Separating the Wheat from the Chaff about our Southern Border.
Or... shining sunlight on the MAGA false narratives
Happy Monday TAT readers,
Yesterday’s playoff games, some rest and recovery from last week’s turmoil and with hope on the horizon, today we dispel the utter nonsense that serves as MAGA’s propaganda about the Southern Border.
First, a quick explanation of how and why I again am forced to take on this topic. The points below will be flushed out in today’s article.
No person, state, nation or organization can make sound decisions without real data and truth. My definition of truth is as follows:
- Truth = All known facts, presented objectively and in context Cobaugh - 2018
Today’s MAGA controlled GOP lives on false narratives and an especially dangerous type of narrative, conspiracy theories.
Yes, there is a serious issue at our Southern border but… what do Americans really know?
Whatever we do regarding national security must be done within the framework of truly patriotic, American values based on our Constitution.
Not that I support any big money political party but if we don’t treat our true American identity for the cancerous MAGA ideology, the cancer wins, and American democracy dies a slow, humiliating and painful death.
I will attempt to be succinct in discussing each of these points. I know, I often fail to do this but hey, I do try my best. ;)
No person, state, nation or organization can make sound decisions without real data and truth
I hail largely from Midwestern, small farm families. On one side of the family are also, a couple of dozens of professional educators from elementary to prestigious positions with major universities. This includes my dad, who began his career in public education as a history and government teacher. The combination of education and small farming is an exceptional laboratory for the nexus between common-sense, and the necessity of finding truth in order to make sound decisions.
Farmers for example, cannot just make up the fact that it rained, didn’t rain or they risk losing their crops and by extension, their family’s well-being. They listen to the expertise of the County Conservation agents who the US government put into play during the Dust Bowl in order to steer farmers away from the practices that contributed to the disaster. Today, corporate farmers tend to be less protective of their land in order to maximize profits but still, they must employ knowledge rather than conspiracy theories in order to defeat disaster too.
The point is, facts, truth and context matter… a lot.
"FOX News and similar media have conditioned GOP voters for 30 years, to subconsciously support an alternate reality due to how narrative principles work. The only way to win against false narratives or more commonly understood by a layperson as propaganda, is with compelling moral narratives, that also trigger predictable responses, grounded in moral principles. The US national security community has refused to understand this for decades and still does. This leads to us having zero defense against such activities from adversaries, foreign and domestic. In other words, MAGA followers have been "conned." -Cobaugh - 2020
Educators, provide not only the knowledge but the lessons of critical thinking to students, so that they also can employ knowledge and skilled decision making for their own success, regardless of profession or study paths. Herein lies the problem with our Southern border. The MAGA narratives are false, unsupported by truth and being narratives, trigger MAGA supporters to ignore both knowledge and critical thinking. To make matters worse, GOP/ MAGA narratives, are un-American and the exact opposite of patriotic.
The bottom-line is that I never accept comments from any politician regardless of party, and always look for the answers via the most credible sources and, via critical thinking and good ole’ Midwestern common-sense.
Today’s MAGA controlled GOP lives on false narratives and an especially dangerous type of narrative, conspiracy theories.
So, much of my research comes from social media data and other media sources. What follows in the posted quote is my summary of what US and especially Texas audiences are hearing from the GOP about the Southern Border. I will tell you this, it is a combination of made-up content that is woven into a false narrative that subconsciously triggers Republican voters, to falsely believe that they are patriotic. People, nations, states and organizations… are what they do, not what they say.
My shortened and somewhat kinder version of the GOP narrative of the Southern Border. It is patently false. "Our nation is being invaded by drug cartels, indigent refugees who live on the public dole, rape and murder our rightful citizens and take jobs from Americans. The Federal government is doing nothing so, Texas and Greg Abbott are courageously fighting the good fight because it's all the Democrats fault. Harsh measures are required to stop the invasion, even if it means that people die or get hurt." - The US GOP and TX narrative about the Southern Border in our election year. - Cobaugh - 2024
My family, in their kind-hearted manner would say, “that their intentions are good,” but I simply say that they have been conned. "Their actions, no matter the intent, is a threat to US democracy. They have the intellect to make sound decisions, but the way that narrative works, they are mostly powerless to do so. Here in the South, it is also common to just say, “bless your heart.”
