How propaganda works Our democracy today is fraught with political campaigns lobbyists liberal media and Fox News commentators all using language to influence the way we think and reason about public issues. Even so many of us believe that propaganda and manipulation arent problems for us not in the way they were for the totalitarian societies of the mid twentieth century. In How Propaganda Works Jason Stanley demonstrates that more attention needs to be paid. He examines how propaganda operates subtly how it undermines democracy particularly the ideals of democratic deliberation and equality and how it has damaged democracies of the past