Republican influence operations against America
The threat is real
As we head into a week celebrating my very favorite holiday, the resistance has some momentum to be grateful for, as we continue to gain ground on the Trump/ Republican regime. There are also a great many dangerous pitfalls ahead, especially if we continue allowing ourselves to be affected, by different influence operations here at home. Today’s essay is about one of the most dangerous, Republican influence operations, often supported by Russian influence operations over at least the last dozen years, including our 2024 election.
As regular readers know, such operations are the core of my profession as a former influence operator for the US military. It has been exceptionally painful for me to watch the US and our allies, submit to Russian, Republican and a wide variety of other adversarial campaigns.
My former professional, national security community, has been a persistent failure since the end of the Cold War at protecting our nation and allies from what is termed, “malign influence.” This simply means that we are daily under assault by hordes of adversarial influence campaigns that impact nearly every aspect of our lives, and have been for decades. If we do not educate the public as to some of the critical factors regarding our adversaries’ activities, we will never unburden ourselves of the threats, from our political landscape to our shopping habits. Yes, online, “influencers, both actual and the whole host of technology threats underlying their platforms, are influencing us and it is working. Below, are a few background essays for those with interest. They will help to fill in the details of the four decade-long failure within our national security community.
Combat ineffective, the rusted, broken hulk of US Influence Operations (truthaboutthreats.com)
J’accuse our National Security community for influence, of putting our Republic at significant risk.
Arrogance, waste fraud and abuse and cronyism in national defense contracting, are putting our republic at severe risk. (truthaboutthreats.com)
As that it would require a series of thick books to explain all that is relevant to the art and science of influence, today I just want to take a look at a couple of our most timely threats and opportunities. These revolve around the current MAGA version of the Republican Party and their regime. First of all, it is important to ask, what is the purpose of their influence campaigns? This means looking at what is occurring now and what their campaigns intend to achieve, in both the short and long run.
Since we are discussing Trump and his regime primarily, let’s take a look at what their most immediate needs and wants are. First and foremost, the current administration’s number one short term focus, is to relieve the pressure from the president and his entire party, regarding the Epstein accusations. Secondly, this is playing out against the ongoing global, strategic realignment, that sees all major powers maneuvering for their place in the “new world order.” It should come as no surprise to anyone that these two issues are as entangled as a string of Christmas lights, put away carelessly last January. The embedded link above explains the new world order issue in detail but to save readers some time, I will offer here a very brief overview. Trump has precariously put himself and us, at the very center of this realignment, and I believe in a very dangerous way.
The day after last November’s election, Putin called then president-elect Trump to congratulate him and happened to drop one other item into his public statement. To paraphrase, Putin said that Trump’s election was the beginning of a new world order. Based on my long experience in national security and countless hours of research, it is apparent that there is new energy in the global realignment that began after the Berlin Wall fell, which ended Putin’s precious, Soviet empire. After Putin reclaimed Crimea in 2014, Russian influence that had haunted the US and NATO since the end of World War II, sharply increased and specifically targeting social divisions in the US such as race, gender, religion and of course, income disparity. Like the Soviets before them, Russia invested heavily in creating and sustaining divisiveness in the fabric of US society. Putin’s long-term goal is to reacquire all of the former Soviet empire, while destroying his ideological foe, the west, especially the US.
Within a few months, Russian and Republican political influencers began taking on closely related campaign narratives regarding divisiveness, and which we continue to suffer from today. Most of the GOP’s culture wars are a result of or sustained by these parallel campaigns. Like the SSCI/ Senate Select Committee on Intelligence confirmed in a 3 ½ year investigation headed by Republicans in the Senate, their findings showed clear cooperation between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia. Putin saw and still sees Trump as someone who will follow along with Putin’s perspective on sovereign rights of nations. The Russian perspective (and I paraphrase) is that only a small handful of powerful nations have the rights to full sovereignty while all other nations have limited sovereign rights, and fall under the purview of that handful of superpowers.
In the modern world, this means that Putin, Xi, Modi and Trump are the only primary leaders. As we can see with Trump’s bending of the knee to Putin at nearly every turn, a reasonable person would conclude a working relationship, more informal than not and in support of Russia’s sovereignty views. Trump’s new 28 point and alleged “peace plan” for the war in Ukraine, is as Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “Putin’s Wishlist. ”Simply put, these four leaders are carving up the world into their zones of dominance by virtue of their “full sovereignty rights” into zones. Today, Putin, Xi, Trump and Modi possibly, make up the only club on earth that matters, the autocrat club.
