Six years ago I wrote what is still my most viewed blog post (I assume because the algorithms were less discriminating back then), in which I analyzed the classic work of Cass Sunstein Conspiracy Theories. This informal paper of Sunstein's made him notorious as the progenitor of the tactic of "cognitive infiltration", at least on paper. It is likely that the method of countering ideological enemies has been around for as long as information warfare has existed, but this paper outlined its purpose in relation to the (already) alarming promulgation of conspiracy theorizing on internet forums specifically. Basically, the idea is that governments should not waste their time and resources directly countering conspiracy theories, which makes them look as if they have something to hide, and instead they should covertly join the discussion and subtly sow the seeds of doubt.
Naturally, this paper has led to a lot of speculation among the Tinfoil Hats that this method could be used in more nefarious ways. If the spooks are infiltrating groups pretending to be say, 9/11 truthers, why stop at just questioning if graphite spheres might be naturally occurring? Once ensconced in their roles, couldn't they also propose that the planes were just holograms? All sorts of whacky theories are propagated which appear well funded (judging by the speed of the distribution relative to the obscurity of the major proponents) and increasingly ridiculous. Flat Earth theory has to be the best example of this: an actual joke that became a serious field of study for thousands. The Flat Earth theory has not born fruit so far as geography is concerned, but it has functioned very well as a "release valve" so to speak, for lots of interesting research regarding unexplained aspects of the space programs. One can become very intrigued by the photo and video evidence of odd things in space, but if you continue down that rabbit hole you end up getting barraged by a ton of skepticism of all the photo and video of the Earth from space, which is discouraging.
In the most recent iteration of a well-funded distraction we have the Q phenomenon. This particular grouping of theories serves as lighting rod for censorship as well as an invitation to inaction, unless you count sharing videos that keep you "informed" of what the heroes are up to, as "action." Q himself always managed to skirt the edges of plausibility through the anonymous forum posting and the cryptic style that left the specific predictions open to interpretation. I can imagine that an insider with access to at least the juicy rumors of the intel community would post on 8chan to see if anyone could decipher the code and keep the more savvy researchers in the know of what gossip was floating around, but when Q became mainstream the LARP began to fall apart more and more. A career spook might drop crumbs here and there, they are not going to risk their job by starting a cult! Unless, of course, there was indeed some really weird stuff going on in the clandestine world of the spies and black ops. I never completely ruled this out, since I know very little of that world except that it is massive and incredibly well-funded, now encompassing parts of the private sector and media. But, though I can imagine all sorts of interesting possibilities in the global playground of dark money, it was obvious after the 6th that Trump was not in the game. He got out-maneuvered while making his last play for a second term in his typical showman style. While addressing the crowd at the capitol, as was apparently the plan, would have been a potent message to the Congress, he did not realize that the building was left practically undefended. They should be investigating that astounding lapse.
Although Q stopped dropping his weird messages after the election, the associated personas and "un-named intelligence sources" they allegedly acted as mouthpieces for kept at it all the same. Was Q liquidated after the new administration signaled through the media that the fix was in? Had the drops served their purpose? It is telling that the very first Q drop described quite clearly a conspiracy theory regarding the 2016 election, wherein some hackers in the NSA interrupted an attempt to switch the votes from Trump to Hillary, a theory that I found possible in light of some of the on-air reactions I saw to certain districts not flipping Blue late in the night. Clearly something went VERY wrong when Trump won so improbably, the Q explanation is about as good as any I suppose.
In any case, I don't know why Q stopped on November 3rd, but I do know that the Q movement has been used to discredit Tinfoil Hats just as if he had continued on. I hate to accuse people of intentionally engaging in psychological warfare and I am not the kind of Tinfoil Hat that thinks intentional participation in conspiracies is very widespread. The people who have taken over from Q could indeed be getting information from intelligence sources, part of the spy game has always been to seed false information to the enemy (in this case MAGA). They are no worse (or better) than the talking heads on TV who constantly cite un-named intelligence sources, whose allegations are often equally ludicrous. Whoever is responsible, the result is the same: Q serves as a distraction from credible researchers who are issuing increasingly dire warnings about the nature of the new administration Just as Q gave false hope to people after the election that all the weirdness of the new voting systems would be investigated and resolved through military action in accordance with the executive orders that Obama and Trump both put in place to guard against foreign interference.
