Got Trump

Get Smart

First, I must ask for an ounce of license and accommodation for my surely palpable irritation. The analysis of today’s norms-shattering news has absolutely grated me – it’s been lazy, shallow, and thoroughly not smart. Normally, I’d write this and let it marinate for a day before returning to smooth the edges in edits. This time, however, some serrations are called for.

First, let’s try to both not underestimate or overestimate the severity of what occurred today. President Trump, the Right’s once-and-future President, was serially convicted on 34 counts in a New York trial where the underlying crime was so outrageous that I’m not even sure what it was – nor do the pundits seem to know. In some sense it would seem hard to overestimate what has just occurred, however, that’s precisely what I heard in nearly every hot-take I saw or heard. It’s not the end of the republic – that happened a while ago. It’s not likely to be the moment of initiation of kinetic hostilities in the cold civil war, either. It’s yet another rather large pothole we’ve hit at a speed very nearly fast enough to not feel it through the shocks on the way to Third-Worldism.

by Cristina Gottardi on Unsplash

Now, let’s take a look at what everybody seems to be talking about: why? On that subject, I was disappointed to find the heads on X (the platform previously known as Twitter) take up the ball the mainstream media fumbled and run straight into their own end-zone with it. They treated it like filling air was paramount – any consideration for the particular shape and frequencies their flapping gums produced was absent. What did they seemingly all repeat ad nauseum? “The Democrats messed up and this is only going to help Trump. They’re so stupid.”

Let me stop you right there, bucko. How much thought, exactly, did you just put into that thought-stopping cliche dripped so casually from your lips? Are we winning this cold war? No? So, our very first assumption upon getting our backside handed to us by the enemy in every arena from finance to politics to culture is “they’re stupid?”

I hope you’re seeing the problem here. Now, I’m not claiming it’s impossible to have a stupid enemy – we should all be so lucky. I am, however, saying that you seriously need to update your heuristic if that’s the assumption you’re starting with.

Does our enemy call us “stupid?” They call us an awful lot of things, from the varied-in-name but identically void “isms” to ”extremists” (alternatively, “DVE,” “terrorist,” or “semi-fascist”), but I don’t think I’ve ever been called “stupid” by one. It's not as though that particular insult is beyond them, so...

What does a stupid enemy look like then? Well, they might start their analysis with the assumption that their enemy is “stupid.” So, let's not do that. Let’s get smart instead. What does that type of analysis look like? I’m so glad you asked. Let’s take a look at this circumstance through the lens of political warfare.

Step one, dispel yourself of the stupid “conspiracy theorist” PsyOp inane (mis)understanding of things. Guess what, I’m in politics. Every time before we take votes I get together in what we call a “caucus” among other members of the party and we game-out the moves ahead. Guess what another name for that is? Yep, it’s a “conspiracy,” and we do it all the time. In fact, anytime two or more people come together towards a common goal conspiracy will happen as a matter of nature and definition.

We usually only bring out the term “conspiracy” when it’s malign and secretive, though neither are truly necessary to meet the definition. So, conspiracies happen – a lot. For anyone who’s been paying attention to this prosecution it’s as transparently conspiratorial as a color revolution. You don’t get simultaneous prosecutions across the nation all seeking to move forward well ahead of the election for nonsense non-crimes with Regime backing, full media buy-in, and the coordination of the Regime-linked NGO leviathan organically.

So, with that knowledge, let’s look closely at the claim: “they’re so stupid, this is only going to help Trump.” So you’re saying that these big-money, intelligence-and-law-enforcement connected NGOs that topple regimes around the planet on the regular, and The Regime itself, did their analysis (likely decision-tree, or perhaps even AI assisted), with the full hindsight knowledge that Trump went up in the polls more with every indictment, and they said “well, this will definitely hurt him this time?” It’s inconceivable that they didn’t know this would drive his support higher. If that sounds like they screwed up to you it’s only because you haven’t considered 2-3 moves down the line, and how they might use this to their advantage.

Now, let me be very clear that I don’t have a crystal ball. Anyone offering you gnosis in this situation is a snake-oil salesman. But, we can take a look at the situation rationally, and dispassionately, with a few reasonable assumptions about what we do know, and take some guesses about where this might head from here. Let’s take a look at some of the angles:

1. Demoralization: it’s conceivable that the point of The Regime driving Trump’s support up, and his base mad, is simply to demonstrate to us at some point down the line that we’re powerless to stop them. This can be a powerful move to sap the energy out of a movement if executed correctly, and in a timely manner. Now, it likely rests on the assumption that there will not be a grassroots groundswell capable of toppling them, but, sadly, that may be a safe assumption.

2. Driving a Constitutional crisis: imagine Trump sitting in a prison cell on November 9th, 2024, having been declared victorious in the election efforts, and imagine some blue-state tinpot punk or girl-boss refusing to release him to serve his Presidency. What then? Massive crisis time – legitimately something that could bring about a hot war, but only if it’s not all orchestrated going into it ahead of time. You see, the Left has been embracing crisis for many generations. I think of it like this: at high enough speeds even metal acts like water. You get things crazy enough fast enough and the very pillars of society can be made fluid. What better time to bring about sweeping “systems change,” or a new international order?

3. Assassination: it should not be lost on anyone the particularities of the prison system Trump will be heading to if sentenced – the very same one as Epstein. Why would they do that? Perhaps they think they have positioned themselves well enough (intelligence preparation of the battlefield, “IPB”) that a decapitation strike, coupled with agents saboteur (controlled opposition), could spark an internal Rightist civil war, instead of an open revolt against The Regime.

4. Coopting the head of the movement: lastly (not in terms of there being no other possibilities, but the last I’ll consider here), is that they believe they can push an aging man with, arguably, a lot to lose, into being their pawn to move their agenda forward if they create enough hazard for him and those he cares about. It’s an ugly thought that you don’t want to consider, but you’d do well to man up and be real with yourself: it’s possible.

Will any of these actually happen? I don’t know. If we wanted to extend this lesson a bit we could go into each possibility, analyze the relative probabilities, and get a better idea where we might expend our limited resources on our own IPB. That’s what we all should be doing, in fact, but the point of this wasn’t to go down every rabbit hole. The point was merely an introduction to not being a stupid enemy. I’ll try to return for more when I have time, and if there’s an appetite.

As analyst Stephen Coughlin is wont to say, "start knowing what you see, not seeing what you [have been programmed to] know."

Be well.