How about a little good news to start the week
TAT friends and followers,
Let’s begin this week with a little welcome good news about our current constitutional crisis. How could I help but be feeling more optimistic after what transpired at halftime during yesterday’s Super Bowl. Bad Bunny, Ricky Martin, Lady Gaga and countless other performers, put on a show about what America is all about… DEI. Yes, just like Thomas Jefferson’s immortal quote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” I see no exceptions in Jefferson’s words about race, religion, sexual orientation etc. It simply says that Americans abide by the concepts of the Scottish Enlightenment, that our nation was founded upon. Too bad the administration and supporting GOP, don’t read the constitution.
Professionally speaking, taking the pulse of a nation, group or individual is a professional skill developed over my long years serving the US Special Operations Command. Spoiler alert, that pulse is now beginning to race for the resistance, while diminishing in the Republican community. MAGA has seen its best days and is now slowly being whittled down by Americans who abide by our constitution and national values. Republicans have served fake-patriotic values in the Trump era exclusively. The resistance, is not about party, it’s about honest Americans of all political stripes, saying “hell no” to the dismantling of our constitutional republic.
Those fake values, have now cost the party, the outer edges of their base and continue to bleed supporters. At home, in neighborhoods across America and the bloody city streets, running with the blood of real patriots, America has turned the corner and is now… coming for the administration, their party and their oligarchs in November. When I analyze all that is occurring today in the influence world, the results are clear, we have now turned the corner and now have far more momentum than Trump and the Republican Party and their shock troops.
What does it mean that we’ve turned a corner on the fascism of the Republican Party? I have long said and I reiterate here, “that the American people have a patriotic line in their hearts, that cannot be crossed” by either foreign adversaries or the GOP’s traitorous, Project 2025. I do admit to being wrong about the timing of crossing that line, erroneously believing it would be last November, but it was inevitable that it would reveal itself, based on our history. Yes, the very history that this racist administration is doing all possible to “whitewash.” You cannot push true patriots too hard before you regret it. True American patriots have a stubborn streak a mile long. We don’t quit, rest or deviate from our mission, especially the protection of our constitution and nation. The US prior to WW II was not terribly dissimilar to what we experience today, but throughout our history, we reunite in the face of external or domestic, severe threats. It’s simply part of, “who we are as a nation.”
The first time this did not occur was during the 2016 election, where Russian interference in cooperation with the Trump campaign, conned Republican voters into believing that Russia was no longer the “bad guy.” How wrong they were. Just ask Ukraine who was severely hampered on the battlefield due to the leadership of Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, the Republican-led US Congress and of course… Trump. They withheld funding for Ukraine on multiple occasions, in order to help Putin. The Republican Party and their voters, sold out not only our national values of defending liberty, but the Ukrainian people as well.
So, what are some of the indicators I look at when assessing the state of things in our nation, including the political climate?
First, there are the easy tools to keep tabs on, like polling numbers. In most recent polling, not only is Trump at his lowest approval rating, but so is the Republican Party for enabling his actions. In recent polling from the Associated Press-NORC polling folks, comes a devasting look at their unpopularity. There are several graphics in the polling numbers article from the AP but I will only share a couple in the body of this essay. The rest are at the embedded link in the last sentence.
There are several other more subtle clues, such as social media from a professional observer perspective. For example I will use Facebook to make my point, simply because of its popularity among so many citizens of voting age. During the 2016 election, Zuckerberg allowed the personal data of US citizens to fall into the hands of Russia, who was then collaborating with the Trump campaign. They were fined 5 billion dollars for this violation of American law. Zuck doesn’t care because he and his devious little cyber engineers, are now up to far worse shenanigans that impact each FB subscriber account and our national security.
I will add a short note here that I am currently working on a paper that will outline the aforementioned, “shenanigans.” In my line of work, data has the potential to be the nuclear bomb of influencing audiences. It’s a long explanation but in short, everything we do online creates data. That data offers deep clues to each users personality or as I say in my Narrative Warfare expertise, “identity.” Influence operators then use those insights to do what is called, “micro-targeting.” This is just a long way of saying that marketers, enemies and more, use that data to influence us to believe whatever they wish. Unethical marketers, who are annoyingly flooding us with ads at every turn, use these tactics as well, to pick your pockets and line theirs.
