The way it works is that the government or a billionaire (or both in partnership) completely though indirectly fund a dozen nonprofits that push their own curre

The way it works is that the government or a billionaire (or both in partnership) completely though indirectly fund a dozen nonprofits that push their own current agenda. They also pump money into universities, or into individual projects run by people important within universities, in order to endow "The Freedom Chair for Injustice Studies" or some equally vapid shit. They then generate papers through the universities to support their agenda, and use the nonprofit to write press releases, that then are published in media outlets that will publish any rich man's claim, such as the NYT or WP, and other outlets that they have partial or complete ownership of. This generates enough bullshit smoke to nominally justify a federal investigation, which they use to harass anyone who disagrees with them, and threaten their businesses or jobs. The combination of active investigations and 10 different stories in every paper every day about "potential dangers," and 24/7 coverage of the non-issue, gives politicians enough cover to pass laws against expressing opinions against the interests of the people who pay, and other laws for more surveillance to make sure no one has a wrong opinion secretly. Eventually you get an Economist article explaining how the Chinese are poisoning America's youth against clean coal through Tiktok.