This explains Trump’s obsession with annexing Canada, Greenland, Panama, attacks on Venezuela and bailing out Argentina, among other geo-political maneuvers, in the Americas. Trump’s agenda sees him ruling over the entire western hemisphere while Russia, China and likely India, maneuvering to carve up the rest of the world. Okay, now we know what the probable strategic endgame is for Putin. Next step for Putin is keeping Trump’s domestic issues from upending the strategy.
At the top of Trump’s Project 2025 agenda of converting our constitutional republic into an autocracy, requires him to establish a completely authoritarian nation that eliminates dissent and every other form of resistance. This gives him the muscle he needs to accomplish his part of Putin’s strategy. To date, Putin still needs the US to hedge against China’s intended dominance, in their China Dream strategy, supported by his Belt and Road Initiative. Hence the militarization of our nation, such as putting troops onto American streets and his cruelly abusive ICE raids which are meant to be intimidation tactics demonstrating to all of us, that he will do what it takes to establish and maintain firm control over every aspect of our nation.
At the moment, the Epstein Files issue is a serious obstacle to his pursuit of American autocracy. We, the rapidly growing resistance, are in his way. He has not yet established full control over our military and likely will not. This is why he lost his temper when congressional veterans, made their ads asking military members to remember their oath of service. Trump knows that he has not consolidated enough power to overcome the resistance he’s receiving from Americans, over his personal and long-time relationship with the CEO of a global child sex trafficking ring. Epstein’s “friends” were all men in powerful positions from around the globe and in some US cases, from both primary parties. Their actions, mostly at Epstein’s private island, gave him leverage over many of the world’s most powerful men. Such leverage is better known as blackmail or what Russian operators call, Kompromat. In fact, Kompromat in Russia, is the rule, not the exception.
Now, the Epstein files threaten both Trump’s and, in many ways, Putin’s plans. In fact, it is easy to assume and quite likely true, that Putin also has kompromat on Trump. With this background, let’s see how influence operations are now going full tilt, to put plans back on track. Recently, Russian influence operations have greatly increased again in the US. Interestingly now, Russian influence operations in the US are more focused on Russia’s strategic ambitions, especially their failures in Ukraine. The reason they focus on these narratives with Americans, is because Republicans who vote Trump are already conditioned by over a decade of influence operations to have a somewhat tolerant perspective about Russia. Win the populace, and you win the war.
The GOP, with their own stable of immoral influencers and their subordinate organizations and movements, are now up to their proverbial behinds in crisis management after being slaughtered in the recent elections, the Epstein files and ICE operations that round up mostly innocent legal residents and even US citizens. The GOP operations are focused largely on our social media in order to influence already gullible Republicans due to their decades of conditioning to Republican false and dishonest narratives. Among those false narratives, are pro-Russian narratives too. Republican voters have been voting to support Russia since at least the 2016 election season, and all due to Republican influence operations that focus on supporting Trump, which by default, supported Russian interests.
GOP voters cannot see Russia or Trump’s relationship with Putin, anymore, than they can see reality on any topic. Please see the two essays below, for a full explanation about why our Republican friends and family. cannot discuss reality with anyone but their fellow MAGA Republican friends. They exist in an alternative reality with little or no connectivity to the world that the rest of us live in. There are plenty of words to describe this, but for the two essays, I’ve chosen two lay terms; “conned and brainwashed.”
Next up, you may have noticed that our Republican-led congress finally voted to release the Epstein files, prompting the GOP nose-dived, head first into a largescale messaging campaign to make their representatives and senators look less supportive of child sexual predation. They don’t do this directly because their credibility is going or gone from many of their constituents. Now, my Facebook feed and others, are full of “fluff pieces” by GOP congressman attempting to make them look like working reps and “good Republicans.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Their only accomplishments have been to support profiteering for themselves, Trump, his cabinet and enabling oligarchs. Nothing they have done in party-line votes, supports the health and welfare of the American people, including our national security.
As I review these farcical posts from the GOP, I’ve been taking an informal poll during this period. Even here in blood-red Texas, the local congressmen here in south-central Texas, are getting beat-up by their constituents, sometimes as badly as a two to one margin. Finally, we are seeing a line that even Trump can’t cross and that line is sexual predation, especially of children. His well-deserved shame, has soaked into nearly every Republican in the nation. This is why they are trying to first, play the “nice guy” card on social media, hoping that constituents will tolerate them again. They are so out of favor over the Epstein issue that even their own constituents won’t buy into anything else they say or campaign for.
