Authority Through Propaganda
The communications machine is always more important than believers.
"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the devout Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.” - Hannah Arendt
There's a popular image of most societies that are under some form of authoritarian regime having populations that are remarkably similar in their animosity towards others. Cultural productions from movies or literature like to basically see people equally motivated in what they're trying to accomplish. It was in many respects an easy argument when diversity was considered a primary strength. societies that lack diversity would tend to become hostiled outsiders.
One of the more intriguing comments that was made towards the end of the Cold War came from a journalist travelling with President Reagan through Poland. They commented that most of the average citizens presented more of a facade of who they were. If somebody could get straight answers out of anybody you usually discovered that a lot of them were individuals not a collective. Poland for the most part may have been a fairly homogeneous cultural community, but most people were still individuals with different thinking.
This speaks to one of the constant points that emerges in the realm of political propaganda. If I am going to use any form of government that uses force for most of its regular operations I have to be able to maintain an obedient population at all times. For anybody putting thought into this one, should recognize that is basically impossible if everything's left to its own devices. Even the most homogeneous population is going to have disagreements between different people on specific topics. And using traditional forms of compromise isn't going to work.
It is one of the cornerstones of any authoritarian government to ensure that the average citizen's thinking is directed as much as possible. The reliance on conclusions being the same no matter who is doing the thinking is crucial.
For those that live outside of any totalitarian country there's usually always focus on what propaganda is being used. To be fair virtually every government no matter what it calls itself uses some form of propaganda. Politicians have a natural instinct to try and put themselves in the best light at all times. But, the nature of propaganda is important. Most will simply tell a version of what is going on that puts themselves in the best light. On this front it's quite possible not so much to lie as simply to omit bad points.
What makes most authoritarian governments different is the attempt to try and create false realities. Because any population naturally has differences to maintain a collective within the population everybody's identity has to be in some ways warped. This is where the idea of false narratives about history or creating ideal imagery become so important. It's fairly easy to say that most governments love to use images more than facts with virtually any argument they make in public. From that standpoint they can control not only where they want someone to think but also the methods through which somebody starts to form their own realities.
Constructing imagery in a similar fashion to one would use for a stage play or any sort of fiction is instructive here. You know what the final chapter is supposed to be. You have to make sure the storyline that everybody is following gets you to that place. From that standpoint propaganda is used not so much to change facts as to give everybody an emotional attachment such that they wind up in the right spot.
Control is not based on being able to make the perfect argument all the time. Even using the same facts, it is possible people can come to different conclusions based on different values. In order to maintain common thinking throughout, any group that has reasonable numbers to it, factual evidence has to be rendered subservient to other impulses.
Consider how often a number of arguments get used where the emotional target is something along the lines of you don't want to make somebody else feel bad. This is basically asking you to turn off any higher ordered reasoning that might cause a conversation with disagreement. Instead everybody getting along like little children is more important.
In the ideal situation this means that you can use fiction that is convenient to direct people based on feel good vibes or fear attacks far more effectively than virtually any other method. It becomes the central staple of any communication strategy for the government seeking to concentrate power.
Having motivated followers is always great, but it's never practical that you're going to have enough of them to maintain control. This is where the ability to twist what is real and what is not is so important. It's true that virtually anybody running for high office likes to tell a story as a means to try and get votes. This is almost always a combination of some truths, especially if they're ones that motivate people to action such as hardship, and aspirational lines.
One of the crucial points of trying to break down those who would want more authority than should be granted is constantly questioning any of the narratives they present. It's frequently the case that even those who might agree with what a political figure is saying may end up disagreeing with the way they go about doing it. This is the point of always re-injecting facts into any dialogue.