Propaganda and the Handmaid's Tale
This book is deeply misunderstood - and not by accident.
I would say at this point, damn near everyone in North America and a good chunk of the UK have heard of the Handmaid’s Tale.
I would assume a lot of people elsewhere have as well, but I don’t know how popular the book or show is in other parts of the world. I’m super curious, if anyone in the wider world wants to chime in!
If you haven’t read the Handmaid’s Tale or watched the show, I’ll give you a real quick synopsis.
The novel — and show — follows the life of a young woman in the fictional country of Gilead, a new nation created from the ashes of the United States in the aftermath of a Christian Fascist coup.
The main character’s name, we are told, is Offred. This is the title given to her as a Handmaid; ‘of Fred’ meaning she belongs to Fred, the Commander she serves. She is a forced surrogate, a woman who exists to be forced to carry children for him and his wife.
Offred is not allowed to have her own name. If she goes to serve another Commander, she will become ‘of’ the new Commander. She might become Ofglen, or Ofwarren, or Ofjohn.
She is not a person in Gilead. She is a walking womb.
The world of the Handmaid’s Tale is a seriously dark and depressing story of life under strict authoritarianism where an extreme evangelical cult has taken control. Strict gender roles apply, fertility is desirable, women are not permitted to read nor have any independence.
Punishments for breaking the strict Biblical laws of Gilead range from mutilation to execution. Executions are extremely common.
In creating the world, Atwood took inspiration from her time living behind the Berlin Wall. She studied the American Puritans and the Salem Witch Trials, Decree 770 of Romania, and she studied Biblical stories such as the tale of Rachel and Leah, and their respective handmaids.
The author is quite clear that none of the awful things in Gilead came out of her own mind. Everything that happens to Offred and the other women in the book are things that have happened to women somewhere in our own world.
It’s an old feminist classic. And these days, it is becoming increasingly and frighteningly relevant.
Use of the iconic Handmaid’s uniform — a crimson robe that entirely covers the body, and a pure white bonnet with wings that hide the face — is becoming a common symbol of protest in the United States.
Particularly protests against the overturning of Roe vs Wade, which ended federal protections for reproductive rights and privacy, and blocked people across the country from obtaining certain medical procedures. Abortions and related procedures, mainly.
To many people with uteruses, whether women, non-binary people or transgender men, this represented a loss of bodily autonomy. I agree. Nobody should get to force me to do anything with my body that I don’t want to do.
But to the American right-wing, use of the Handmaid’s uniform is seen as overdramatic hysteria. They often insult protestors who use it, saying it’s ridiculous to make such a comparison and referring to the series as a ‘Liberal rape fantasy.’
That’s an utterly disgusting way to react to the protests and a gross mischaracterization of the novel and show, but what do you expect?
The accusation is most often lobbed by people who gladly voted for a man who brags about grabbing women’s genitals without consent and walking into teenager’s changing rooms while they’re undressed.
No surprised that Trump’s fanboys have nothing but disdain for a serious discussion of women’s rights.
But the brutal response goes beyond a simple dislike; the savagery of the insults, the repeated downplaying of the severity of the situation, the charges of hysteria, the exact same wording used over and over; this strikes me as more than organic dislike from individual people.
This carries all of the hallmarks of propaganda.
When we talk about propaganda, a lot of people picture the old timey posters and radio shows during World War I and II, and especially during the Cold War.
They picture the old imagery of a soldier posing before a massive flag or a Soviet worker holding aloft a hammer and sickle.
But modern propaganda works a little bit differently. Today, you don’t really see posters as often — you see memes on the internet. Today, podcasters and social media influencers have replaced old school patriotic radio shows.
Today, propaganda looks like bot accounts on social media rehashing the exact same statements a thousand times, posting variations of the exact same meme, or mass-reporting people who express opposing worldviews.
Today, propaganda looks like news stations editing interviews and adjusting numbers to avoid rocking the boat and getting negative attention from the powers that be.
It’s why so many American news channels are reporting that Canadian tourism is down due to the tariffs and exchange rate.