Before Epstein, the GOP was already losing their grip on their voters due to family, friends, neighbors etc., pressuring them to speak up about the GOP’s cruel and alleged, immigration raids that turned out to be far from rounding up the “worst of the worst” undocumented immigrants. When the news about rounding up US citizens, legal residents and their abuse at the hands of ICE and others, especially sending them to places where they will likely face torture, abuse and often death started coming out, the raids became far less popular in the GOP voting crowd. The fact that Trump and henchmen continue ignoring the law, hasn’t helped either.
The last straw was the GOP government shutdown, designed to enrich oligarchical and uncaring healthcare corporations by jacking up premiums to absurd rates, while declining services. This is the very thing that provoked Luigi Mangione to act. The way the GOP keeps protecting their oligarchs, Luigi will not be the last. No government, unpaid military and federal workers and the prospect of losing their healthcare sealed the GOP’s fate. As baseball fans know, “three strikes and you’re out.” Epstein, cruel and abusive roundups, and the shutdown were those three strikes. As Napoleon famously said, “when your adversary is making a mistake, don’t interrupt them.” What all of this comes down to is something that true influence operators rarely see, a trifecta of opportunity to crush the opposition.
So, the question is, where the hell is the DNC? Resistors, spurred on by support from several courageous Democratic congressmen, is great, but now is the time for a massive, crushing offensive that delivers a significant battlefield victory to the resistance. The focus may currently be Epstein files, but we must not bet only on one horse. Sure, keep Epstein in their faces while concurrently applying energy to their other major mistakes of the past few months.
Always remember that it is not just a Democratic victory, the resistance is full of Americans from all political affiliations. The Republicans have been trying everything to disrupt their downward momentum, but to no avail. They tried all of their old tropes… the fake accusations of socialism, Christian Nationalist cheerleading, wielding words like “hoax” and “witch-hunt” and all of the other racist, immoral and utterly dishonest tropes common to their base. Trump even made a few pathetic attempts to take on the “affordability issues,” haunting all of us except the 1%. This didn’t sell either.
In warfare, momentum ebbs and flows and this is why now is the time to put a few more nails in the coffins of not only the GOP agenda, but their endless list of enablers and oligarchs too. Momentum is a priceless commodity. As we enter the holiday season this week officially, most Americans are worried about their personal future, and as they should be. The GOP continues wrecking the economy for all working Americans, including Republicans. The GOP is hoping that the holidays will buy them time to regroup and distract voters from their disastrous performance running our government and inflicting pain on everyone but themselves. We cannot allow them to catch their breath. When this administration does outrageous things daily, it is difficult to stay focused but focus we must… on Epstein and the GOP’s protection of the files.
So, what does all of this matter to winning the war of influence against the GOP and still… Russia? It means that someone or a lot of someones, must finance massive media campaigns.
We need to focus
First and foremost, anyone who runs the influence campaign or campaigns of the resistance must stop following the defunct and failed strategies of the DNC, which have produced little success over the past decade or so. They are operationally clueless.
The cognitive warfare we are engaged in is actually called Narrative Warfare, a unique and highly successful but ignored type of influence. I won’t dig deeply into an explanation of Narrative Warfare today, because it would add at least an hour to this reading. The simplest possible definition of Narrative Warfare is below.
“Narrative Warfare is the battle between competing influence operations, to control the identity of audiences.”
- Cobaugh
- 2025
The only way to win in such a battle is to campaign in a sustained manner and to understand the identity of the audiences you seek to influence. Democrats have largely been reactive to GOP provocations and the solid rule of thumb in Narrative Warfare is, that counternarratives alone is a commitment to losing. Effective Narrative Warfare operations require narratives about political issues to be first, in order to establish the dominant narrative, not waiting until tomorrow to figure out what to do or in the DNC’s case, respond at all. These contingencies should have been planned for, far in advance. For example, during the 2024 election, the GOP created the two most disastrous narratives to the DNC, the so-called border crisis and alleged inflation. The GOP established their narratives first, and the DNC never caught up. Their false narratives were so successful and without any serious rebuttal, that the news media adopted them despite knowing how dishonest they were.
