Author and communication professor Dirk Gibson talks about how Charles Manson used the media to try to instill fear in the American people as a way to fulfill his bizarre goal of taking over society after a race war.
“Manson theorized that if a race war would begin in America, he was a racist, but a canny racist,” said. “He believed that if he could just propagate, or create a race war in America, whites and blacks would hate each other, blacks would win in his opinion because they were stronger, but would be incapable of governing themselves.”
According to Gibson, Manson’s delusional mind concocted the creation of a race war, during which he and his followers would go underground while the white and black populations would fight each other, with the blacks emerging triumphant. Then he believed that he and his clan would emerge and be sought by the black population as the leader.
“He believed in being witchy – the term that a lot of the family members used was he’d say, ‘Do something witchy,’” Gibson said about Manson’s media manipulation, which involved doing something frightening or gruesome to gain public attention.
“The idea was to do things so scary, and so bizarre and wicked, that the media would sensationalize it and run with the story and people would be afraid, and the ultimate act would be this race war he was trying to set up.”
Watch the full interview to also hear how the media can create serial killer celebrities and affect the outcomes of murder trials.
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