The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote

by Sharyl Attkisson

from Amazon

Ever wonder how politics turned into a take-no-prisoners blood sport? The New York Times bestselling author of Stonewalled pulls back the curtain on the shady world of opposition research and reveals the dirty tricks those in power use to influence your opinions
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This book was written by someone in the know, and it will be very illuminating for many Americans who haven't been exposed to how our media spins so called news stories and shapes the opinions of Americans (and beyond). However, at the end of the day, the mostly far left media, despite employing a wide span of dirty tricks, failed to stop the successful Presidential bid of Donald Trump. Thankfully many Americans saw past the spin.

While she provides a lot of insight into the dirty tricks the Clintons (both Hillary and Bill) employed over the years, Republicans and others are also exposed.

My interpretation of the book, is Sharyl describes how politics evolved from mostly issues based competition to mostly personal attacks, and issues have taken a back seat. She exposes the millions of dollars spent on opposition party research, and then the elaborate campaigns to ruin the reputation of the candidates running for office. She points out that smear campaigns are driven by passion, money, and ideology. She adds a successful smear is interesting (sex, illegal activity), explainable in a sentence (crooked Hillary), and confirms what people want to believe.

Most importantly, unlike a democracy should work, agendas are set by those who can bring their persuasive arguments before a power broker, and money talks more than anything else in the cesspool of D.C.'s politics. She acknowledges smear campaigns in the U.S. go all way back to our founding fathers, but they have reached a new level. She argues the shift was made possible by 2010 Supreme Court decision in the "Citizens v. Federal Elections Commission. Until this decision, federal law imposed strict limits on how much a person could donate to a political campaign to limit the ability of the wealthy special interest groups to "buy" candidates. This decision eliminated those limits and even allows corporations and unions to give unlimited funds to non-profits to support a particular candidate. This resulted in the emergence of tax-exempt social welfare groups called superPACs.

In my view, this explains why our politicians can't sit down, roll up their sleeves, and negotiate compromised solutions across the aisle. They are bought and paid for, and therefore beholden to those who paid for them. Of course, this is why several individuals and corporations that donated millions of dollars to the Clinton campaign are so upset she lost.

Not only people are smeared, but so are the issues themselves. For example, fake science provides arguments on both sides of the global warming debate. A critical issue now masked in the fog (or smog) of fake science supported by moneyed interests instead of the interest of mankind.

There is some wisdom to the argument of kill all the lawyers, the vast majority of our political elite. Replace them with Engineers and doctors and others who make a living solving problems instead of creating them. I don't know if a deep state actually exists, but I'm convinced there is a deep meta-state consisting of the media and moneyed interest groups that seek to deceive the American people to protect their interests. No doubt a move is afoot to smear the author of this book, but if read it will expose how the system currently operates.