How to Spot a Political Grifter Online
Five types of online political grifter setting our discourse on fire.
A few years ago, the internet discovered that performative conviction pays better than intellectual honesty. Much better. So much better, in fact, that it’s now a multibillion-dollar industry (probably), and it’s steering our political discourse off a cliff.
There are some brilliant voices out there, of course – genuinely challenging power and asking difficult questions. But they’re drowned out by sleek and cynical operators who’ve learned that outrage generates revenue and tribal certainty beats nuanced thinking. They’ve discovered that you can build an entire career by throwing a chair through the Overton window and being professionally wrong about everything as long as you’re wrong with confidence.
Some of us have become adept at spotting the manipulation. Others have been swept up in it, radicalising themselves via a perfectly tuned algorithmic experiment in confirmation bias. None of us is entirely immune. We’re all being manipulated to varying de…