The fact that Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened us with annexation and economic destruction, regularly insults our country and has made it literally, physically unsafe for us to travel is almost never brought up.
They downplay Trump’s rhetoric and pretend it isn’t happening, and it gives the average American citizen the wrong impression about what’s going on.
But almost nobody pays attention to the much-maligned ‘mainstream news’ anymore. Most folks get their information from social media sources and pundits online, the so-called ‘independent media.’
This is both incredibly useful, due to the relative lack of financial bias or pressure from those in power, but it’s also a huge problem. Independent media sources and social media influencers are not regulated.
They can say whatever they want. Whatever benefits them.
Whatever they want you to believe.
Propaganda is a neutral tool, and both ‘sides’ of the current political climate use it to great effect.
The problem right now is that with fascists in charge, U.S. propaganda is even more brazen because it is no longer subject to external review or regulation.
The job of journalists is no longer to report factually on events, it is now to present a controlled narrative, obfuscate facts that don’t align with the President’s goals, and make resistance to those goals seem impossible.
They present opinions as reality, and make you feel like your doubts exist only for you. Everybody else is portrayed as being on their side, and in full agreement.
Is that true? No. Not at all. But it’s how they want you to feel.
You don’t know who believes what, if you’re among friends or if you’re an outlier that everyone will disagree with. So you don’t talk to people about your beliefs until you know how they think.
This makes it hard to network and build community, which makes it impossible to build collective resistance.
For most people in the States, their instinct is to be wary and cautious of people they don’t know well. I know my American friends do this; testing waters and never making assumptions because they no longer feel safe to simply say what they think.
If you say the wrong thing to the wrong person nowadays, the consequences can be serious.
Resistance comes from community, not isolation. So this sense of being uncertain and afraid prevents real pushback from gaining traction. That’s why the mass protests across the U.S. aren’t being talked about in the news; if they don’t tell you it’s happening, you feel like there’s nobody fighting back.
You feel like there’s nothing you can do.
“I believe we are in crisis. The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil.”
The above quote is from a speech given by Mon Mothma, a character who appears in Andor, which is one of the more recent series set in the world of Star Wars.
She appears in the main Star Wars movies as well, being one of the only women with dialogue in the original films. There were only four women with speaking roles in the original trilogy.
Andor is another outstanding show, by the way. The depiction of ordinary people getting caught up in the rise of fascism, on both sides of the aisle, is very realistic and grounded.
But this quote doesn’t just apply to fiction, but to our lived reality in the present. This is exactly what I’m talking about when I say that propaganda is being used to divide and isolate people.
So much of authoritarian rule is about redefining the meaning of words and limiting language. Fascist leaders reframe state violence as ‘protecting the country’ and reframe peaceful protest as ‘violence against the country.’
That gives them license to do whatever they want to the people they brand as an enemy.
If you found yourself wondering why Trump calls journalists ‘the enemy of the people’ and keeps talking about ‘radical left terrorists’ and ‘the enemy within,’ stop wondering. This is why.
This is how the state maintains a monopoly on violence; it ensures that violence against the state is criminalized, but violence perpetrated by the state is considered legitimate in the eyes of the people.
And so, we return to the Handmaid’s Tale.
In the Handmaid’s Tale, the U.S. government was overthrown by a violent extremist religious sect who unmade the country and crafted a new one from its remains. A country where women have no rights, where the state kills and maims anyone it dislikes, where powerful men — white men — get to make the rules.
A country where performing an abortion or being gay is a death penalty offense.
A country where if you fail to report someone for breaking a morality law, you open yourself up to the same punishment.
A country where secret police regularly haul people off of the street and into unmarked vans, never to be seen again.
A country where soldiers are called Angels, and to fail to show them the proper respect will get you beaten.
A country with no freedom of speech, and no right to criticize those in positions of power.
In the Handmaid’s Tale, Gilead came into existence slowly over decades, a gradual erosion of democracy, a shift in the Overton Window to the far-right, and a crisis; a loss of fertility and a declining birth rate.
