How Vance Helped Me See The Propaganda Press For What It Is

The way Donald Trump and J.D. Vance talked to the media on the campaign trail was one of the reasons a lot of people eventually turned away from the Democrats and into the arms of MAGA. I am one of them. 

About 10 years ago, I started noticing the ever-expanding delta between what I saw with my own two eyes as reality and what the media presented. There is a 2016 standup bit by Dave Chappelle that captured this chasm beautifully. In it, Chappelle recalls the first presidential debate with Hillary Clinton in which Trump said, “The whole system is rigged!” and everybody on the stage who was a beneficiary of the system calmly responded, “No, it’s not,” yet Chappelle thought: “Now wait a minute, it’s what HE said!”

The cognitive dissonance we’ve lived through over the last several years cannot be overstated. When the regime keeps telling us we must acquiesce and join the chants that men can be women, that it’s a noble idea to defund and kneecap the very people who exist to protect us, or that we must put face masks on toddlers, the thought incongruence is harder and harder to reconcile. This must be the “lived experience” for many Democrats too, whether they admit it or not.

I am very familiar with such a duality. I grew up in Communist Czechoslovakia and was taught from the time I could remember that there were things we discussed at home that we absolutely could not share at school. From as young as kindergarten, I knew I couldn’t mention anything about my relatives who defected to the West. I knew I could not speak about the books my parents read or that I knew the word “samizdat.” I knew I could not reveal, not even to my friends, that my family would crouch around a small black transistor radio on the weekends at our cabin and listen to “Voice of America.” 

The totalitarian communist regime demonstrated very clearly to me that just because something is repeated often doesn’t mean it’s true (“The five-year plan is a great success again!”) and that just because the propaganda machine uses terms such as “democracy” and “free elections” to describe itself, that does not mean there is a democracy or free elections. 

The experience made me revere the United States and its foundational principles. Most Americans are lucky to be born and raised in the land of the free, and they grow up without the constant questioning of reality I internalized. As such, they are not inculcated in the importance of vigilance in comparing their experiences with what the media are presenting. They don’t automatically develop that sixth sense of, “Now wait a minute, it’s what HE said!” 

But even I was not expecting the level of gaslighting I was experiencing in my new country. It started simply enough, with my colleagues insisting on diversity yet watching me get in trouble for standing up for diversity of thought. Like millions of others, I was told over and over again that taking the Covid shot would make me immune — because “Science!” The kids around me lost almost two years of school because my state of Washington had the longest school closures in the nation.

I kept reading about the “mostly peaceful” Black Lives Matter protests when, as a Seattleite, I knew that a police precinct downtown was demolished and dozens of stores were vandalized by Antifa. I drove by the so-called “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” and saw the militia chanting “black lives matter,” even though a young black man was killed inside CHAZ and the murderer was apparently never found. I watched as the Democrat Party abandoned women and sided with men pretending to be women. I was being lectured about “hate speech” and told the state should be trusted to decide what that means. 

I am not proud to admit, but it still took me a minute to accept that the media and government were saying things that were polar opposites of my own experience. Even I, with my strong suspicions of any official dogma, could not believe this would happen in my beloved new home. How could this be America? 

Then about a year ago, during a conversation with my son about the multiple self-proclaimed “nonbinary” students and “furries” at his middle school, I caught myself saying: “Son, you know you can’t repeat any of this at school.” 

The flashback to my childhood and consequent whiplash was terrifying. I felt deep in my core that my new country was in big trouble. How was it even possible that I thought and experienced the very same thing in America in 2023 that I did back in Communist Czechoslovakia in the 1980s? 

When Vance spoke to ABC News’ Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz on the campaign trail last fall, she scolded him for exaggerating about the Venezuelan gangs taking over apartment blocks in Colorado. She cut him off, smugly, to proclaim that it’s only “a handful of apartment complexes,” to which Vance incredulously retorted: “Martha, do you hear yourself?” 

It’s hard to describe that moment and what I experienced as a viewer. It was like hearing an angel’s choir from above giving us permission to tell the truth. And it was a signal that what I know as reality and what is described to me by politicians can be aligned. 

No, my city is not safer than it used to be. Yes, the last president seemed sick and cognitively impaired, and we didn’t know who was running the country. A man dressed up as a woman is not a woman. And a governmental agency tasked with policing free speech is not, in fact, a safety measure that protects me or democracy. To call Vance’s appearances in the media “refreshing” would be a monumental understatement. His concise and direct words every time he speaks are proof we can call a spade a spade. 

Trump voters, especially those who voted for him back in 2016, knew all this already. But many of us had a hard time with him as a political figure. For years, I could not imagine voting for Trump. I found his love for gold interiors tacky, his career in television and rejection of self-described intellectuals suspicious, and, most importantly, I thought some of what I saw in the news was real. 

Even though I knew the corporate media leaned left and had an agenda, I simply could not fathom that they would straight-up lie and fabricate. The Russia-collusion hoax, the “fine people” farce, and the complete rewriting of the Biden years put a massive end to that belief. Yes, even in America, people experienced cognitive dissonance on an unprecedented scale. 

It was exhausting feeling like I was back to the sickening dual reality of growing up under a communist regime. Luckily, with the new administration, with people like J.D. Vance and Stephen Miller, the language of those representing us aligns with the language we use when speaking to each other. The reality they talk about is the one we know. 

J.D. Vance is a gift that keeps on giving. I hope to see more bangers such as, “I don’t really care, Margaret,” which has since been turned into a bunch of fun T-shirt designs. I like them, but I would pay serious money for some merch emblazoned with the one slogan that I will never stop repeating and that made me so happy to cast my vote last year: “Martha, do you hear yourself??”

Hana Kabele Gala has been teaching Hotel Business Management for over 15 years. She holds a Ph.D. from Charles University, Prague as well as several other degrees of questionable value. Hana also runs a thriving coaching practice in Seattle, Washington, where she uses neuroscience and hypnosis to help overthinkers live better. Follow Hana on X @HanaKabeleGala.