Synthetic outrage is playing an ever more prominent role in right-wing political propaganda, and the latest displays of astoundingly hypocritical right-wing synthetic outrage in the wake of the Manchester Arena atrocity are the most sickening yet.
The tactic is to shout down anyone who tries to hold the Tory government to account with accusations that they're "exploiting dead children" by raising legitimate concerns about whether better government policy could have prevented the attack.
The worst case example
It happened after I posted an article detailing the seven years of severe cuts that the Tories have imposed on the armed forces, police, emergency services, hospitals and border force. You can read the article here and observe that it does not mention "dead children" (or any of the victims of the attack) one single time.
I even posted the article on Facebook with a status saying "Right-wing Tory sympathisers will inevitably react with synthetic outrage to this article because they believe that the Tories should never be held to account for their actions".
But one popped along anyway to accuse me of "exploiting dead kids" simply by providing some pertinent facts about the negligent Tory attitude towards public safety and security.
The brazen hypocrisy of this accusation is clear for all to see.
I didn't even mention dead kids at all. He did.
If anyone is exploiting dead kids for political purposes it's him for the way he invoked dead children to say "DON'T DARE QUESTION THE GOVERNMENT".
To use the disturbing thought of recently killed children for political purposes like this, and actually accuse the other person of exactly that behaviour is a truly sick display of hypocritical moral high-horsing.
remember: This Tory apologist was far from alone. There have been countless others using this synthetic outrage tactic to silence criticism of their beloved Tory government today. I just singled him out because his was by far the most sickeningly hypocritical.
So I say this. Don't let sick Tory propagandists use hypocritical displays of synthetic outrage to stop you from holding the Tory government to account. They're trying to argue that if people die, then it's morally wrong to subject the ruling party in government to any kind of scrutiny.
If you see them doing it, expose them as the sick hypocrites they are.
The Murdoch empire
Instead of holding the Tory government to account over their savage cuts to the security forces, Rupert Murdoch's propaganda minions at The S*n have spent the last few days spreading lies and smears about Jeremy Corbyn so as to assist Theresa May back into power.
The S*n is clearly acting as direct political propaganda for the Tory party, and it's easy to see why.
The Tory manifesto is promising to sling the Leveson enquiry into press corruption in the bin, so that the right-wing press can carry on as if Murdoch's minions had never hacked into the telephone of a dead teenage girl.
We might well wonder where the Tory moral outrage is over what was done to Milly Dowler's family when Murdoch's minions hacked into her phone and made them hope she was still alive.
We might wonder at where the Tory moral outrage is that their beloved leader is promising to let Murdoch off the hook for Milly Dowler in return for total support in his main propaganda sheet.
It doesn't exist, because all of their outrage about dead children is purely synthetic, and turned on and off for political purposes.
These tribal Tory apologists are the kinds of people who would have lapped up the disgusting front page lies The S*n printed about the innocent Liverpool fans at Hillsborough.
They're the kind of people who would have sneered at anyone who (rightly) said that the tragedy was caused by police negligence, not by drunken rowdy fans as the right-wing propaganda lies claimed.
In fact they probably would have used synthetic outrage to accuse the dedicated Hillsborough Justice Campaigners of exploiting the dead football fans to score political points!
That's how depraved they are.
Conclusion
Tory propaganda tactics are sick. They're often developed in order to trigger people's strongest emotional reactions like fear, anger, hatred, repulsion and outrage.
This latest "exploiting dead children" tactic is one of the most revoltingly hypocritical things I've ever come across, because not only does it invoke dead children for the political purpose of stopping people from trying to hold the government to account, it's also astoundingly hypocritical for doing precisely the thing that it accuses their opponents of.
If we ask dare to question seven years of harsh Tory cuts to the armed forces and police, these sick Tory propagandists will strategically lob the agonising thought of the poor dead children in Manchester into the debate in a desperate attempt to shut us up.
That's how sick they are.
The Tories are absolutely desperate and they're going to fight dirty as fuck from now on, so brace yourselves for much more of it. If they'll lob thoughts of recently killed children into the debate in order to defend their beloved party from scrutiny, they'll say or do literally anything won't they?
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