How AI Is Reshaping the Fight for Democracy
A field manual for people trying to protect democracy from the systems that now threaten it, digitally and psychologically.
By Trygve Olson
This is the first in a seven-part series, AI vs. Autocracy, on artificial intelligence, democracy and authoritarianism.
A few weeks ago, I shared how I decided to get ahead of the curve on artificial intelligence.
Not because I was looking for a new job.
Not because I had some tech epiphany.
Because I’ve spent the last two decades fighting autocratic systems, and I recognized AI for what it is:
A new front in the same old battle.
I’ve worked with democratic resistance movements in Belarus, Georgia, Lithuania, Zimbabwe, and more. I’ve trained activists under surveillance, helped build political strategies under repression, and watched regimes evolve faster than we were ready for.
Back then, tech tools like YouTube, Twitter, and even SMS gave people new ways to speak out and organize.
For a while, it seemed like technology would save us.
But technology is neutral.
It doesn’t care who’s using it — or why.
And now, with the rise of large language models (LLMs) and real-time generative AI, the most powerful tool in the information ecosystem is one that authoritarians are already learning to use better than democrats.
What this Series Is
This isn’t a primer on AI.
It’s a field manual for people trying to protect democracy from the systems that now threaten it, digitally and psychologically.
This is about how AI — and LLMs in particular — are being used to confuse, divide, suppress, and surveil.
And what those of us still fighting for democratic values need to do in response.
Each lesson includes:
A core threat from the authoritarian playbook
A counter-strategy for democratic actors
Three practical actions anyone can take now
The Seven Lessons
They’ll Use AI to Control the Narrative. We Must Use It to Rebuild Trust.
They’ll Use AI to Target Dissent. We Must Use It to Protect Expression.
They’ll Use AI to Engineer Division. We Must Use It to Strengthen Solidarity.
They’ll Use AI to Erode Reality. We Must Use It to Anchor Shared Truth.
They’ll Use AI to Undermine Elections. We Must Use It to Defend Them.
They’ll Use AI to Centralize Power. We Must Use It to Decentralize Resistance.
They’ll Use AI to Accelerate Fear. We Must Use It to Scale Hope.
This is the first lesson.
Lesson 1: They’ll Use AI to Control the Narrative. We Must Use It to Rebuild Trust.
When I talk about AI, I’m not speaking in abstract terms.
I’m not talking about robots or sci-fi scenarios.
I’m talking about large language models (LLMs) — the tools that can now generate text, mimic voices, create fake news sites, impersonate real people, and flood our information ecosystem with convincing disinformation at scale.
That’s not the future.
That’s right now.
And it’s already changing the battlefield.
In every fear-based system I’ve worked in — Belarus, Zimbabwe, Russia — one principle always held:
Authoritarians don’t need to convince everyone.
They need to confuse enough people.
If you can’t tell what’s real, you stop trusting anything.
If you stop trusting anything, you stop engaging.
If you stop engaging, they win.
LLMs are about to supercharge that playbook.
What the Autocrats Will Do
Authoritarian actors will use LLMs and generative AI to overwhelm public trust:
Deepfake videos of activists or politicians saying things they never said
Fake headlines from real-looking media outlets
AI-generated talking points, tailored for maximum emotional impact
Synthetic influencers built to manipulate targeted communities
Bot networks trained to flood platforms with coordinated confusion
They don’t have to win the argument.
How Social Networks Are Torpedoing Truth — and Democracies across the Globe
“Democracy runs on trust. Dictatorship runs on fear. The moment trust erodes — whether in institutions, elections, or truth itself — democracy crumbles.”
What Democracy Must Do
We won’t win this fight by ignoring AI — or banning it.
Equipping trusted messengers — community leaders, faith groups, educators — with the tools to respond quickly and credibly
Pre-bunking disinformation before it goes viral
Using LLMs defensively — to detect patterns, trace manipulation, and respond with clarity at scale
But most of all, it means grounding people in relationships, not just content.
LLMs can’t build trust.
People can.
Three Things You Can Do Today
1. Support local journalists, educators, and civic leaders.
They’re the people your community already trusts. Help them get trained and tooled up to detect AI manipulation — and respond effectively.
2. Use AI to explain, not to win arguments.
LLMs can clarify complex issues. You can use them to inform people on the fence, not to perform for people already convinced.
3. Call out narrative warfare — and shift the frame.
Say it plainly: “This is designed to divide us.” Then pivot: “Here’s what we still believe in, together.” That’s your counterattack.
Bottom Line
Autocrats will use AI — especially LLMs — to dominate the narrative, muddy the truth, and wear people down.
Trygve Olson is a strategist, pro-democracy fighter and a founding Lincoln Project advisor. He writes the Searching for Hope Substack. Read the original column here.
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Technological Nazi Attack on Gerrymandering and Voting
Marc Elias’ interview with Trey Martiinez sheds light on gerrymandering 2.0 21st century style Nobody in the Texas legislature knows where the new maps were concocted and that’s because the new map comes from the RNC computers that are so sophisticated that the old idea of gerrymandering doesn’t hold a candle to the demographic precision that the Nazis are presently using
With that context then Peter Theil’s Palantir platform appears to be a big player in the scheme of “rigging” elections particularly now that the DOJ is demanding state voter rolls There is only one conclusion that can be made after the 2024 election The Nazis are in the process of “rigging” elections so that there will never be an American free and fair election again
This should send a clear message to WE the People We have to organize like WE have never done before to thwart this authoritarian takeover Protest Protest Protest and form coalitions with neighbors friends relatives family Join Indivisible.org and make your voice heard in order to organize the resistance movement Aug13 join One Million Rising put together by Indivisible to help organize the movement Once coalitions are formed then WE the People can begin to boycott companies and governments across the country to demand that oligarchs/authoritarians do not run this country
I still don't get it. You load up with all the gritty, scary pictures, then you tell us how smart and further ahead the nefarious Right is. Then you wrap it up with some weak sauce about 'community' and 'discussions' and 'explanations'. What is it they say? "When you're explaining, you're losing".
You completely miss the root of all of this. Sure, the billionaires can buy up all the tech and communications infrastructure, but who are they persuading? People who are already predisposed to hate people who are not them, to resent anyone who they can be convinced did them dirty or who has been given an advantage over them. People with the critical thinking skills of flatworms. People who fantasize about murdering their neighbors and 'being on top'.
Do you really think that those people can be 'neutralized' so that they slink back to their trailer parks and give up on their dreams of glory? With words? No, you don't. You're just talking shit.
It may very well be that the world we've already entered is fundamentally incompatible with democracy. I don't know, and neither do you. And with that big a gap in your reasoning, I see no reason to believe you will ever work out a path back to it. Whatever is going to happen, is happening. It really depends on what people want, and what they're willing to do to get it.