Laser-focus and multi-tasking are the key to limiting Trump's Project 2025, agenda.

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TAT friends and family,

Well, here we are, two Fridays into the next Trumpian threat to our republic. The dust is settling and like most, I have fully restored my opposition to the MAGA/ Russian assault on our constitutional republic. My military career has taught me that clearly assessing a threat, is the key to creating an effective strategy to minimize any threat. The incoming Trump administration is a severe threat to our republic and there is not a shred of evidence or honest expert analysis, that demonstrates anything to the contrary.

The only question remaining, is, “what the hell will we do about it?” Earlier this week, I wrote an “autopsy” of this election. Make no bones about it, MAGA, with Russian support tilted this election to Trump and MAGA, via a wide variety of tactics that suppressed voter participation on one side. On that “side” there is a plenty of blame to go around and left unaddressed, will sink any hope of restoring the republic.

Today’s essay involves discussing the requirement to focus on the actual threats while concurrently avoiding, chasing and arguing about every culture war provocation from the Putin-protégé’, Trump. No strategy begins without assessing the situation and coming to conclusions about where there is opportunity to mitigate the evil intended by the MAGA/ Russian opposition, and where not to waste all of our energy and resources.

First, let’s first take a look at the current situation so that we know what we can accomplish, pre-inauguration and post. This will be from the perspective of voting citizens, not the administration. I will simply add some bullet points below for where we are now.

• It’s not just Trump, but MAGA control of both houses of Congress.

• There is still zero hope that the US National Security Community will protect Americans from Russian/ MAGA false narratives and other related propaganda

• MAGA voters are brainwashed by a type of influence campaign called Narrative Warfare or NW. This type of campaign has some notable symptoms.

  • Intended to drive social division, not just party division

  • Corporate media oligarchs and their investors, still control all media and continue to label MAGA as “conservative.” This is inaccurate. By all known standards, today’s GOP qualifies as a far-right extremist organization

  • Operatives like Brad Parscale, GOP media machines and Russian assets like FOX News, will continue to operate at peak capacity, attempting to continue adding to their population of MAGA lemmings.

  • The opposing party and the DNC are and have been, ridiculously incompetent at campaigning, allowing influence operations to send them on wild goose-chases, instead of building energy and resilience among anti-MAGA voters. This will remain unchanged without a massive shake-up at party headquarters

• Trump, MAGA and Russia will continue to assault every aspect of the US social fabric so that there is less support to overthrow MAGA at the Midterms

  

These bullet points are just the biggest potholes on the road to saving the republic and I warn everyone… that unless serious overhauls occur in the next six months, the road becomes even more treacherous and difficult to travel. The point here is that as much must be done as soon as possible, in order to not allow the MAGA forces to be operating at full power.

Let’s move forward now to discuss what to focus on and what not too, no matter how tempting.

First and foremost, fact-checking works for you in order to be informed but is irrelevant in winning at Narrative Warfare. When engaged in combat, make sure that your weapons work. This means that you must know the facts or pointing fingers at MAGA warriors for lying, becomes a double-edged sword. Narrative Warfare is about someone’s identity deciding what things around them mean. Once MAGA followers have been conditioned to see things a certain way, no amount of fact-checking will change their mind. Arguing your truthful points framed in constitutional values as an example, changes the game. Still, this would be the same as a “counter-narrative” and they don’t work well either, unless you can establish a prominent voice, on the cognitive battlefield. This means a sustained and respected presence is required before counter-narratives work.

In smaller communities, a respected voice of reason will develop a following, if it is sustained, truthful and has integrity. A barrage of insults regularly lobbed at MAGA opponents, will quickly undo the integrity that it takes time to build. NW requires enormous willpower to resist a pitched battle with the worst challengers. Continue to listen and ask for sources. MAGA respondents will never have these and will behave badly when repetitively and respectably, asked to produce their credible sources. Allow them to behave badly while maintaining your dignity. This degrades their credibility in front of their colleagues, friends and supporters. The object is to make them block you and demonstrate for others, that they are devoid of sources.

