Here's the thing about that:

The propaganda machine is not dying at all!

It's running just fine, and will be well funded. You can count on that, even if the losses are sustained over a longer period of time.

And it's all about basic economic policy, and it's about the war machine. Ever increasing economic freedom using the miliary as a world police and defense system is very unpopular. People see it as unjust, unnecessary, and painfully expensive use of their hard work and tax dollars.

Back in the 70's as a grade school kid, we had a media week that I remember vividly. It was about bias in media and also understanding advertising as propaganda.

(I know, crazy to think about as a class room topic for young people today, right?)

We went through the various propaganda forms using ADS for context.

Plain Clothes

Bandwagon

Cherry picking

Etc...

We were required to find one AD for each form and explain how the propaganda is used to sell a product by advocating for it in what appears to be authoritative and favorable ways, but really is a lie, or at best, hiding of what would be obvious downsides.

In media, the idea of there always being bias was introduced, and I believe we had these weeks (and there were two, one for media, one for propaganda / ADS) in response to the controversial decision by President Reagan to repeal the fairness doctrine.

(That doctrine required equal time be given to opposing views and did not allow one point of view to dominate the broadcast and print media and this was seen as important to the concept of a public commons and a robust body politic.)

Yes, 8th grade discussions. Simplified from what I put here, but the core elements were definitely in the material. I was very interested and thought about this often as I grew up, but I digress.

The media part, this idea of their always being bias centered around the idea of objectivity and just how hard that is to actually do. It takes larger numbers of us, working together over a sustained time to be objective. A single person, or even small team however motivated and funded they may be will flat out have bias.

Secondly, that bias is?

OK!

Given how expensive and time consuming objective material is, the idea of us having to have it for the news and other public commons type discussions on policy, war, economics, and such does not make any sense.

So far so good, until some problems showed up, and those problems are:

Clarity - where fact and opinion are well differentiated and easy for the reader to discern

Honesty - where the bias of the piece is clear, authors disclose conflicts of interest

Side bar: A related thing is this concept of "always two sides to every story." and by including both sides the material is somehow more better!

It's not.

Fact is, there are the hard facts, who, what, where, when, why and how type stuff, and there is opinion as to what those facts might mean.

Sky is blue, many say it's orange, heads up debate tonight at 11! We report, you decide!

End side bar.

Back to the media and advertising weeks of education. Regarding media bias, we were required to find news media, written from different points of view, and to determine whether the stated bias, or point of view, is accurate.

To prep us for this activity, they gave us news paper clippings, magazine articles and mentioned broadcast media, radio and news programs we could watch as time permits and they highlighted various points of view as examples.

The big ones was labor / populist vs big business and State vs Local government.

What stuck with me was this statement from our teacher at the time:

"There is less from the labor point of view today and many expect that to continue." Was something along those lines anyway. I do not recall exactly, but I do recall the idea of labor being sidelined in the discussion and wondering why that is happening when so many do labor.

Today, we get almost zero news and commentary from big, corporate media written from the labor / populist point of view. Everything is business or state point of view framing. Nearly everything! I have watched it decline, until pretty much gone, and then the Internet happened!

One last thing to say on all this:

Big media branding is not accurate. FOX won in court asserting it's right to force journalists to lie and misrepresent. For profit news is not fair, does not serve the public interest, and frankly does not inform people very well at all!

Is there any wonder it's unpopular and widely disliked?

Similar dynamics are in play for government.

When people produce and deliver news and commentary from the labor / populist point of view, and it is at all reputable, the ratings flat out crush big media all day long.

When policy is floated out there to address basic issues seeing clear majority support are then walked back, mixed in with obscure, unpopular policy, disapproval spikes in a day almost.

These moves are almost laughable, if they were not so serious in nature.

We are moving into increasingly tough, authoritarian and potentially expensive, high risk times, in my view.

And back to my original point:

The machine is not dying at all!

Dissent is widespread yet seemingly appearing to be tepid and it's difficult for ordinary people to get an accurate view. In particular, minority, contrarian views are amplified consistently whether they have merit or not. A great example is the talking heads, where an otherwise obvious thing is literally debated into being questionable! All it takes is a few, or even two talking heads, one rational and one full bat shit put on repeat for a few weeks in a row and suddenly, "many say..." is a thing!

For decades now, long overdue policy has somehow failed in an amazing number of ways, leading people to believe our government is packed chock full of idiots, when the fact is more grim: those people are being paid to do what they are doing far more than they are simply bat shit, or wrong somehow. They understand what they are doing.

So no.

The machine is not dying, in my view. What we are seeing is a far more overt, aggressive move toward authoritarianism and fascism as clear evidence of it's ongoing success requiring more be done because having more people worse off every year tends to add right up.