You would be surprised at how often ridiculous arguments become valid arguments through continuous repetition as the insane arguments start to collect tiny bits and morsels of supporting anecdata over time.

In India, I recall laughing at the so called "love jihad" conspiracy theories that claimed that massive number of Muslim men are conspiring to wed hindu women to convert them to Islam. But now, this is a hot button election topic and anti-miscegenation laws are being passed and married couples are being harrassed and forcibly separated. The marital data contradicts this conspiracy but no one gives a shit.

It's worth noting that anti-semitism in nazi Germany emerged after 1920 on the basis of 2 separate absurd conspiracy theories. Jewish complicity with the allies and racial origin theory around the sunk island of Atlantis. It took only about 10-15 years for this theory to be bought by an entire nation.

U.S. politics has fallen victim to this in recent years.

> When no one is fooled, why do they do it

People are fooled though. There are people in and outside of Russia who firmly believe the Russian narrative. (If you don't believe that, check the recent manifestations in Serbia)

Not the type of book you asked for, but i can recommend Propaganda by Edward L. Bernays. A hugely influential (series) of book(s).

Orwell talked about the receiving end of such propaganda (link found earlier today on HN):

> The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. For quite six years the English admirers of Hitler contrived not to learn of the existence of Dachau and Buchenwald. And those who are loudest in denouncing the German concentration camps are often quite unaware, or only very dimly aware, that there are also concentration camps in Russia. Huge events like the Ukraine famine of 1933, involving the deaths of millions of people, have actually escaped the attention of the majority of English russophiles. Many English people have heard almost nothing about the extermination of German and Polish Jews during the present war. Their own antisemitism has caused this vast crime to bounce off their consciousness. In nationalist thought there are facts which are both true and untrue, known and unknown. A known fact may be so unbearable that it is habitually pushed aside and not allowed to enter into logical processes, or on the other hand it may enter into every calculation and yet never be admitted as a fact, even in one’s own mind.

https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...

I think the idea is that it strengthens over time and helps to build a sanitized history. When a new generation of people have internalized this national story, then that can then be leveraged by those in power to justify crackdowns and explain away periods of hardship.

In the case of a single party dictatorship, I think it also exists to show party members what the approved line is, which allows local authorities to operate with some degree of autonomy, as long as they can tie it back to the general narrative the leadership wants to promote. This can be used as a way of allowing some degree of variation in governance while still providing the party leadership with plausible deniability if a policy fails (or the ability to claim ownership if it succeeds).

When everybody knows, everybody knows. It doesn't mean anything has to happen or change.

Down here when children break something and the parents ask "Who did that?", they will often reply "It was already like that". With a bad excuse like that everybody knows the children broke it. Strangely enough, almost always the discussion comes to an immediate end with that, except the parents will have a certain smile like "I have been fooled here".

There are sometimes even court cases that are hopelessly lost and this happens. The lawyer is pressured to do anything he can, and comes up with such bizarre stories, that lawyers and judge will know how the situation is.