We must not only keep Republican failures in front of cameras and on social media, but we must also project what it means to be an American voter that takes their history and values seriously enough to stand up to wannabe mobsters like Trump and Putin. Again, inflation, cruel and dishonest immigration actions and of course Epstein are the their most dangerous, self-inflicted wounds for the GOP. Don’t let the public forget these things. We all must do this by challenging the GOP’s currently intended, “charm campaign.” There is nothing charming about their actions and we must say so out loud, all day and every day.
Tell voters the truth about how the GOP hurt them and the nation. Don’t dress these truths up in policy discussions. Just speak plainly and clearly to America. Stop employing the bright yellow, Occupy Democrats brand. It’s a failed brand, as evidenced by last November’s election. Posting a bright yellow failed brand is little different that waving a red flag at a bull. It’s not that their content is wrong, but why deliver good news with a failed brand. You cannot sell middle and Republican crossover voters on participating by waving failed, highly partisan brands without successes. I don’t have a problem with anyone pursuing progressive agendas but for heaven’s sake, tone it down and be a team player for the opposition. You cannot attract middle voters by waving Palestinian flags and wearing shirts that say, “socialism is the future.” The more the progressives wave their flags, the better the GOP can message to divide the resistance. Win the election first and then pursue your agendas. Step one is to defeat the GOP control of congress.
Social media has become an important source of influence, and it is dangerous to not have a strategy in how we engage there. The key is to be proactive and not wait until we see their posts. Hunt them down, follow them and then continue pushing those three focus areas on them publicly. Even if they post on a different topic, bring the comment section back to the Epstein issue primarily, but include Trumpflation and the cruelty of masked, ID-less and violent ICE shock troops.
Remember, every single day, this administration does at least a couple of things that are exploitable. Create proactive narratives yourselves and be first to establish them. Don’t wait for someone to lead and tell you what to write. This provides a good segue to talk for a moment about digital censorship, manipulation, bots and a whole host of other tech tactics. The GOP has invested heavily in tech expertise from marketers and tech groups to suppress our efforts to win online. This is David vs. Goliath thinking. The resistance needs immense tech expertise and the dollars to pay for it. Remember, we’re up against the likes of Musk, Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Bezos, Brad Parscale and plenty of other soulless profiteers, who don’t care who or what they hurt, so long as they profit wildly. Oh yeah, don’t forget these guys have already stolen all of our data and use it against us daily.
The issue of influence and our data vulnerability is a very deep topic, and I will need to address it in a future essay. We are at significant risk because of the bad guys who have harvested our data, legally and illegally now for years.
Summary
We’ve covered a lot of ground in this essay. I understand that it is a lot to grasp but it is also, important for all of us to have a clearer view of the big picture. We are bombarded every single day with influence. Marketers, influencers, nation-states and political parties etc. are wielding insidious influence campaigns against all of us, for their own benefit, not ours. There is ample evidence that our founders expected for citizens, to be well and accurately informed in order to effectively exercise their rights as free citizens. Those who employ unethical influence campaigns against us are determined to make our founder’s wishes, unachievable. It is every citizen’s responsibility to be accurately informed. We must all honor this responsibility.
It is also up to us to set the record straight in order to defeat those who would misinform us for their own selfish purposes. We are a nation of values and must act like it. Abdication of this responsibility and refusal to stand up and set things straight, is how we ended up in the mess we’re in in the first place. I professionally consider malign influence’s impact on the American populace, to be our most serious national security threat. One third of our nation, the GOP can no longer see reality due to such influence. It is the responsibility of the rest of us, regardless of political affiliation, to pull our nation out this painful era.
We cannot solve problems without truth, any more than we can solve a math problem by inserting the numbers we like into the equation, rather than the right ones. The same applies to information. The tried and true old saying, “the truth will set us free,” also applies here and in fact, will keep us free. At this stage of the current administration, it is not likely that we will ever have a better time than now, to strike a blow for recovering our republic.
I hope this overview gives readers the knowledge and inspiration, to act on some of my advice and professional insights. Doing so now, may just be what it takes to rechart our course back towards the constitutional republic, so many have fought and died to sustain. I’m all in and sincerely wish to stand shoulder to shoulder, alongside the rest of you, upon the gleaming ramparts of our “shining city on the hill.”
My kindest regards and warmest wishes for your holiday week ahead. I may take a bit of a break this coming week as well, if I can keep myself away from the keyboard. We’ll see.
Paul