Techniques the manipulating bastards use:
A false flag operation is an act committed with the intent of disguising the actual source of responsibility and pinning blame on a second party.

A red herring is something that misleads or distracts from what is relevant or important; leading the intended victims toward a false conclusion.

A wild goose chase is getting people to waste time and resources, working on something that does not exist or really doesn’t matter. Typically a chase for something that's not possible to conclusively prove.

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation that belittles the victim's psyche with seeds of doubt; to undermine the victim’s confidence in their own ability to distinguish truth from falsehood, right from wrong, or reality from delusion.

The goal of gaslighting is to render the individual or group to be dependent on the gaslighter for their thinking and feelings.

Controlled Opposition is when gullible individuals, organizations, or movements; that lack critical thinking abilities; are covertly hijacked or influenced by another entity. The controlled party is portrayed as being in opposition to the interests of the controlling party.

The controlled entity serves a role of mass deception, surveillance, and social manipulation.

The purposes of controlled opposition are to neutralize the threat of a grassroots movement; skewing truth with extreme radical messages or unpalatable positions to stigmatize the position taken; to create a chaotic and divisive environment to throw the opposition into disarray.

Doublespeak is language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words to make what is really being intended, to sound more palatable. Basically what every politician is an expert at.

Predictive programming is when ideas, situations, societal changes, and new technologies are first introduced in movies, TV shows and books; to desensitize people into accepting it, when it actually occurs.

Since people feel like they went through the experiences in their media experience, they more readily accept the reality as being inevitable.
Are there any that I missed?