Identity analysis is intensely complicated and understood by very few, even within the majority of the US national security community. Operating with Narrative Warfare, is still far outside the abilities of our national security community. Quite obviously, today’s DNC is another entity that refuses to learn about the cognitive warfare that American politics have become. If the Democratic Party had any talent at all in this field, they would not be on the losing streak they have been on and we wouldn’t be in the crisis we are in now.
"Narrative Warfare is the battle for control of the identity of audiences. Control the identity and you control the audience." - Cobaugh 2025
Anyway, data provides some valuable insights into the identity of audiences, and this is one of the reasons that the massive theft and misuse of all of our data by the Peter Thiel and Elon Musk is so acutely dangerous. The only good news is that our adversaries are just as incompetent at Narrative Warfare as we are, but this won’t last. Our national security research entities are perpetually on the wrong analytical and research tracks, falsely believing that technology alone can solve for identity. They are dead wrong and have wasted billions of our tax dollars, chasing their tails. The administration, via Musk and Thiel has secured our personal data from most US government agencies, including our Social Security data base, Treasury, OMB, the IRS, HHS, Department of Education, and the Department of Labor, to name only a few. Thiel is busy building a monster database for the administration with all of our stolen data, in order to weaponize it against US citizens.
This is what makes Facebook dangerous. As noted, Zuckerberg, whose sniveling subservience to Trump is painful to watch, is up to other tricks of technology to influence Americans. His work around the globe has been dangerous to others as well and has been is condemned for contributing to the genocide of the Rohingya people of Myanmar. Our largest data collectors, such as FB, LinkedIn, Amazon, Twitter or X and others have a very poor ethics records and should never be trusted… not even for a second.
As for taking the pulse, some fascinating insights have appeared on FB in the past month or so. Here’s how it goes; Republican Congressmen have apparently been instructed to go on a “charm offensive” on FB. This means that they post fluff pieces ad nauseum. For example; photo ops with local business leaders, law enforcement or local Republicans. They are trying to rebuild a relationship with their base after being primarily and honestly blamed for the government shutdown, the violent and illegal ICE operations that deny due process, injure protestors and murder US citizens. Here’s the kicker, it’s not working. At the moment, the Republican Party’s popularity is sinking faster than the Titanic with voters, and they’re being trounced on popular social media platforms, other than ones like Truth Social or other far-right sites. The American people are no longer having it.
So when I look at FB and see these GOP lawmakers’ posts, I click on the little emoji buttons and see how many of those buttons are happy faces, angry faces, laughing faces etc. Those numbers are roughly 70% of the time in my informal polling, very negative towards the Republicans posting them. The comments against them can be downright brutal and numerous. In fact, as I was just typing I got a notification that a MAGA republican’s post that I and countless other had commented on, took down the post after being torched for their MAGA ways, by a long list of commenters. Our voices do matter. The American people have been awakened and just as the Japanese Admiral who strategized the attack on Pearl Harbor is quoted after turning his fleet around and heading home, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve"
On FB, like other platforms, that brash arrogance from Republicans post-election, is something that we have all come to despise. Other than their own platforms like Truth Social and others, their attitude has had some adjustments. They’re still there but tend hide in private groups and only come out insult. Of course, GOP “influencers” also deploy the endless number of bots and fake accounts, that FB refuses to protect us from. Those bots are the majority of the commenters expressing that insidious arrogance we saw a year ago. To some extent, their lack of popularity are indicative of what is also happening in the small towns and city blocks of America towards the MAGA crowd. Unaddressed affordability by this greedy administration, is also driving away voters.
As someone raised in the Midwest near Amish communities I am aware of a tradition called “shunning,” Shunning is based on Amish law and is more or less, the excommunication of a church member for violating church law. Outside the Amish community, shunning still exists informally but is not based on any church law. In simple terms shunning refers to someone no longer worthy of associating with decent folks or their community. On FB, Republicans, their politicians and especially political leadership are slowly being shunned. This is a notable recent development on the platform.
