How Propaganda Works

Jason Stanley is the American philosopher, previously a tenured professor at Yale, who is now the Bassel Head Chair in American Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.

He is also the author of seven books, including How Fascism Works, Erasing History, How Propaganda Works, and The Politics of Language.

Jason left the country with other Yale academics, including Timothy Snyder and Marci Shore, for the University of Toronto in April of 2025.

At the time, Jason said he was leaving America as a direct response to the political climate under the Trump administration, government pressure on higher education, and America's descent into authoritarianism.

Well, I think I would say that the inequality in the United States should have led us to expect this.

And my 2015 book, How Propaganda Works, is all about this.

My 2015 book, How Propaganda Works, argues that the central problem for democratic political philosophy should be the problem that Plato identified.

Democracy allows anyone to run and democracy allows freedom of speech so people can lie when they run for office.

This gets back to the earlier question about whether you can legislate against lying.

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[upbeat music] In how propaganda works, you argued that propaganda has pernicious effects beyond merely communicating false information.

So for instance, I mean, it can undermine democracy, it can reinforce destructive ideologies.

But looking at American politics in 2026 and the upcoming elections in particular, in- where do you see this most clearly and problematically?

Well, the propaganda environment has shifted.

[clears throat] My book, How Propaganda Works, was published in 2015.

At the time when I was working on it in 2012, 2013, 2014, it- propaganda was not a topic in political philosophy or in public life.

Uh, people kind of mocked me for, for working on it.