushed or reductive arguments, as when examples of race-baiting social media hoaxes perpetrated by Russian operatives posing as Black or Muslim activists are accompanied by iconography from legitimate movements like Black Lives Matter. Nonetheless, Dorian’s dynamic page layouts and retro-art style, with a flair for caricature, keep the proceedings brisk and cogent. Despite a few rough edges, this manages to condense a thorny topic into an accessible guide. (Feb.)