In reality, though, the election was not being investigated by any court of law (except in Arizona) and the Trump legal team was being mismanaged horribly while taking in tons of cash from concerned citizens. Sidney Powell was not given Special Counsel powers and the digital research her team accumulated could not be tested on the machines to prove beyond doubt that the statistical anomalies were intentional. General Flynn was not leading a secret squad of cyber warriors who were secretly seizing servers in Italy. In fact, the whole focus on Dominion (whose machines I do not trust without a paper trail regardless) was a bit of a red herring when the "problematic 6" districts were well known and had swung the election all by themselves. These locals were the recipients of the infamous dumps of mail-ins that were truly massive and needed a rigorous going-over.
Just as Trump had no intention of balking his advisors and taking drastic action as Q alleged, the battle was not going to be won in the courts alone either. This is where Q short circuited the chances for a second Trump term: in the field of public opinion, which was deeply uneasy at the strange election, but unwilling to wade through Q nonsense to find-out the facts about what happened. A truly broad popular anger and willingness to act would have filtered up to the State legislatures who determined the timeline of certification. But a partisan movement composed of only Trump voters was not quite sufficient, since the facts were not known and no small-time State representatives were ever going to be the first to raise the alarm about something as sacred as a US Presidential election! Many noted that, if they were Democrats they would not be so timid, as we saw in 2016, but thus is life!
With so many lawsuits flying all over the country and so many allegations in so many States, the focus on the obvious cases of fraud was lost and those State legislatures were pressured into certifying early. Thus the lack of popular will to resist broke the court system too: cases became moot, which on top of standing and latches issues gave judges all the excuses they needed to sweep the whole thing under the carpet. Again, I'm not alleging that all the actors were part of a conspiracy to knowingly subvert the adversarial nature of our elections (which in turns assures that the sides play fair), but people tend to fall in line with the dominant narrative and play their role accordingly. If this Q thing was an example of cognitive infiltration, it certainly has served its creator well. If not, then we can at least say that it was seized upon by grifters and anti-MAGA mud slingers as their weapon of choice to discredit the election integrity concerns that millions of Americans felt deeply after seeing such an unprecedented election unfold before us like a bad dream (or a miracle that saved us from four more terrible years of Orange Cheeto Hitler).
In my article 6 years ago I noted that Sunstein did not see the use in confronting conspiracy theories head-on and mused that perhaps it was because he did not want to learn uncomfortable facts about an event like 9/11, which he focuses on as the primary example of "dangerous conspiracy theories." As he became more influential in his role as Clinton's Information Tzar, we did indeed see this policy in practice, though it has been pretty much the norm for as long as intelligent people have held office. You ignore the slanders that are thrown at you until you cannot any longer, unless addressing them allows you to go on the attack. But just because they wordlessly dismiss the accusations of others when they aren't pressured, that doesn't mean that certain conspiracy theories cannot be taken into the sphere of public discourse. Thus we saw Hillary Clinton make accusations of a "vast Right-wing conspiracy," against her and her policy goals.
What we have seen happen in the days since January 6th, when Biden became the for sure we mean it President elect and then President, is the very last thing that the Clintonian propaganda machine would recommend: a very public and open attack on the Q theories, despite the fact that this only makes the True Believers of them believe even harder.
