I think something that makes propaganda difficult to deal with is that you are fundamentally dealing with someone who is not operating in good faith.

Usually when reporters work or people argue, they're generally trying to arrive at the truth, even if it's in a flawed way.

For the propagandist, truth is merely another tool in the toolkit, and they'll use it when it advances their purpose and discard it when it doesn't. The same goes with logic and reason. The propogandist will in fact use the truth and reason and logic as much as possible for the simple reason that it's so effective.

This is why Wikileaks was so devastating. As far as I know, there was nothing fabricated in any of it, but it produced an inaccurate impression of the candidates because one side had all their dirty laundry aired in public and he other side operated in secrecy. You'd be a fool to think that a similar release of RNC and Trump emails wouldn't have produced just as much damaging material.

So now the counter-propagandist is put in the difficult position of arguing against the publishing of the truth, not a particular nice place to be, rhetorically.

I think the only way to effectively fight it is our own countermeasures, fighting the truth with more truth. Unfortunately, the executive branch of the us and the U.K. is thoroughly compromised, so the west is going to have to rely on France and Germany to step up their games.