LinkedIn, long a bastion of Russian and MAGA operations, is even beginning to slowly limit political content, even though it was the good guys that LinkedIn used to punish harshly for fighting back, rather than the Russians and MAGA crowd. In fact, Newsweek wrote a long expose’ about this in 2017 and the article was written by the GOAT of US national security and intelligence reporting, Jeff Stein, now of SpyTalk, now on Substack. I was included in this article along with a handful of colleagues who had joined battle with Russia and MAGA on their platform.
Then my friends, I include the massive numbers of Americans in the streets. From the first large rallies against this criminal administration, the numbers have climbed at an astonishing rate. In the streets where ICE and the rest of Trump’s Executive Branch thugs do their worst, the numbers have grown even faster and now represent massive numbers of American voters of all political stripes. Morale within DHS, ICE, CBP etc. is plummeting as agents with good reputations, are forced to participate in these violent ICE Immigration Operations. The cracks are not only visible in the shell of the administration, it’s becoming cancerous from within. Our job, is to turn those ever-expanding cracks, into a complete break. This means a stronger offense and applied at the critical fractures.
For example, from nearly the beginning of this administration, I have strongly and often recommended targeting Republican lawmakers on social media, at their home or Capital offices or even in their home towns. Reactive defensive operations is a losers game. Taking the fight to the bad guys, demands targeting their deepest vulnerabilities. In this case and as the Midterms approach, Republican congressmen and senators are absolutely running scared, even here in deep red Texas where a Democratic upstart just defeated a Republican in deep red Tarrant County for a state Senator’s seat in a district Trump had won the district by 17 points. Here in San Antonio, we recently elected our next mayor, a former Under Secretary of the USAF and out, lesbian. Yes, here in a state run by the likes of deeply MAGA Republicans who revel in ignoring our constitution and the Texas constitution, things are shaking up enough to worry Governor Greg Abbott and the Republican Party of Texas.
The alternative reality that Republicans have been living in during the Trump era, are finding that reality growing smaller by the day. Pretty soon, they will be potential shunning victims within their own districts. If it were up to me, I would demand the three A’s, Apology, atonement and acceptance of their guilt, before readmitting them back into civil society, especially after the abuse they have imposed onto hard-working taxpayers.
And now, let’s sum up this little bit of good news. I promise to make it short for those of you with tired eyes.
My fellow citizens and other residents of our great nation, we’ve had very little to smile about since last November. I’m not saying that the redemption of our republic is yet a sure thing at this stage, but the light at the end of the tunnel is getting a bit brighter these days. All too often when a runner is far ahead in a race, they tend to let off the gas and become complacent. Now is not the time and in fact, it’s time to redouble our efforts and now also on offense. Take the fight to the Republicans where they are most vulnerable. In my opinion… that is directly to every sitting Republican in Congress and now is the time to “strike while the iron is hot.” Their home offices are a great choice but if you can’t travel, follow your local congressman and daily, declare your disgust and objections on their social media posts. They are down and we must not let them get up.
Like the protesters in our streets, non-violence, compassion and communication with the non-violent ICE officials is always a good tactic. Like I said, most are ashamed of these operations. Appeal to their morality, their reputation in their communities and for their families. Shame is a powerful motivator. Use it ethically. When shaming someone who may respond favorably, give them the out by saying, you don’t have to do this, you can stand with us and the constitution. Bleeding members away from the Republican Party may look like an impossible task but every day, we see that those little defections are growing and growing at a slowly increasing pace. Reward those with the courage to change sides. If they do, that’s the “atonement” part of the three A’s.
We can do this America and yes, we will. Back later in the week with hopefully a bit more good news. Good news is the fuel we need to raise a powerful wave, not a blue wave, but a truly American wave. Making this fight partisan is also a losing gambit so please, let’s avoid those shouts of “blue wave” or go Democrats. That won’t sell to voters looking to change sides. I’d recommend making this about restoring our constitutional republic as patriotic Americans and for all Americans. I have long said that if we simply follow the highest precepts of our founder, the politics will work themselves out. When this is over, it’s time to take on Chief Justice John Roberts and end this dangerous Citizens United nonsense that pumped unlimited dark money into our campaigns.
Onward patriots.
Paul