Today’s the day honest Americans have dreamed about. Let’s be graceful “Winners”
The false MAGA conspiracy theories about his arrest, and how we go forward from here
TAT followers,
The endless stream of words written on this topic and by an endless scorecard of pundits and experts, will include honest, expert analysis, all the way through wild, un-American conspiracy theories. Time will not permit a review of all of the conspiracy theories being disseminated to rally MAGA to the support of, IMO, treason. Still, this aside, the hardcore, indisputable facts are that Trump broke the law and endangered US and allied national security. I and a large part of the IC/ Intelligence Community, also believe that some potentially disastrous materials have been compromised for money or something of immense value… to Trump alone. I have written in-depth before on this topic, which you can find at the embedded links.
The three most common conspiracy theories by the right-wing-extremists that support Trump:
That this is selective enforcement by LE/ FBI/ US Department of Justice
This is laughable and in many ways, what some Psychologists might call “Projection.” There are other terms but for simplicity, projection works. In other words, MAGA extremists are attributing their actions onto those whom they are accusing, without a shred of evidence.
Example: “DOJ” is weaponizing law enforcement”
There is a long history of prosecuting those who violate the laws that apply to classified materials.
There is also a long history of prosecuting Espionage
Neither the history of B or C has been political with the exception of the Trump administration using espionage law against “leakers.” While that the Obama administration did the same, it wasn’t political but used to address the threats presented by the likes of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden.
The summary of the first point:
The bottom line here is that MAGA hordes are attempting to “sell” the false narrative that this is a political “hit job” against Trump. This is utter nonsense and by simply doing some reading of credible reporting and history, these extremists would know better. The problem is, once extremists have been radicalized as to act out or commit violence in the name of their extremism, they will subconsciously reject anything that violates their internal narrative. The same applies to cultists.
The other factor is that on some level, they are ashamed and now are more than ever, being publicly humiliated by Americans on both sides of the aisle. They will also, mostly subconsciously, do anything to protect their identity and internal narrative. It’s just how humans work.
The best cure is for leadership from your hometown to the Oval Office, is to openly reject these false narratives by narrative-centric campaigning, about what it really means to patriotically support true American national values, not the fake patriotism of MAGA. A related action must be to call out MAGA leaders, especially those dominating the Republican side of the aisle in Congress, for their deceit, dishonesty and spineless subservience to party rather than the constitution they are sworn to protect.
That Trump’s arrest is political in nature or as MAGA says, the “weaponization of Law Enforcement.”
This is a very long story that began, well before Trump launched his 2016 campaign for the White House. Below are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg of relevant facts.
MAGA folks believe that the now infamous Steele Dossier was the beginning of his Russian allegations. Nothing could be further from the truth. Trump has had a decades long association with organized crime and Russian intelligence/ oligarchy. His father also had so-called, “mob connections.” LE and especially the CI/ counterintelligence authorities would have been remiss had they not been taking a long, hard look at someone with the same connections. This is not political but a key piece of US national security.
The false prophets of false narratives, don’t ever employ truth. They lie by almost every tactic known to man and that is part of human behavior since our first, “tribe.” The GOP has mastered this and have a significant lead in unethical and un American tactics of influence. In Trump’s case, he had and still has, Russian support, mostly with digital resources. Had anyone in the GOP read volume 5, SSCI/ Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report that took 3+ years to complete. They would know this.
The problem with false narratives though, is that once they have taken root in the internal narratives and identity of believers, truth has little room to operate and more often than not, is rejected out-of-hand. In other words, MAGA refuses to acknowledge truth and true American values. Most do this subconsciously as do all humans with all different types of internal narratives. We are, who we are.
There are only a handful of truly expert, practitioners within the community and the defense contractors who sell programs to the government to deal with malign influence, are clueless. They are selling “narrative expertise” that they not only don’t understand but are selling false knowledge about narrative. This alone increases the risk to national security. Until they shed their nepotistic ways, we remain at significant risk. This only gets worse and more dangerous the closer we get to major AI and other CYBER programs being launched.
That the classified documents themselves are what the indictment is about, is the most egregious of their conspiracy theories.
This is “whataboutism,” an old Soviet/ Russian tactic of malign influence. It’s intent is to defang the opposition’s points, degrade their unity and to change the subject away from a red-hot dagger pointed directly at the heart of their disinformation campaign.
