Did the US Government try to propagandize me?

Some say they had an agenda...

Here we are at post no.2 of Love Letters to America, and this is another ‘back story’ type of post. A few of these might be necessary before we get into the meat of discussions in the very near future, and today’s post will make more sense once you’ve read my Origin Story post.

But before we get into today’s topic, I just want to say thank you so much to everyone for reading my first post and subscribing to this newsletter. It means so much and has inspired me to treat this as a proper publication that I’ll give my all.

With that said, let’s talk some more about my first trip to America.

When I first published my YouTube vlog series from the Exploring American Values tour, one of the most common comments I received from viewers was that the whole thing was government propaganda and that they had an agenda.

Perhaps so.

People said I was only seeing what they wanted me to see. It was all staged. There was so much more of the US they weren’t showing me. It was politically biased. And many more comments along these lines.

So I wanted to say a few words about this, as the trip really launched my fascination with (and admiration for) America, and it’s important to me that people know I started this journey off on the right foot.

Yes, it was a sponsored trip, and yes, the US Embassy did have objectives, but I genuinely believe they had good intentions. Here’s why:

For starters, while on the tour nothing was off limits to us. We met people from all political persuasions and we were free to ask them any questions we wanted. Meanwhile, Trump had just taken office and, in theory, the Embassy was under his control, but many of the staff who’d organised the trip were from the previous administration.

Most of the political part of the trip was actually about structure, procedure and history rather than partisanship and political opinions. This was good, because government in the US works very differently to the UK, so we needed that knowledge and context.

People were also mad at the locations they took us to (DC, Baltimore, Texas and Florida). I’ve learned that it’s impossible to keep everyone happy with things like this. The US is a huge country and we only had 14 days. The point is, following the trip, many of us would return to the US and visit many more places. I have great sympathy with those who put together our agenda.

Open and respectful discussions

One of our day trips in Dallas, Texas, provided the perfect example of how this balance played out. We were invited to visit and spend two hours with the local youth wings of both the Democratic and Republican parties.

It was an interesting day - the experiences at both places could not have been more different, but both provided us with fascinating insights.

The Democratic Party office, staffed with what might be describe as hipsters, appeared as a ramshackle local community centre. There were posters of previous candidates on the wall and a fridge packed with cans of IPA beer. They offered us some and, of course, we accepted.

The Republican Party office, meanwhile, could be described as corporate. Very corporate. It was in a fancy office building surrounded by polished glass. If I didn’t know better, we could have been in the office of an investment bank or oil company. The staff were suited, booted, with shiny waxed hair and were wearing the most enormous (suspiciously so!) signet rings I’d ever seen. They also offered us a drink - in the form of refrigerated sparkling water.

It was a truly great experience and we very much enjoyed our debates with both parties. It was actually quite eye-opening. If we had any assumptions about both parties and their respective policies, some of these were definitely put to rest during the debates.

Our Embassy representatives never intervened at all: we could ask what we wanted and, believe me, we were tough. Sometimes the discussions were heated but, to the credit of both sets of party officials, they never shied away and were keen on having an open debate with us. It was refreshing to see that, where differences of opinion exist, things can be debated in an open and respectful way.

At the end of the day, we were all impressed with how things had gone and were clear in the fact that it was not in any way a biased or manipulated experience.

Separately on the trip, there was also the potentially thorny issue of guns. We met so many different groups over the two weeks, from the NRA to Moms Demand Action. Again, we were never pushed in any direction and were impressed that we spent equal amounts of time with people on all sides of the issue.

The whole trip was about providing us with experiences and putting us in situations that empowered us to ask our own questions and come to our own conclusions.

And let’s not forget, we were a mixed group of talented personalities. As well as being social media creators, we had award winning journalists, authors and social activists in our number, and we all knew what having the wool pulled over our eyes looks like. This was not it.

Despite the fact that the US Government was putting all of this on for us - and paying for it - there were no attempts to make us think a certain way.

Yes, of course there was an overall objective: they wanted us to share the experience to our British followers so that we might clear up a few of the many misunderstandings that exist on each side of the large pond that separates our two countries. I genuinely believe this was the only objective.

Hopefully this is a definitive response to the question. In the next note, I’ll move on to my very first moments in the USA.

Until then, if you are enjoying my posts please share them with your friends on social media.

Shaun.