Pot, Meet Kettle: Exposing U.S. Propaganda

Step 1 - Frame the enemy

There’s this country that watches its people constantly. Cameras follow them on the streets. Online messages are scanned. Protests get shut down. Certain groups are targeted, locked up and forced to work.

Outside its borders, this country manipulates trade rules. It lends money designed to make others dependent. Its companies collect vast amounts of information and work hand-in-hand with the government to control what people hear. Its military says it protects, but it often threatens and harms. Meanwhile, its schools, movies and news, say it stands for freedom, over and over and over again.

Wait… Who Are We Talking About?

Based on this opening description, which country do you think it is? What about that description made you lean one way or another?

Some people might think of China, where the government uses facial recognition cameras to watch people, censors information about protests, and puts Uyghur Muslims into camps. It also controls companies like Huawei to keep a tight grip on information.

Others might picture Russia, which arrests people who speak out against the current government, uses forced labor in prisons, coerces other countries by threatening to cut off gas supplies, and is at war with Ukraine while threatening countries in NATO.

Still, others might think of the United States, where the NSA engages in mass surveillance of citizens' communications, companies like Palantir work closely with the government, police and military crackdown on protests, and immigrant and marginalized groups face harsh treatment and mass detention.

So which country is it?

The answer depends on who’s listening.

All three of these countries could fit the description. But more importantly, all three accuse each other of these exact things. Surveillance? Human rights abuses? Propaganda? All three may not act the same way or with the same intent, but each claims to defend its version of freedom while pointing fingers at others for the very violations they commit.

“I Know You Are, But What Am I?”

This is called projection propaganda. It’s when a leader or government blames someone else for the thing they’re guilty of.

“You can’t trust the news. They lie,” says the press secretary who hides the truth from the people.

“They’re trying to hurt democracy,” says the leader who voted to make it harder for other people to vote.

“They’re spreading dangerous ideas,” says the politician whose whole campaign is based firmly on using religion to spread fear and division.

By blaming others for the exact harm you’re doing, or planning to do, you get to tell your side of the story first. That gives you a big advantage. You can make the people you’re targeting look like the bad guys. You can make your own actions, even if they’re aggressive or unfair, look like self-defense. And you can make your audience feel afraid, so they’ll take your side.

Projection propaganda also makes it harder for people to figure out who’s really responsible. It puts all the pressure on the other side to prove their innocence, instead of having people looking into what the accuser is doing.

You’ve probably seen the same kind of tactic in everyday life. “He’s always spreading rumors,” says the coworker who’s gossiping about a colleague at lunch. “I can’t trust you,” says the partner who’s been hiding an affair. When people feel guilty or afraid of being exposed, they often blame others first. It’s a way to dodge responsibility and control their story.

Projection propaganda can feel a lot like elementary school.

“I know you are, but what am I?” becomes “You’re fake news,” after a politician is caught in a lie by a journalist.

“I’m rubber and you're glue; whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you” becomes “The economy’s a mess because of the last guy,” after an administration’s economic policies start to fail.

These may sound like silly ways to deflect blame and turn the situation around, but projection propaganda still works in much the same way just on a much larger scale. Except this isn’t a playground. This is how wars start.

The Playground Trick That Starts Wars

Two kids get into a fight. One of them runs to the teacher and yells, “He kicked me!”, even though he’s the one who kicked first. By blaming the other kid before anyone else can say what actually happened, he makes himself look like the victim. That’s something kids often do when they’re scared of getting in trouble.

In politics and propaganda, adults also do this, but on purpose and with much more serious consequences. When one country or leader points the finger at another for something terrible that they are planning to do, especially violence, it is called Accusation in a Mirror. So, if a regime plans to commit mass violence, it may tell its people: “They’re planning to kill us. We have to strike first.” Even though it's not true, this lie makes it look like they’re just defending themselves when, actually, they’re the ones planning the attack.

Can you think of a recent example of this?

Why Would Anyone Believe This?

At first glance, this seems counterintuitive. Why would a regime advertise its own plans, even indirectly? Wouldn’t people see through that? The short answer is no.

Genocide researchers say that accusation in a mirror, as a type of projection propaganda, is a very common and effective rhetorical tool used to incite collective violence. It’s been used in some of the darkest moments in history, including Nazi Germany and Rwanda, to provoke hate and violence in its people.

How? It flips the moral framing. The accused become the aggressors. The actual aggressors become defenders. The people become afraid. It turns innocent people into threats. It creates a simple story of: “If we don’t hurt them, they’ll hurt us.”

And when people believe that, they might support violence they would never agree to otherwise.

No, Seriously. This Trick Works. A Lot.

You might be thinking, “This seems obvious. If someone’s lying like that, I’d see right through it.”