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Culture wars are to be avoided as much as possible. Nearly everything that MAGA focuses on regarding culture wars, requires legislation to enact. The key is to undermine the support for each MAGA congressman or Senator at home. I’m not talking unethical or illegal means. Heaven knows, MAGA representatives already have so much un-American baggage around their necks in the Trump era. All that is required to tell the truth as framed by America’s true values. For example, here in Texas, there are plenty of unconstitutional agenda items in the TX GOP Platform. Go to war for our constitutional rights and specifically, how your MAGA congressman is supporting the overthrow of the constitution by supporting things like School vouchers, a Christian Bible in public schools, voter suppression and the expenditure of state funds for things like the Texas AG’s trip to Washington D.C. in order to support January 6th.

Then there are things like Greg Abbott’s attempts to deny Federal authorities access to the border in order to support Hot Wheel’s (a common pejorative for Abbott by honest Texans) political stunt called Operation LoneStar. Most of us consider “Operation Loonstar” a better moniker. No matter how ugly and un-American, the Texas GOP behaves, it pales in comparison to what Trump and his hacks will do on the national scale.

diversion means (DOD) 1.The act of drawing the attention and forces of an enemy from the point of the principal operation; an attack, alarm, or feint that diverts attention. Read more at http://acronymsandslang.com/definition/7723459/DIVERSION-meaning.html

- DoD/ military definition of a "diversion"

I’m not saying to ignore all culture wars, but they are largely what military professionals call a diversion. They distract Americans by forcing arguments about things that do not matter, so long as we uphold our constitution. As an example, all gender issues are already covered by the constitutional requirement to offer full equality to citizens. MAGA’s Russian ideology about all issues gender is straight our Putin’s playbook.

Another high-profile culture war revolves around school vouchers. School vouchers anywhere are a threat to the constitution everywhere. The reason is simple and lies mostly in the White Christian Nationalism ideology underlying all MAGA/ Russian ideology. The intent by today’s GOP is to get American taxpayers to pay for Christian private schooling. Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison in particular, are screaming and rolling in their graves at this intended violation of our Establishment Clause/ First Amendment to the Bill of Rights.

Twitter, Bluesky, LinkedIn, Facebook and the myriads of other social media platforms, are saturated with Russian/ MAGA bots doing all possible to burn up your time arguing over these culture wars. Simple common-sense says that for every minute spent as a social media, culture warrior, is a minute not spent on actively fighting where there is opportunity for success. Justice Brandeis said it best in a 1913, Harper’s Weekly Magazine article; “Sunlight is the best of disinfectants.” By this, the brilliant, first Jewish Associate Justice of the United State Supreme Court meant that by shining a light on the actions of wrong doers, they become less of a threat due to the public exposure. When your congressional representative or Senator commits immoral and unconstitutional acts, public exposure is the best remedy. I deal with this near daily with my Congressman Tony Gonzalez of TX 23 and Senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz. Advocacy among other constituents to replace that individual by showing just how immoral these individuals are, is a profitable tactic. This is not a matter of party, but of morality.

I have said for decades, that if we simply uphold the constitution as ethically as possible, party politics will right themselves. In a time when there is zero principled conservatism within the MAGA/ GOP, resist the urge to rally for party. Simply rally for the constitution. The GOP absence of support for that prestigious and revolutionary document, will disqualify them better than any rah, rah, rah cheerleading for party. To be frank, an enormous part of the US electorate is sick of party politics. This is especially true since the US Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision that allows money to purchase elections, rather than win them based on our constitutional principles. The John Roberts’ SCOTUS, especially with Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch and Coney-Barrett in tow will go down in history as attempting to destroy our republic’s foundational and founding principles.

The Citizens United decision is a perfect segue to the next point regarding “sunlight.” Our constitution is considered by most constitutional scholars, to be the “anti-oligarchy constitution.” The Citizens United decision changed all of this. Now, individual voters are at the mercy of mega-donors or rather corporate and individual oligarchs. Their dollars often make the rest of our votes irrelevant. Time spent on legally uncovering and shining sunlight onto funding sources and how much is spent, is something that American voters have a ethical right to know. The more that I see who paid for what, the more that my expenditures do not go towards those interests. We must vote with our wallets, every bit as much as our feet.

