The most dangerous narratives to American democracy this election year
The most dangerous narratives to American democracy this election year
TAT readers,
As you may have noticed, I have shrunk my writing to two days a week. It’s not that I wish to offer less, it is simply the current demands on my time. The second edition of my book which will be publicly available later this month, a brand-new book coming late May or early June and my usual research occupy far more minutes than a day has. Of course, all of this on top of family life makes for an exceedingly full calendar, sometimes too much so. I just thought it important to allow all of you to better understand the reasons for a temporary slowdown in TAT pieces.
For today’s TAT, I will continue with a format that I have been experimenting with. That is, to write about how I perceive specific threats and when it is a topic that I have already done a deep dive on, I will add a link to the supporting deep dive article. That way, I don’t rewrite a book’s worth of research and background into an essay and those of you who have already seen the linked work, won’t have to waste time rereading the same or nearly the same content. It is though, critically important to my own standards that I can show you the sources for my opinions and assessments.
Now… off we go to the most destructive and threatening narratives to US and global democracy.
The false narrative that defunding Ukraine is about our southern border and that it’s not our fight.
That the false narrative of a “Biden Border Crisis” is an equivalent threat to fighting Russia and that the southern border is due to anything the current administration has or has not done.
The false narratives that MAGA ideology is patriotic.
The false narratives that we suffer from "inflation," rather than price-gouging
Last but not least as a precursor to today’s essay is a very short and over-simplified explanation of what narrative is.
Narrative is how human beings make meaning out of all that they experience throughout their lifetime and is made up of countless unique elements of identity. Since no human has exactly the same identity markers, not even identical twins, all humans see things differently. Those who experience the same things may have countless layers of similar markers so they will perceive things much alike, although not exactly. Others will not share these layers and see things completely the opposite. This is why that people can watch the same news or read the same news and have completely different takes on what it means.
Those who know how to manipulate the NI or Narrative Identity of people or groups, can end up with unethical control over them. There are a variety of ways to manipulate people and the results, can be very disturbing. This has been the case of right-wing media over the past 30 years and most especially, centered on the propaganda of FOX News.
FOX NEWS is a national security threat. - by Paul Cobaugh (truthaboutthreats.com)
FOX News is an acute, national security threat that the Pentagon and national security community allows to be viewed in offices, bases, ships and commands. (truthaboutthreats.com)
Libertas, Justitia, Veritas - by Paul Cobaugh (truthaboutthreats.com)
Enough on narrative for now but will leave below a couple of links for deeper reading for those unfamiliar.
Without factoring "brainwashing" into the equation for 2024, we're doomed to another far-right, extremist administration, no matter what pollsters say. (truthaboutthreats.com)
My election season’s insights with Reed Galen of THE LINCOLN PROJECT, from the 2022 Midterms. (truthaboutthreats.com)
A Five Point Strategy to Oppose Russian Narrative Warfare (truthaboutthreats.com)
Guest article, by Friend and Narrative Strategies Founder, Dr. Ajit Maan (truthaboutthreats.com)
The US National Security community is incapable of managing mis/ disinformation threats (truthaboutthreats.com)
The false narrative that defunding Ukraine is about our southern border and that it’s not our fight.
That the false narrative of a “Biden Border Crisis” is an equivalent threat to fighting Russia and that the southern border is due to anything the current administration has or has not done.
First, the truth about the war in Ukraine. Ukraine is the frontline of the defense for global democracy. She is not only fighting for her actual and cultural survival against a genocidal Putin but is defending NATO. Had the US and/ or NATO entered the fight directly, nearly all experts have pointed to WW III. Were this the case, the cost in lives, resources and treasure would be astronomical. China would have joined Putin and other nations that both Putin and Xi have leverage over, such as Iran, South Africa, Serbia, the “Stans” and more.
All of the support may not have been actual combat but there are several ways to support a war effort in commerce, shipping, manufacturing etc. To be frank, I do not even have full confidence in whether Modi’s India, would be friend, foe or otherwise. What is truly terrifying is that when the GOP supports Putin, they are actually supporting an axis against the US and the West.
