Cray cray over Tay Tay, the newest MAGA faux outrage. Defense of being a Swifty ;)
TGIF TAT readers,
Today, as we near the Super Bowl event, social media is ablaze from an ever-crazier version of MAGA, fake patriotism and this time, their target is a music icon, named Taylor Swift. Due to lots of chores today, I will only make a couple of points relative to the threat of an entire political party. Are all Republicans bad? Are there The GOP has been influenced or the lay term, “brainwashed,” to behave like the proverbial tale about lemmings following their leader, off a cliff to their demise. I also will credit my son for today’s title. He’s always had that quick and clever, sense of humor.
Ever since Taylor Swift, a remarkable and powerful icon of the music industry began dating Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs, she has triggered the toxic masculinity of the MAGA crowd. This toxic masculinity is one of the pillars of the MAGA movement. They believe that Women should be quiet, barefoot in the kitchen and armed, unless defending themselves from a rapist, the Texas-Taliban abortion vigilantes or against an abusive husband or partner. Taylor is a young woman of strength, fairness and justice. She celebrates this in her music and in the way she lives her life.
Her generosity to those under the thumb of preexisting, antiquated, male-dominated dynamics is legendary, including taking on the most powerful in the historically unscrupulous, music industry. As they say, she leads via her actions and doesn’t look back. Moral public leadership is a trait now absent, in today’s Republican Party.
Like the old geometry definition about two points forming a line, today’s MAGA movement has so many data points that show a dedicated path from normalcy under Eisenhower, the preeminent principled conservative, towards sheer, unabated, precipitous and crazy beliefs. (not a clinical term).
Considering my specialty of Narrative Warfare, I will say with all certainty that the MAGA lemmings, will go off the cliff and take American democracy with them, without intervention. They no longer access their common-sense nor critical thinking. This is the problem when our national security community refuses to do their job of protecting our citizens, from Narrative Warfare. They cannot be bothered because, they are chasing a nonexistent technology answer as their, pot-of-gold, at the end of a non-existent rainbow.
This forty plus year failure of the national security community, has led to the ever-shrinking influence of Western Liberal Democracy. They have been arrogant in believing that bigger and more powerful big tech weapons will deter our enemies. Well, the reality in the world today is conclusively, the evidence of their failure that has put defense contractor bottom lines, over national security.
Now, we are inundated with those proverbial lemmings, believing in an identity of fake patriotism that sees a music icon as a national security threat to be treated horribly in order to satisfy their blood lust. This insanity, instilled in them by MAGA, which largely operates on the same threatening ideology as Putin’s White Christian Nationalism, is the evil enemy of democracy.
We can no longer stay quiet, or these lemmings will achieve Putin’s goal of tossing democracy over the cliff’s edge along with those lemmings. When people have been so conditioned to respond to the words, phrases, narratives etc. of their pied pipers, there is little to no chance of recovery, without serious consequences. We saw this in WW II with the threat of global fascism, the US Civil War where the White Christian Nationalism baked into early American identity, pushed our nation uncontrollably, towards our Civil War.
Now, while we experience nearly the same un-American ideology of the South during that war, it seems that Homeland Security and the FBI, who both have point on defending our homeland, are both out to lunch. They hope and pray for a tech solution that won’t come. They refuse to narrate to the American people and worst of all, they listen to the same alleged experts, that have failed us for these past four decades.
The sheer fact that an ethical, honest and extremely successful woman is happy in supporting her boyfriend, triggers every nerve in their fake patriotic, toxic masculinity. That bizarre pillar of MAGA is a milestone of their crazy, and it’s well down the path of complete and permanently compromised identity, for roughly half of American voters.
The one upside to today’s insights is that I see Americans of stature pushing back hard against this recent insanity. Those MAGA folks are our families, friends and fellow citizens. This makes it difficult to speak up against this level of cognitive compromise but, like any intervention in those with any type of addiction, reality matters. At some point in an addicts’ downward spiral, most will falsely believe that they do not require help. Then, when they understand that help is the only way to survive and be accepted again, they often still backslide.
It is up to us, who care about them and their families, to be not only in a corrective role, but a careful and challenging role as well.
Summary
As noted, this Taylor Swift assault by the MAGA crowd has gone, off-the-rails and this is a sure sign of the downward spiral in the disease of lemmings. The craziest conspiracy theory that I have currently seen, is the MAGA claim that the Super Bowl is rigged by the US government, the Biden Administration and of course the Swifties, to help Kelce and the Chiefs win. Beyond its insanity, this is also a win/ win for the MAGA propagandists. If the Chiefs win, they point and say, “I told you so.” If the Chiefs lose, MAGA claims that the MAGA mob will claim a mighty victory against the bizarre conspiracy theory of the “deep state.”
This is precisely why the Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI must learn what Narrative Warfare is, and how to compete with it on the cognitive battlefield. So far… they are deaf to this concept and American democracy, pays the price. The same occurs in our engagements overseas where the IC/ Intelligence Community and the Pentagon are tasked with protecting US and allied interests.
The Pentagon especially is at least two generations behind our adversaries and with zero clue, how to catch up. They operate on gibberish for doctrine, a bevy of failed defense contractor “experts” and a penchant for rewarding our biggest, nepotistic defense contractors billions for everything but, influence operations. This is the topic of several of my articles here on the Truth about Threats publication. They are linked below.
As they say, there is strength in numbers. The more of us that stand up and be counted when faced with these nutty conspiracy theories, the better. Yes, it is difficult but must be done. Further, we must battle on the field of reality, not the fertile ground of the MAGA conspiracy theory mindset.
Finally, with all of my family on my mom’s side being Kansas City fans, I will gladly pull for the Chiefs, Travis and his teammates, and of course, Taylor Swift. Surely, all of these toxic male MAGA types want a woman to support their man… don’t they? There is zero reason to allow misogynistic MAGA to ruin this yearly experience for anyone. My best tactic is to simply respond with those little laughing emoji’s and deny them any further platform to spew their tall tales. If this makes me a Swifty, so be it. I’ll wear the tag proudly.
My very best for a terrific weekend,
Paul