Speaking of social media… let’s outline a couple of valuable tactics. First, blocking the MAGA crowd and their associated bots, are not enough. As much as possible, use your free minutes to report mis and disinformation, whenever possible. Afterwards, blocking is a fair tactic. The sad truth is that platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter/ X etc. don’t really do much for content but a large quantity of reported posts and fake accounts, often does meet the requirements for them taking action. If one must fight on social media, do it so that you have some success against adversaries, not just to feel like you’re making a difference.

The more success that you have will most certainly draw more fire from your adversaries. This is a clear sign that you are having an impact. Don’t “spike the ball” with each victory. Gloating will undo the very credibility that you worked so long and hard for. So long as you patiently hammer away at your opponent’s credibility, you win in the long run. There are no quick victories in Narrative Warfare. The more MAGA advocates block you, the more they are left “preaching to their own choir”, of other MAGA followers. The more they talk to each other is less time than they have to indoctrinate others. Do not allow them to drive you into hiding or in military terms, off the battlefield.

Modern Minutemen and Women: The Art of Influence: Narrative Strategy A Voter Education Guide by Paul Cobaugh, Hardcover | Barnes & Noble®

Narrative Warfare is often a thankless chore that denies practitioners the proverbial “immediate gratification,” that most Americans aspire to. Work together with others in order to divide up the tasks and chores in this fight. It is not all about words either. Demonstrations at local community events preaching the values of our constitutional republic and why you are compelled to advocate in support of them is a powerful message. Seeing your neighbors on the sidewalks of America, advocating for constitutional rights, is a tough for MAGA to challenge. Steal the limelight for good and in the process, it will crowd out the opportunities for MAGA to preach their treasonous ideology.

If you own a business or are in charge of a department with rule-making authority, deny access to FOX or other cable news in the workplace. If you must have news at all, use something so dreadfully boring as to lessen interest during the workday. Americans do not need propaganda in any workplace other than political campaigns.

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There are several, common-sense tips in today’s essay. I have long found that when training subordinates and teammates, that too much at one time is counterproductive. For this reason, I won’t bog anyone’s weekend down with more advice. I will return to this topic in the future when I feel that it is the right time to share further. Just when I began playing little league baseball, I was taught the basic fundamentals first. The cat-herding mentality of the DNC and the lack of leadership for non-Democrats to join the fight against MAGA, we must have the basics first, and become proficient with them, before we move on. You will be shocked at how well these basics work, if you are allied with others and divide up the chores for success.

Few influence campaigns are won, with some masterclass level tactic alone. Success requires persistence, guidance and resilience to the inevitable pushback from your opposition. We can do this my friends, but we must work together and remain steadfast. Yes, the next four years will be exhausting but there are no longer any options, if we wish our children and grandchildren to grow up in a nation, that adheres to our remarkable, founding principles. Not only will truth “set us free” but it will also… keep us free.

The last thing that I will advise is critically important to success. Influence operations of the type I am advocating for, happen in the “public square.” Remaining in private groups for some is the only way to remain safe, but the rest of us must compete in the open, or risk simply becoming just another useless “echo chamber.”

As the French people shouted at the beginning of their 1789 revolution against an oppressive monarchy and their storming of the Bastille, “aux barricades.” To the barricades. "To the barricades" in the context of the 1789 French Revolution means a call to action for Parisians to physically confront the authorities by constructing barricades in the streets. There is a long history of such activity across the expanses of European history. This event was highlighted in the Tony Award winning production, Les Misérables. To this day, “aux barricades” represents a call-to-arms for citizens to take action against a monarchy or autocratic leader and their government.

Income disparity, high taxes, lack of honest representation in government etc. are the usual drivers of such revolution. A close read of Project 2025 demonstrates the same triggers that sparked both the US and French revolutions. Giving Trump and his MAGA hordes their way. True American identity does not take well to having their freedoms and rights removed or marginalized. Project 2025 and its sister document, the 2024 GOP Platform, do both.

Have a most wonderful weekend and rest up for the fight ahead.

Paul