Quite frankly, I prefer the “bless your heart approach” but the threat to US democracy by the MAGA madness, requires a firmer response.
For example, nearly 70% of the GOP believes in some form of the 2020 election being stolen. This is despite all manner of care taken by election workers from both sides, and who attest to the excellence in voting during that pivotal election. This is madness considering that all of their “favorite politicians/ narrators” were reelected. No sitting member of the GOP Congress will openly challenge this insanity, including my own duplicitous congressman here in TX 23, Tony Gonzalez. The “big lie” narrative cannot be replaced with a fact-check or even testimony by career government workers with extraordinary integrity. That is not how narrative works. I offer the case against Trump and his cronies in Georgia as “Exhibit A.”
For a much deeper understanding of how entrenched MAGA conspiracy theories are in the GOP, below are links to in-depth articles.
It’s no longer Liberal vs. Conservative… It’s reality vs detachment from it. (truthaboutthreats.com)
TX politics are a national security threat. (truthaboutthreats.com)
Please, let's solve immigration and put an end to the bizarre, false narratives and cruelty of Governors, Greg Abbott, Ron DeSantis and the MAGA hordes. (truthaboutthreats.com)
Yes, there is a serious issue at our Southern border but… what do Americans really know?
First, let’s get some reality from the CBP/ Customs and Border Patrol regular reporting, available to all on their website. A little background here will be helpful. I live in and when not off on yearly deployments to combat zones on exclusively CT/ Counterterrorism missions, my small team always sat down with Texas Law Enforcement and briefed them on factors in CT overseas that may or may not be worthy of their focus here at home. They also, in the same cooperation meetings, briefed us on what they had experienced in our absence, and which included the Southern border. This began for me around 2007 or 08. To this day, it is not uncommon for me to read CBP reporting at some point in each month.
Although I have written at least twice and in-depth over the past year on this topic, I will add fresh data and links to reporting, from the CBP/ Customs and Border Patrol and ICE/ Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The MAGA propaganda says that the Federal Government isn’t doing anything at the border. This is insulting to the men and women doing their very best daily, to maintain our borders security while observing US and international law. They, like the military and elected representatives, swear an oath to protect the constitution from all enemies and domestic. The MAGA crowd insults these hard-working professionals daily with their propaganda. MAGA complains ad nauseum, that the border is a chaotic crisis without direction, rhyme or reason. In one of the links below you can find plenty of truth to challenge their false narratives.
Just today are these press releases from the Federal Government and listed on the CBP website. The link below takes you to these and another 400 pages of initiatives in chronological order.
Searchable data from every possible angle regarding the Southwest border or for that matter, any US border.
Southwest Land Border Encounters | U.S. Customs and Border Protection (cbp.gov)
From this embedded link from the Dept. of Homeland Security you can find pretty much any data you care to acquire about border operations.
The bottom line to this section is that it is the only place you can acquire ground truth regarding data. If you believe the sensationalist writings from any so-called, “side” then you run a very strong risk of not getting the best information and in some cases, absolutely data better defined as propaganda.
One issue in particular that is driving increased numbers at the southern border can be attributed to… yes, Putin. Here’s how that occurs: Putin is using diversions globally in order to draw attention away from his massive failures in Ukraine. The war in Gaza is a prime example where Putin, gets his proxy Iran, to provoke a conflict hoping to get the west to invest logistical support to Israel rather than Ukraine. He has done this in Azerbaijan/ Armenia, central Africa, the Balkans and even orchestrated a coup in Niger.
From the US perspective, he and his long-time inroads and support from the GOP are now focused largely on the immigration issues at the Southern border. This is the only topic that the GOP currently is having success with from a propaganda point of view and the other side of the aisle is too incompetent to address effectively. Putin’s “Hail Mary” is to have another Trump administration to bail him out of his failures globally. Supporting Putin these days means by default, that the GOP is also supporting China, Iran and their proxies. This is easy to see in the graphic below, that I created to explain this topic at the beginning of the war in Gaza.
