WAS THIS SHITSTORM NECESSARY?

If you're wondering what your right-wing uncle thinks is the most important news story in America right now, a quick look at the Fox News front page provides the answer:

Or you could look at Breitbart's front page:

What's all this about? Here's the story:

The Department of Homeland Security is stepping up an effort to counter disinformation coming from Russia as well as misleading information that human smugglers circulate to target migrants hoping to travel to the U.S.-Mexico border.

“The spread of disinformation can affect border security, Americans’ safety during disasters, and public trust in our democratic institutions,” the department said in a statement Wednesday....

A newly formed Disinformation Governance Board [was] announced Wednesday....

More, from The Washington Post's Aaron Blake:

The Department of Homeland Security’s creation of a Disinformation Governance Board has set off a backlash on the right — even as it’s not entirely clear what the perhaps unfortunately named board will do.

Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas mentioned the creation of the board in multiple congressional hearings this week. In one, he linked it to efforts to combat misinformation from human smugglers. In another, he said it would be used to counter Russian cyber and election misinformation....

Amid growing anti-censorship fervor on the right, a bevy of Republicans have suggested that the initiative amounts to policing speech. Elon Musk declared it “messed up.” Many on the right likened it to the Ministry of Truth from George Orwell’s book “1984.”

Combatting misinformation on immigration is something you'd think Republicans would like, and, in fact, National Review's Jim Geraghty approves of the idea in theory.

... since at least 2014, the U.S. has been bedeviled by the perception in some Central American countries that the United States is offering “permisos” for children who cross the border illegally — a rumor that picked up steam after President Obama announced he would not deport children who had come into the country illegally with their parents. If this new DHS group spends its time publicly declaring that there are no special, secret, or little-known loopholes for migrants who wish to enter the U.S., it will do some good.

Everyone should also want the United States to counter Russian disinformation, though I realize this is controversial in the GOP.

Unfortunately, as Blake notes, it's just too easy for Republicans to mischaracterize this effort as Orwellian and aimed at American citizens. Republicans are the problem because they lie about everything, and lie in lockstep because they know that's how lies spread most effectively -- but couldn't the Biden administration have anticipated the backlash and been ready to counter it?

I'm not saying that Democrats should always be in a defensive crouch. I'm saying that you should be able to predict what's coming from Republicans and have a plan to neutralize it, for the same reason you make a presidential limousine bulletproof: You know there's a high risk of an attack, so you do something in advance to render any attack harmless.

Let's start with the name. Why the creepy "Disinformation Governance Board"? Blake tells us:

... the Trump administration’s DHS undertook similar efforts; in 2018 it created the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which dealt extensively with the spread of misinformation online — including both foreign interference in elections and the domestic spread of coronavirus misinformation. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the new board would be “a continuation of the work of the former president” when asked about it Friday.

So if you're continuing the old agency's work, why not just retain the name "Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency" and quietly adjust its focus? Why make trouble for yourself with this new name?

Some of the attacks are absurd. Republicans -- who love Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals -- are following Alinsky's twelfth rule ("Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it") by focusing on the woman chosen to head the board. Blake writes,

[Republicans have] also questioned the fitness of the board’s executive director, Nina Jankowicz, who has in the past supported Democrats, praised efforts to crack down on coronavirus misinformation on social media and expressed skepticism about the provenance of Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Jankowicz has a musical theater background, so the GOP is targeting her online vocal performances. This one, about her anti-disinformation work, got up Ted Cruz's nose:

This is who the government is trying to put in charge of regulating YOUR speech. https://t.co/DEUTJomYKm

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) April 29, 2022

This one gave Breitbart the vapors:

Before her new job at the Department of Homeland Security, President Joe Biden’s new disinformation chief Nina Jankowicz displayed her musical talent on YouTube.

In one video, Jankowicz sings a version of “My Simple Christmas Wish (Rich, Famous, and Powerful)” by David Friedman.

“I want to be rich famous and powerful! Step on all my enemies and never do a thing,” she sings as a piano plays in the background.

Jankowicz sang an edited version of the song to include “Who do I fuck” to be “famous and powerful,” instead of the original lyrics “who do I have to fake”

The video was first posted in 2015....

But they also don't like Jankowicz's criticism of the COVID lab leak theory, her opposition to gendered abuse online, and her factually accurate assertion that some people who give birth don't identify as female.

Maybe none of this matters and the board will establish itself as an effective force against truly dangerous disinformation. But it still annoys me that Democrats don't see these waves of outrage coming. They don't seem to know how to operate in the political environment of 2022. They need to do a better job of predicting and preparing for the bad-faith attacks of Republicans.