In anticipation of the 2026 midterm elections, Onyx Impact released “The Propaganda Playbook,” a field guide that navigates the role of disinformation during election cycles — and provides tools to overcome it.
Designed for journalists, content creators and organizations, the 41-page playbook provides in-depth explanations of propaganda techniques, as well as detailed tactics to employ to combat propaganda and disinformation. The playbook will allow its audience to understand the ways propaganda works and create effective tools against it that will outlast this current election cycle, said Eosa Osa, founder and CEO of Onyx Impact, in a press release.
“We are currently living in an era of propaganda, and the 2026 election cycle will see information warfare deployed through tools no previous generation has faced at this scale or speed,” Osa said.
The playbook follows Onyx Impact’s overall goal, which was founded in 2023 with a mission to protect Black communities against propaganda.
The playbook is divided into four phases: understanding propaganda during election cycles, preparing journalists, content creators and organizations for an onslaught of disinformation, reacting once disinformation is spread, and building infrastructure to help journalists, content creators and organizations resist the effects of disinformation.
“To overcome this era of propaganda,” Osa continued, “we must understand what we’re up against and build the resistance infrastructure that outlasts a single election cycle.”
The 2026 midterm elections will occur in the midst of what the playbook calls a “propaganda storm” formed by the “Louisiana v. Callais” Supreme Court decision, the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) generated content, and social media platforms prioritizing engagement over accurate information.
“Louisiana v. Callais” is an April 2026 decision that ruled the creation of a majority Black district as a solution against racial vote dilution, unconstitutional, according to the Harvard Kennedy School. Both Onyx Impact and Legal Defense Fund say this decision eviscerated the Voting Rights Act of 1965, threatening the voting power of Black citizens.
The playbook notes that the current storm of propaganda and disinformation that all American voters face is nothing new to Black citizens. “
The 2026 election cycle will see information warfare deployed through tools no previous generation faced at this scale or speed,” the playbook notes. “Now, communities of every background operate inside the same information warfare infrastructure that Black communities learned to identify and resist long before it had a name.”
Propaganda Tactics
The playbook identified four propaganda tactics that are designed to sow disinformation and confusion among the electorate before journalists, content creators and organizations can effectively intervene.
The first tactic is manufactured narratives, targeting reality through AI fabrication, context extraction and character destruction.
The second tactic is infrastructure destruction, which targets journalists, creators and institutions through harassment, attacks on credibility and content suppression.
The third tactic is wealth extraction, which targets community trust networks like Black-owned businesses, through fake business directories and fraudulent funds.
The final tactic is cynicism bombing: targeting Black political participation by weaponizing earned distrust, stripping political context and amplifying confusion.
Increased amounts of both misinformation and disinformation during election cycles is a well-documented phenomenon; the playbook describes Russian disinformation campaigns targeting Black voters during the 2016 and 2020 elections as an example.
With federal cuts to programs supporting election security and the Trump administration utilizing federal agencies to spread false voting information, the 2026 midterm elections season could be rife with disinformation, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
As a guardrail against disinformation circulation, the playbook poses three questions it says can “limit risk and ensure you remain a credible source for your community.”
The three questions are: Can you verify the sources independently? What does this content ask you to feel before it gives you facts? Who benefits from this story circulating right now?
The playbook lists several actions it says lawmakers, election officials and organizations can take to create safeguards against propaganda and disinformation during election cycles. Its immediate priorities include funding Black and local media organizations and placing limits on AI generated content in elections, and long-term priorities like federal civil rights legislation targeting online suppression of Black content.
“We can not build safer information ecosystems by relying on communities to clean up the damage after it happens,” the playbook says. “Lasting change requires regulatory and legislative action both at the state and federal level that shifts accordingly upstream.”
To read the full playbook, go to propagandaplaybook.org.