Putin’s efforts at the Southern Border are to funnel as many refugees as possible into the region in order for them to move northward towards Texas. These refugees come from Russian aligned nations and are sent to Cuba where they are then funneled into Nicaragua and then on to the US border by foot. This is called, “weaponized migration.
Whatever we do regarding national security must be done within the framework of truly patriotic, American values based on our Constitution
Since I have written on this particular topic often, I will add just a paragraph or two and then, links to these articles for background.
The US is a national of laws, underpinned by our remarkable Constitution. We obey this document when we are ethical and when we don’t, it costs us severely. The US Civil War and our Civil Rights movements are prime examples. Both of these examples tenaciously endure to this day, within the MAGA dominated GOP.
A daily example of violating the constitution is what Greg Abbott and his Texas Taliban GOP does at the border. Nothing is more flagrant than locking the Federal Government out of a section of the border while concurrently lying about it. He is attempting, solely for his political ambitions, to ignite another Fort Sumpter incident. He and the TX GOP are in my professional opinion, the most severe of threats to the US our state and certainly, global democracy.
For this reason and the fact that I’m a Texan, I abhor the blood red stain that Abbott’s Texas Taliban, have left on our once proud state.
Background links, to in-depth and well-cited articles:
Texas has Seceded from the Union... again. (truthaboutthreats.com)
Please, let's solve immigration and put an end to the bizarre, false narratives and cruelty of Governors, Greg Abbott, Ron DeSantis and the MAGA hordes. (truthaboutthreats.com)
Texas Travesty - by Paul Cobaugh - Truth About Threats
A Melting Pot is quite literally, who we are as Americans.
If we don’t treat our true American identity for the cancerous MAGA ideology, the cancer wins, and American democracy dies a slow, humiliating and painful death.
In my youth and the first four years of my life, President Eisenhower was our POTUS. In my opinion, the most principled conservative POTUS, ever. A few weeks ago, I wrote an exhaustive piece comparing his 1956 GOP Presidential Platform to the Texas 2022 Midterm Platform. I used copy and pasted sections from each original document and compared and contrasted. Spoiler alert, there is not one thing that is “principled conservatism” by the far-right Texas Republican Party. In their own words, they have condemned themselves as un-American, anti-constitutional and un-patriotic as they could possibly be.
I encourage those who wish to still be honorable and principled conservatives to read and pay close attention. The Trump era and even a decade or so prior have converted the party to an extremist, right-wing movement on par with the global far-right trends of the past decade plus. We are for from out-of-the-woods yet and 2024 elections are a make-or-break election cycle for US and global democracy.
I will leave you with the following thought: I have long considered myself an Eisenhower Republican. In today’s convoluted political landscape, this makes me a Joe Biden Democrat by belief system. As noted earlier, I, like George Washington, abhor all political parties of what our first POTUS called “factions” when he warned us of them in his Farewell Address. Still, I will never vote for a GOP candidate again, no matter what. I’m old and there is no chance that what passes for conservatism today will leave the party in my lifetime. This is how slowly that NIs or Narrative Identities evolve.
The other point is that in my considered opinion, my favorite presidents, Eisenhower, Lincoln, Washington and yes, Obama were actually, what I term as “pragmatic progressives.” All recognized that strength in evolving our nation towards the goals of our founding documents. All also knew that too fast of an evolution would risk the stability of our republic. Just remember that in the children’s tale of the tortoise and hare, that the tortoise plugs along and will reach its goal with the least risk to himself. America must cast off the baggage of the Civil War, Civil Rights era resistance and MAGA, if we are ever to reach the goals set for us by our founders.
Last but not least… other than our native American brothers and sisters, we were all once refugees. Let’s fix the system so that we can manage the influx of new and worthy Americans and not lose our soul in the process. Abbott, Trump and the whole MAGA crowd are now in the soul-stealing phase. Real Patriots, will say to these anti-patriots, “not no, but hell no.”
All my best and back again Wednesday,
Paul
We don't stop to think here and now in this country ~With all the desertification of the planet
there but for the Grace of G-d go I.
The EU has dealt with the migration from the Maghreb for decades. This brings to mind Bruce Chatwin's insight that man is a migratory species.