Compare that to the modern United States. Look at the Tradwife movement, the shifting social fabric, the breaking down of trust and gulf of polarization between right and left. Look at the gradual dismantling of due process and basic freedoms.
Look at the misogyny on display, the religiosity, and the racism of the people in charge.
Democracy does not fall in a day. It crumbles over time, piece by tiny flaking piece.
No fascist government starts off with concentration camps and gas chambers on day one.
They start by selling you a story about who is to blame for your problems, then they start chipping away at the protections those people have under the law. Then they change the definition of what makes a person bad, and expand the number of people who are targeted.
It starts with criminals.
First they get harsher punishments, lose due process, lose their basic rights. Then they change the law to make more crimes, and more criminals.
The modern day left points to Anne Frank and compares Nazi Germany’s mass arrests of Jewish people to the mass kidnapping campaign of the Trump administration. The right wing says it isn’t the same because Trump is only going after illegal immigrants.
The thing is, Hitler also went after illegal residents in Germany.
With the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, he changed the definition of citizen to exclude Jewish people, as well as all other ‘non-Aryan’ people in Germany. He classified all Jewish people as illegal residents, and then rounded them up alongside anyone who didn’t fit his idea for what a ‘pure’ German citizen should be.
That is the playbook. That’s why Trump’s regime is so scary.
You think you’re safe, because you’re not a criminal.
But when due process is gone, all they need to do is make a new law, accuse you of the crime, and you can’t prove your innocence. Suddenly you are a criminal because they said so.
Suddenly, you’re condemned.
Trump is redefining anti-fascism and left-wing talking points as terrorism. How long before anyone making a critical remark about anything he does gets labeled an Antifa terrorist?
Have you never said anything bad about the government before? Do you want the right to free speech, or not?
Once due process is gone, they don’t have to prove that you’re guilty. They can just say you did something wrong, and you’re in prison for the rest of your life… or worse.
Propaganda is insidious, and authoritarianism is dangerous. It doesn’t matter who you are, or how safe you think you are. If you’re not on the top, you are an expendable cog in a machine that will grind you down to nothing and throw you aside.
Authoritarian consolidation of power is a slow burn, a gradual decrease in freedom, loss of autonomy and a redefining of rules, laws and norms.
It is boring bureaucracy, bland and dry and easy to ignore.
And then, one day, it stops being boring. It shows up at your front door. It marches through the streets of Los Angeles or Chicago with guns and face masks, it surrounds schools and binds children with zip ties.
It will be quiet and unremarkable until it’s too late to stop it. Then what will you do?
Solidarity wins.
Hey y’all! This is a little post script to give you all a heads up about a few things coming down the pipe.
First, I’m getting married! Huzzah! My wedding day is the 18th, and I’ll be taking two weeks off both to get ready for the day and also to enjoy a nice miniature honeymoon with my partner.
Starting this Saturday, I’ll be vanishing into the ether for two weeks. I will return and get back on track right after, don’t worry.
That said, there will be a slight change coming up with my posting schedule. On top of the wedding shenanigans, I was just asked to jump from part-time hours at my job to full-time.
This is awesome for me and my partner, as it means a bit of extra money in our pockets and it’s sorely needed, so it’s great news. It does however mean that I’m going to be losing a big chunk of my free time.
So, I’ve decided to dial back my time on Substack just a bit. Rather than posting twice a week, I’ve decided to publish one longform article a week — probably on Wednesday mornings — and spend more time on making it longer, more polished and more in-depth.
I’ll still probably publish the occasional short form update on important news events as they happen.
The podcast schedule will remain unchanged for now. They might also become a bit longer and more polished; the hope is that by focusing on a smaller number of posts, I can devote more of my effort into providing good quality rather than fighting to keep a consistent schedule two or three times a week.
As always, my writing will remain free to read. Thanks for reading, everyone! I hope you don’t miss me too much while I’m away!
Congratulations Sam on your very soon to arrive wedding day. Congratulations too on getting more hours at work, - a little more money in your pocket is always useful.
Congratulations, Sam. Enjoy every minute of your time off, particularly your wedding day. Cheers, Debbie