India under Modi... friend or foe? - by Paul Cobaugh (truthaboutthreats.com)
When it comes to Modi’s India… Caveat Emptor (truthaboutthreats.com)
The GOP supporting Putin, is really the GOP supporting Xi, Iran, N. Korea and BRICS. (truthaboutthreats.com)
Denying Ukraine funding is really the Republican Party supporting Putin and a most dire, national security threat. (truthaboutthreats.com)
Ukraine is doing precisely, what the Republican party refuses to do, support democracy (truthaboutthreats.com)
The GOP’s false narrative that our southern border is an equivalent threat to Russia is so preposterous that I must resist the urge to scream in frustration at the mere sight of such claim. Even the once semi-respectable, Marco Rubio, said it out loud last Sunday on Face the Nation. He’s the minority leader of the prestigious SSCI/ Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
As most know, my combat missions were CT or counterterrorism. Based here in San Antonio between yearly deployments, my small team would both brief and be briefed by Federal and TX Law Enforcement regarding the terrorism issues that pertained to our southern border. For this reason, I know without a doubt, that while not entirely non-existent, the terrorism issue exists but this is the least of our worries at the border. Drugs, cartels, property crimes and the sheer weight of asylum seekers are far greater concern, but do not constitute much of a true national security threat outside of gang, smuggling, drug related crime.
Russia on the other hand, is a former superpower, closely aligned with our most significant threat in a variety of forms, China. Putin also has on the Eurasian continent, the little pipsqueak in N. Korea, the theocratic terrorist thugs in Tehran and partial unstated relationships with other powers on the continent, who are angling along with an ever-expanding BRICS, to replace the west in global power. Many of these sycophant nations, are nuclear armed and two, China and India have two of the three top economies. Not even a well-read third grader, could equate these threats to our Southern border. Still, the GOP persists in sustaining and expanding this false narrative.
From the Merriam-Webster dictionary pip-squeak noun ˈpip-ˌskwēk :one that is small or insignificant
To make matters worse, the GOP negotiated with and received nearly everything that they asked for in a Senate Bill from Senator Lankford of Oklahoma but refused to even vote on it in the House of Representatives. Trump demanded that Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson refuse to bring the bill to the floor to even discuss it so that he could use the issue to his advantage during his campaign. They do NOT want to solve the border, only prolong it for political purpose. To be fully accurate, most of what the GOP demanded in the bill will offer little to controlling migration. It is a global issue caused by war, climate change, authoritarian national leaders etc. The proposed GOP bill is nothing more than, the proverbial Dutch boy with his finger in the dike attempting to hold back the sea.
After the end of Title 42, the southern border of Texas is calm. (truthaboutthreats.com)
Texas Travesty - by Paul Cobaugh - Truth About Threats
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)
Separating the Wheat from the Chaff about our Southern Border. (truthaboutthreats.com)
Solving our border issues requires but one thing that neither party has managed to do in decades… enact comprehensive immigration reform. That is the way, not these patently absurd political wars bounded by fearmongering and the type of overt dishonesty we have come to know. As a Texan, I am bombarded daily from the Texas Taliban, a.k.a. Texas Republican party spewing the most preposterous tales about the border, none of which are true.
The false narratives that claim MAGA ideology is patriotic.
For thirty years, FOX has slowly “conditioned” audiences on the right to adopt a false patriotic identity based on far-right, oligarchical, White Christian Nationalism. As that they did this slowly over thirty years, spanning 3 generations, viewers never even realized that they were being rewired. Now, they don’t even understand that they have been rewired.
To illustrate what I am talking about, I recently wrote a long, detailed comparison between what is considered classic principled conservatism and what stands for conservatism in the MAGA world. The analysis was based on the party platforms of President Eisenhower and the Texas GOP platform for the 2022 Midterm election. The national Republican has not written a party platform since 2016. Now, whatever Trump says, is the party platform. I will add the link to this detailed analysis below. I used source documents for both platforms and took the comparisons directly from both.
The analysis is conclusive. There is nothing traditionally conservative about today’s GOP… not one thing. They party has been conditioned to believe that they are conservative, but people and entities are what they do, not what they say. Their actions are precisely, far-right extremism. January 6th and the dramatic spikes in far-right violence is actually textbook, violent extremism.
