Party politics in modern democratic society means pandering to a wide variety of different groups and sympathizing with their often quite base motives, such as revenge, power, booty, and spoils, to maintain the necessary level of support.

When we look for propaganda, we have the obvious job of asking what messages are being propagated.

When you give false information you tend to restrict the freedom of choice to others.

Small town people assume you are a friend if you simply remember their names.

Exposure as a propagandist is fatal to the would-be persuader.

There is arguably something wrong with a method of persuasion that cannot pass the test of publicity.

The specific media may change, but the principles of human nature have remained fairly constant over the millenia.