Whether or not Q is an example of the next evolution of cognitive infiltration, it is being used by the media, tech, and governmental power structure to attack not just the fools who fell for the LARP, but even one fool who didn't: President Trump was impeached and had a trial in the Senate to "remove" him (from an office he wasn't holding, but hey its 2021) based on the allegation that he was indeed plotting some of the same things Q cryptically implied he was. The idea that Trump was trying to pull off an insurrection on January 6th is as silly as the "6 days of darkness" or other Q-tier predictions that made no sense unless one twisted the words into Gordian knots. If he had wanted to pull off an insurrection at the capitol, he would have herded the congress into a secure location and kept them there by force while he appointed interim cabinet members from the ranks of loyal military, or something of that nature. Of course, any sane person watching what was happening in the mostly undefended capitol knew that Trump was losing his last, faint chance of getting the election overturned (or even investigated), not making a power play to somehow stay in office by delaying the vote a few hours. But apparently the media and half of congress have become rabid followers of Q theories and believe that Trump was indeed trying to go all-out dictatorial. Without this gloss over the events at the capitol, you just have an average riot and the people that should be investigated are those in charge of security at large marches at the capitol. Technically you might have an insurrection, since the congress was in session and doing business, but this kind of legalese isn't enough to justify the ongoing crackdown against MAGA (and Q and all the Tinfoil Hats, eventually). No, to summon an enemy scary enough to justify what the security/medical/surveillance State has planned for us they need to convince people the Trump was actually trying to take over the government when the mob (that he attempted to calm by droning on about election statistics for 45 minutes) made their unlikely assault on the undermanned and unequipped police line,
What we saw in Myanmar was an example of a true coup based on similar allegations: the military didn't like that they refused to delay the election until after COVID and just rolled-in and took the government into custody. Trump just doesn't have the clout to pull something like that off, as a result of the political/legal interference in his rule that spygate and impeachment #1 created. Russian rapprochement being central to the MAGA movement's foreign policy goals meant that putting true MAGA people into the higher echelons of the military would have been punished by the Republican Senate, who remain firmly in the arms of the military money machine. Radical changes in the intelligence and DOJ apparatus would be equally alarming to people who are probably guilty of quite a lot of shady machinations of their own, if not outright crimes. The last true hope of the Q believers (and the whipping-boys of the new regime) are the patriotic rank-and-file of the military who would have gladly lined-up to protect the constitution against its enemies foreign and domestic.
But those enemies covered their tracks well-enough to squeak by sans any court investigations (mainly by overwhelming the courts and legislature with criminality to the point that any one case was moot because the steal was so widespread and unlikely to affect the election, rendering the court unable to offer redress, in the places it was blatant and massive the courts were favorable) and the Capitol Siege eliminated the threat of a congressional inquiry, which I think was fairly likely given the power of Trump's performative art when bolstered by a massive crowd of passionate, potential Republican voters, cramming against the police line and "peacefully making their voices heard." Most of the MAGA crowd played their part, but Trump did not get a chance to play his due to the (likely intentional) incompetence of the capitol guardians.
Still, Trump has escaped the penalty of being banned from office and he lives to fight another day. I doubt he will ever get the Republican nomination for President again, they will move Heaven and Earth to prevent that (though those same tactics, which the RNC used against Ron Paul so many time was one of the most direct causes of the Trump victory). Rather, I think Trump will end-up like Aaron Burr: acquitted and yet condemned by polite society as much as he is beloved by the people. Burr, the forgotten Founder, was similar to Trump in many ways. A populist, he thumbed his nose at the Party system and achieved success by reaching across the divide to appeal to as many voters as he could. Burr was, however, a much more dangerous man than Trump. Hamilton can attest to that, though in the end Hamilton "won" the political battle between them. Burr was considered the most dangerous man in America by Hamilton, who was loyal to the Virginian clique of Washington, Jefferson, et al., though he was a fellow New Yorker with Burr.
Hamilton, who prepared a post-humorous attack on Burr before he was killed by him in the duel he weirdly sought, has been the author of Burr's historical figure. A demon, a ruthless power-mad populist, a deceiver and master manipulator, a man free of principles and full of vice. Burr was all those things to some extent, and yet he was so much more. He was the principle anti-Federalist of New York, the principle State of the North. He stood against the Virginia anti-Federalist's attempts to side-line the Northern States by allying with the Federalists and create a sectional division in the nation, which they would dominate. The period of Jefferson's Presidency was a tumultuous one, hence Washington stepping-down after two terms (he didn't love farming that much). But it was not yet clear if the two-term precedent would be followed or considered just a quirk of Washington's admirable character, to be admired by not, perhaps, imitated.