Here’s an example: Hillary’s emails and the disgraceful, ham-fisted handling by then Director Comey of this issue, is still lodged deeply in MAGA identities. I am not defending Secretary Clinton on this issue but that there is equivalency in hers and Trump’s case, is about as true as me leading the Denver Nuggets to last night’s NBA championship. Congrats to the Nuggets
First, Secretary Clinton cooperated with the Justice Department. Also, during the Trump administration, that in fact did weaponize LE, she was cleared of wrongdoing by Trump’s AG and his FBI Director. Her case was about the content themselves and of which were the most minor of classified law, rules and policy transgressions.
Trump’s case is exclusively about his willful retention of these highly sensitive materials that have enormous value to our adversaries and the adversaries of our Allies. Not only did he retain them but strategized do keep them. The majority of the IC believes that some of these documents are already compromised. Those missing still are what the national security community deems as, grave security threats, that significantly put the US at risk.
There is no equivalency and we are now substantially more at risk since Trump received his very first PDB/ Presidential Daily Brief. Add to this that our enemies are also far more dangerous with this knowledge and you have a recipe for disaster.
The severity of this case has the IC doing their due diligence to assess the actual parameters of these risks. It is highly unlikely that their findings will ever be public, and for very good reasons.
Let’s sum this up
Without a moral backbone in any of the GOP leadership, there is little to no chance that the MAGA threat will dissipate or even modify in any tangible, positive manner. This is a truism from my days focused exclusively in CT/ counterterrorism and CVE/ countering violent extremism. Those fully indoctrinated into extremist ideology and associated movements, rarely lose all of their affiliation for extremist ideology. All it does is go back under the rock it crawled out from under.
So this last paragraph should terrify all of us. Family members will always be connected to these conspiracy-theory indoctrinated citizens… that vote and support/ participate in Armed Rebellion. No one on the GOP side of the aisle, not even Veteran/Congressman like mine, Tony Gonzalez of Texas 23, will even stand up and support the constitution they are doubly sworn to defend. Don’t even get me started on the cowardly, unethical and un American leadership of Speaker McCarthy or Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell. They are the primary enablers that are pursuing the undermining of American Democracy.
On a personal level and for those with enough of a moral spine to talk with those that used to be considered, “principled conservatives,” we must reintegrate them back into the fold of Americans. They may have voted for Trump based on peer pressure, indoctrination by FOX over the last three decades. These folds have been partially subdued by a generations of conditioning by a party addicted to enabling elite wealth, despite it’s negative impact on American values, the American people and our future as a democracy. In short, the current version of the GOP is selling America to the highest bidder, even foreign adversaries. If principled conservatives don’t police their own party, the entire party will remain a national security threat of the highest order. The primary reason is, that principled conservatives have zero voice in the party agenda.
A quick disclaimer is always required when I make statements like those in the last paragraph. I analyze and act against threats to our nation, based on our true values.I do it without prejudice or passion. I am a truth teller and do my very best to keep myself unbiased. I despise all big money politics and registered in Texas as a Republican, not because I believe a word of what comes out the the extremist GOP, but because I consider myself, an Eisenhower conservative. In today’s America, this makes me a moderate democrat. I could care less.
As I say ad nauseam, I subscribe to the views of our only independent POTUS. George Washington steadfastly believed that factions, parties or movements based on ideology, are acute threats to the survival of our republic. Donald Trump and the current GOP, have proved President George Washington was nearly clairvoyant, by their own actions. People and organizations are what they do, not what they say.
Americans are required by our traditions of citizenship, to be well and accurately informed. It’s the only way that representative government survives. The father of our constitution, President Madison who was a globally recognized political scholar, saw religion in government and too much power to the States as fatal flaws when he designed our Constitution. He also was right. Now, today’s SCOTUS with Seditionist sellouts like Justice Thomas and rigid sellouts like Justice Alito, Justice Comey-Barrett and Justice Gorsuch, can only be assessed as being ignorant of our founders’ concerns or willfully disregard it. It’s no damn way to run a country.
If our nation will heal depends more on honorable, well-informed citizens than it does on the selfishness of elected politicians. I am willing and ready to continue my efforts to heal this near-mortal wound from Trump, the GOP and MAGA. Will y’all please join me?