But even smart, careful people fall for this kind of trick. In fact, many of us do, and science explains why.

Imagine two students are taking a test. One of them is cheating by copying answers. But before anyone notices, the cheater loudly says, “Hey! That person’s copying off me!” Even if the teacher later sees the cheater acting suspiciously, guess who stays under more suspicion?

The person who was accused first.

This is something social psychologists have studied. They’ve found that, when someone accuses another person of doing exactly what they themselves are doing, people still tend to believe the accusation.

In the media, this effect may be even stronger, partly because of something called the primacy effect. This is a type of mental shortcut our brains use that makes us more likely to trust the first version of a story we hear, even if it turns out to be false or more facts come out later that provide meaningful context. So, when someone lies first and points the finger quickly, it shapes how everyone else sees the situation in the long run, and later information has a hard time breaking through.

Propaganda takes advantage of this shortcut, so a person or group that knows they are going to do something wrong will accuse someone else first. This way, they get to better control the story. It’s like shouting, “You started it!” before anyone even knows what’s going on. People will ask, “Started what?” And now, you get to explain which sets the tone for the rest of the discussion.

This kind of accusation also changes how we judge others’ actions. If someone says, “They’re planning to hurt us,” it creates fear. It makes people feel like they need to fight back before it’s “too late,” even if the threat isn’t real. Suddenly, attacking first becomes “protecting yourself,” spreading lies becomes “warning the public,” and the real victims start to look like the bad guys. This is how projection propaganda makes something aggressive look like self-defense.

So, this isn’t just a trick used on the playground. Throughout history, leaders have used it to start wars and justify violence.

Even When It’s Obvious, It Still Works

Even still, sometimes the lies are obvious. You might know the accuser is guilty. You might recognize they’re just flipping the story to confuse people.

But even when it doesn’t fool us, projection propaganda can still do a lot of damage. This is because, when we see too many lies and false accusations, it can start to wear us down. We start to think, “Everyone is corrupt,” “They all lie,” “There’s no real difference between any of them.”

That kind of thinking feels smart, like we’re seeing through all their games. But, it can make us stop caring. It can make us feel like the truth doesn’t matter anymore. And then, the accuser still benefits from their propaganda.

When people stop trusting everyone, they may also stop trying to do what’s right. That’s called moral disengagement. It’s when people distance themselves from their values and start to believe that bad behavior is okay if it seems necessary, or if “the other side is worse,” or if their support is only because it’s a so-called “lesser evil.” Because, after all, “It’s no worse than what the others would do.”

And from authoritarianism research, we also know that these regimes can benefit from this kind of political apathy because, when people stop caring or believing there’s any real difference between political options, the regime no longer has to invest as much in earning loyalty.

But, let’s be clear. Recognizing that multiple governments use projection propaganda does not mean they are all equally guilty. Not in scale, not in severity, not in intent. Equating the U.S. China, and Russia, for example, flattens essential distinctions. That kind of flattening doesn’t help us fight propaganda. Actually, it feeds it.

Projection may be a common tactic, but discernment is still possible, and necessary. The fact that the mirror exists doesn’t mean everyone’s reflection is the same. Because when we fail to discern, that’s exactly when people start excusing harmful actions or staying silent while wrong things happen, even when they know better.

How to Spot Projection Propaganda

Yeah, it’s frustrating watching people lie or twist the truth like it’s a game. And yeah, it can feel exhausting trying to figure out what’s real anymore.

But even when we see the pot calling the kettle black, we can’t just throw up our hands and say, “Whatever. Everyone’s awful.” That kind of thinking might feel safe, but it actually makes it harder to tell right from wrong. And that’s exactly what bad actors want.

So what do we do instead?

• If someone yelled “He hit me!” but they’re known to throw punches, you’d probably be inclined to wonder who really started it. Likewise, don’t believe serious accusations unless you see real proof, especially from known aggressors. For example, when Russia accused Ukraine of planning attacks right before launching its own invasion in 2022, it echoed this exact tactic. If there’s no evidence except yelling, don’t trust it.

• If someone said, “They’re being mean to us!” while they’re bullying others, you would side-eye them. So, if an accusation sounds like a copy of what the accuser is already doing or has shown previously that this is something they might like to do anyway, it might be a trick.

• If someone said “Watch out! She’s going to cheat!” right before a test, you’d ask why they’re bringing it up. Similarly, if someone warns you that an adversary will do something awful, ask why they’re saying it now. When the U.S. government claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction right before launching a war, that should’ve raised suspicions. Sometimes they say it first so they can do it later without getting blamed.

And finally, if someone says “They’re planning something bad” and it sounds like what they would do, know it may be exactly what they intend to do.

What about you?

When have you seen a political accusation that felt like a copy of the accuser’s own actions or agenda? Share your examples of projection propaganda in the comments.