Does Hard Propaganda (Also) Work in Democracies? Evidence from the United States

In authoritarian regimes, governments regularly use overt and heavy-handed visual propaganda to effectively signal regime strength and deter protests. Can democratic leaders also use this so-called hard propaganda to project strength, or does this kind of authoritarian-style messaging potentially backfire because of societal norms for leaders’ behavior? Focusing on a rare instance in which outright visual hard propaganda was used in a democratic setting, we study how US citizens perceived its use by the Trump administration during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. In a preregistered online survey fielded from June 12 until June 16, 2020, we exposed participants from both sides of the political spectrum to randomized pairs of real-world propaganda images. This allowed us to explore how partisanship influenced perceptions of hard propaganda during the height of the protests. Our findings reveal that, compared to standard political messaging, hard propaganda can communicate greater strength to both government supporters and opponents in a democracy. Yet, in contrast to autocratic settings, it fostered opposition among Trump opponents. Trump supporters, however, did not find such propaganda any more or less appropriate than standard political communication, consistent with an increased acceptance of authoritarian practices within polarized democracies.