Desperate to win re-election, President Obama is taking inspiration from a tactic used by China’s Chairman Mao during the so-called "Cultural Revolution."
In order to spread his ideology, he creates his own army of brainwashed propagandists who are supposed to popularize talking points sent to them directly from the White House. Modern days hongweibings (Chinese for red guards) are called the Truth Team, and if everything goes as planned, the president will have an army of over two million Americans on his side.The Obama administration unveiled on Monday a campaign created to crush the GOP competition come November, a mission that they hope to make possible with an army of propaganda- pumped plebeians that will take talking points handed down all the way from the White House. The aim is to influence friends and family with rhetoric being reared as honest-to-goodness truth, and the Obama campaign is calling for Americans to enlist in its coast-to-coast grassroots communications unit that they are calling the Truth Team. They’re an intelligence army being equipped with information right from the White House, and some administration officials are already saying that their troops will be engaged to take on Mitt Romney and whatever other Republicans stand in the president’s way."If the other guys are going to run a campaign based on misrepresenting the president's record – and their own — we have two options: sit back and let these lies go unchallenged, or fight back with the truth," deputy Obama campaign manager Stephanie Cutter tells ABC News. "We're fighting back."With the help of a trio of websites launched to inform and advise the Truth Team intelligence soldiers, the White House wants to enlist millions of young minds that will take cues from Pennsylvania Avenue and attempt to influence cohorts who might not yet be sold on President Obama. The administration is currently trying to corral a youth crew of Obama-backers in the 13 swing states and will them increase their operation elsewhere. By equipping the members with communiqué and creating a hub of intelligence on the World Wide Web, they hope that an army of millions can man a massive social media campaign that will litter every Twitter and Facebook feed in America with facts about the president, as well as truths to counter Republican Party lies created to crush Obama’s run for re-election.Three years into his term and wielding a wheelbarrow full of unfulfilled promises, that might just not be enough.On the Truth Team-created website KeepingHisWord.com, the campaign recalls issues that the president has stood by throughout his term so far. They applaud the administration for bailing out the automobile industry, cutting taxes for small businesses and putting Americans back to work. But while the site suggests that Obama was able to boost employment numbers up after nearly three years of catastrophic conditions, it does not acknowledge that this president oversaw one of the longest trends of unemployment in ages. The website reads, “The economy has been growing in the last 23 months under President Obama’s leadership,” yet during a Monday morning address from Annandale, Virginia, the president also described America as only now emerging from the “worst economic crisis in three generations.”“I wake up every single morning thinking about how can I make sure that anybody who wants a job is able to get a job,” Obama is quoted on the site in a blurb that tries to defend his supposed record of employment creation. On Monday, however, he also said that it’s “a long way to go” before Americans looking for jobs will find them. Elsewhere, the Truth Team tries to dismantle the plans of the president’s competition."The goal is to ensure that when Republicans attack President Obama's record, grassroots supporters can take ownership of the campaign and share the facts with the undecided voters in their lives," reads an official explanation from the president’s campaign. On one of the Truth Team-sanctioned websites, KeepingGOPHonest.com, the administration attempts to discredit Romney’s campaign by blogging about the Republican frontrunner’s record and how his campaign promises allegedly don’t align with what he tells America. “Romney’s tax plan helps millionaires and hurts the middle class” reads the latest post; “Romney thinks he can fix housing by doing nothing” says another. Not brought up, of course, are the president’s own lies and broken promises.There are the promises of comprehensive immigration reform which are three years behind schedule. There are the ongoing operations at the Guantanamo Bay military prison that the president vowed to shut down. And then there’s even the National Defense Authorization Act, which Obama signed two months ago making it possible for Americans to be indefinitely detained and tortured without ever being brought to trial. But the Truth Team, sadly, most likely won’t be informed of those."People don't just want to hear from campaign statements or ads – they want to hear from the family and friends they trust," writes Stephanie Cutter, Obama's deputy campaign manager. And so with the creation of the Truth Team, Obama-friendly facts will be fed to enlistees with the hope that they will go out and spread the message of the president and put Obama in the White House for another four years. “The president needs folks on board to roll up their sleeves, stand with him and get the truth out all over the country,” Cutter adds in her email. “The next time you hear Mitt Romney accusing the president of ‘crony capitalism’ or someone asking, ‘What has President Obama really accomplished?’ you'll know what to do.”Cutter suggests that the appropriate response is to direct them to the Truth Team and hope for adding one more recruit to the roster. Just like the hope that the president offered during his last campaign, you might not want to take it for granted.