There’s a war happening right now…. Not with bullets or bombs, but with ideas, narratives, and carefully crafted messages that flow through our news feeds, textbooks, and political discourse like water through a dam that’s been deliberately opened. And it costs about $1.2 billion a year.
That’s right. Over a billion dollars annually is spent by a combination of government agencies, billionaire donors, and private institutions to shape how we think about communism, socialism, and alternative economic systems. It’s a staggering figure — enough to fund thousands of schools, hospitals, or infrastructure projects. Instead, it’s being deployed in what might be the longest-running information campaign in modern history.
But here’s what makes this particularly fascinating, and more than a little unsettling: most people have no idea it’s happening. The Machine That Runs on Money
Let me paint you a picture with actual numbers. Every single day, the Voice of America broadcasts in 49 languages across the globe. It reaches millions of people in countries where press freedom is limited, where authoritarian governments — often communist or formerly communist — control the narrative. And it does this with an annual budget of approximately $267.5 million of taxpayer money, funded through the U.S. Agency for Global Media.
That’s just one organization.
Then there’s the National Endowment for Democracy, which received $315 million in fiscal year 2023 alone. The NED doesn’t broadcast news — it’s more surgical than that. It funds grassroots movements, democracy activists, civil society organizations, and media outlets in countries across the world. Its stated mission? Promoting democratic institutions. Its practical effect? Countering communist and socialist influence wherever it takes root.
The organization was literally established in 1983 during the Reagan administration as a soft-power tool to promote American interests abroad. Unlike the CIA’s covert operations of the Cold War era, NED operates openly — but with the same fundamental objective: shaping foreign political landscapes to favor capitalist democracy over socialist alternatives.
USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development, throws another estimated $200 million annually into programs specifically designed to counter communist ideology. They do this through economic development projects, support for democratic institutions, and strategic aid that comes with ideological strings attached. During the Cold War, this was explicit and unapologetic. Today, it’s more subtle, woven into development rhetoric and humanitarian language, but the underlying goal remains remarkably consistent.
In this case anti-communist is pro-nazi.
Non propaganda title:
Billionaires spend over a billion dollars on nazi propaganda.
That nazi post? That was paid for by a billionaire.
Oh, and billionaires own all media. It doesn’t cost them anything to change directives to pure nazi propaganda. This was just an “extra” billion for other people they had to pay.
More like $1.2 billion spent on falsely equating “communism” with everything even slightly left of hunting the poor for sport.
No no you whip the poor while they work on plantations. You hunt the homeless for sport.
But hunting the poor while they’re working is so good for morale, tho!!
One of the billionaires in their picture has been dead for years…
His money is still working though.
To fact check one claim arbitrarily; figure a school pays about 70k per employee (lots in benefits and payroll tax; don’t be confused, we are not paying them well). You could employ 15 teachers+administrators for one year for a million. This is not enough for a full high school.
So when we say ‘a billion dollars could fund thousands of schools’: I don’t buy it. We could fund the people in a couple hundred at most. With repairs, food, custodial, property tax, utilities, and equipment, I don’t think we are funding very many schools at all. A billion is just not that much money, the gdp is in trillions. The department of education is using 250 billion annually and that’s not the only funding for many (most? All?) schools. I assume the same calculus applies to hospitals and infrastructure, living isn’t so cheap.
I’ll also point out that much of the efforts of the cited agencies in the rest of the post are providing pretty basic services where there are few alternatives. You can argue that doing good work to help you spread propaganda is all in service of the propaganda, but then I don’t see a principled reason for what is included. Adding up numbers randomly isn’t journalism or newsworthy. These also don’t seem like billionaire plots…
First thing I noticed and that told me this would be a shit article.
Then:
Headline: Billionaires spend $1.2B
Looks inside: US Government spends $1.2B
And then they act like no one knows Soros and Koch and the Waltons spend money on political speech. Also, no numbers on what these people are spending. I glad <no byline> is here to tell these things!
And almost every person here read the headline, upvoted and made a simple comment. Y’all are as easy to manipulate as any conservative.
BILLIONAIRES BAD! Upvotes please.
Government is nothing more than the legislative arm of capitalism
If they spent the same amount on helping others less fortunate, it would likely have a better impact to anti-billionaire sentiment.
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Yeah spend less, capitalism is doing great at tearing itself down.
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^ Found part of the 1.2 billion dollars worth of nazi propaganda. ^
But that’s just nazi musk’s $.50.