The insistence of imposing Christian Nationalist values on everyone, regardless of their personal beliefs, could hardly be more un-American. Dividing America into oligarchical fiefdoms, even worse. Selling out American democracy to Putin and his fellow despots, dictators and authoritarians, is the tragic result of being brainwashed by malign influencers. This brainwashing (not a clinical term) is a most dangerous threat. In the simplest of terms, it means that those who vote for the MAGA politicians who control the party, act against US values while truly believing that they are patriots.
The only answer to rehabilitating the identities of cognitively corrupted voters, revolve around knowledge, methods and experience absent from and ignored by the US national security.
Being a Republican today, doesn’t make you a Conservative (truthaboutthreats.com)
Without factoring "brainwashing" into the equation for 2024, we're doomed to another far-right, extremist administration, no matter what pollsters say. (truthaboutthreats.com)
Theocracy and Nationalism are NOT, American values (truthaboutthreats.com)
The false narratives that inflation is the result of the current administration’s economic policies.
I have written on this topic recently and won’t belabor most of the points again. Much can be found in the links following this short explanation. First though, a few points that are intentionally blunt. The basic premise is that every professionally analyzed data set says that our economy is not only strong but is performing at record setting paces. Still, daily consumer prices remain high. This my friends is price-gouging, not inflation.
America was never designed to be an oligarchical state past the very beginning years of our republic. Many do not realize that some of our very founders, especially in slave states were our original oligarchs. In fact, there was an agreement to not even allow a discussion regarding slavery in congress for fifteen years after the ratification of our Constitution. This allowed these slave-holding oligarchical empires time to adjust accordingly. The failure to pursue these “adjustments” sincerely afterwards, led to building the pressures that led eventually to our Civil War.
Of course, shipbuilding for the slave trade and other manufacturing opportunities in our nascent republics also led to different types of oligarchies, especially later during the industrial age. This time, it was “trust-busting” instead of Civil War that cut the legs out from oligarchy. Now, with the ideology largely synonymous from the civil war period and the dominance of oligarchical “1%ers” in modern society, we face the same problems if we are to head off cataclysmic repercussions.
Personal and corporate oligarchy drives politics, war and price-gouging for those of us in the Middle that bear the tax burdens most severely. To keep us in line, oligarchs invest in congressmen that will continue to protect them from taxes and provide markets with minimum oversight via legislation. If we fail to remember this history, we will and currently continue to experience oligarchy as the curse of the middle class.
In my well-researched opinions, this is why we experience price-gouging instead of inflation. Oligarchs wielding politicians against us by creating a narrative of inflation will allow today’s false narrators of the inflation narrative will help those politicians defeat an administration working to strengthen, not weaken middle class clout. This is also ground zero turf for dishonest politicians that bend over backwards to push this false narrative. These politicians are primarily today’s GOP.
For further reading, please see the links below.
It's not Inflation, its price-gouging by corporate Oligarchs, who are also, the largest campaign donors. (truthaboutthreats.com)
The Western corporate community is undermining US and Western National Security (truthaboutthreats.com)
When we blame countries and terrorist groups for war, don’t forget to blame corporations and Wall Street too! (truthaboutthreats.com)
Greed, hubris & ignorance and "fake news" are killing our grandchildren's future. (truthaboutthreats.com)
There are precious few, "business ethics" among corporate lobbyists and marketers. (truthaboutthreats.com)
What a difference a month makes - by Paul Cobaugh (truthaboutthreats.com)
Finally, a short summary
The bottom line to this essay is that as long as these false narratives are left unchallenged and that the narrators of them operate freely to undermine American democracy, our republic remains at severe risk. Oh sure, the pollsters say otherwise but they were also the ones that were wrong in 2016. In 2020, they were wrong again when millions more voted for Trump and his copycats than in 2016. They will be wrong again this year. Media still calling right-wing extremism conservatism in order to keep feeding their bosses ad money and new investor dollars, will perpetuate these false narratives.
My friends, our nation was born on a bedrock foundation of progressive, largely Scottish Enlightenment values. Only adherence to those values with a spine of braided steel can protect our national identity. Without that, American democracy will continue rushing downhill at an ever-increasing speed. We must revert to honesty about who we are, if we are ever to get to where our founders intended us to go. That my friends, is true American patriotism.
Back again on Thursday or Friday.
My very best for your week,
Paul