Burr, I think would not have been satisfied with two terms, or even three. He had the making of true tyrant, by constitutional means naturally. Like Trump, Burr was willing to break with his natural allies when he thought necessary and he destroyed his support in the New York Federalist Party by going against George Clinton after he had been appointed to Attorney General by him in a matter of principle. Trump similarly holds to his principles even when it hurts him politically, but they both only do so when it suits them politically. With an eye for a deal, Burr maintained an honorable course of action while not ruling out any legal means to obtain his goals. He scandalized New York by gaining a charter for a water company that he then used as a personal bank to aid poor New Yorkers in credit, just as Trump has had no qualms about continuing his business dealings at Mar a Lago when he thinks it will be diplomatically beneficial to host a foreign leader there. But Burr made enemies with his independent modes of action.
The United Stated was then in a period of transition and flux, with the crisis of legitimacy that comes with such drastic changes in government. The people accord respect and deference to an established government that they have learned to live with for years, but not so the new Federal Constitution which New York had opposed and only ratified due to the combination of States threatening to leave her out in the cold. At that time the States were independent enough that the status-quo of opinion was opposite to what we have today: the large States, instead of trying to dominate and increase the power of the Federal government, tried to weaken its power so that they could act as their own countries. No one really knew what would happen with the Western territories and no new States had been created, so there was a natural alliance of interest between the larger States like New York and Virginia, who dreamed of carving-out more territory for themselves in the future. There was also a division between the States that tended towards closer ties to France and those who wanted to rekindle the association with Britain, though this was played out under the surface of polite discussion until Napoleon forced the issue. The divisions that we modern Americans are most aware of, North/South, East/West, Coastal/Interior, were less relevant to the emerging Party system and the elite interests that they served.
Populism, with its broad appeal to all people, can be disruptive to Party loyalties and ideological alliances. The true populist cannot maintain an ideological stance past the tolerance of the mob, who he relies upon to keep his position of power by definition. Thus, Burr struck out on his own by creating the New York water company, even though it served the purposes of the anti-Federalist Party by giving newly propertied New Yorkers the franchise and supporting the grassroots businessmen instead of the Federalist friendly banking class. Hamilton rightly saw the danger of this, not only to his Federalist allies, but also to the very power structure of the nation, in a tenuous and fragile State already.
We, today, take our Federal Constitution for granted, but it was once new and controversial. The Constitution was a significant victory for the Federalist vision of a strong national government, but it was intentionally vague and precedent would determine where the power would lie in practice.
Though we are hundreds of years away from that intumescent beginning, I see striking similarities in the current year. We have undergone a drastic shift in the power and nature of the Constitution, one that has been made apparent to all with the late election, the assuming of emergency powers by State Executives and bypassing the legislature, and similar actions by the courts. These changes have been done for some years now in States like Michigan, through legislative action, but it is a new permutation to claim that a virus must alter our very system of government. Is this change being made permanently? If not, then why not delay the election? This was the rational for the military coup in Myanmar: they wanted to just delay the election instead of changing the rules of the election. Both are drastic actions, but a delay seems to be the more prudent alternative if one wants to keep one's system intact. Perhaps that is not the goal, perhaps corona is a code-word for a permanent change in systems of government, both at home and world-wide. The only pertinent question, to me, is whether the new system benefits the powerful; if so, then the change will stay, if not then they will allow us to go back.
So, in Burr's time, did the denizens of New York view the Constitution: it was here to stay if it benefited the powerful States (such as themselves), but it should not impede their progress towards becoming the Empire State. This is why Burr, a known populist and courter of the people themselves, was able to draw support from anti-Federalists and challenge Jefferson in the Presidential race of 1800. Their electoral tie was the first Constitutional crisis of the nation and remains controversial to the present, with rumors that Burr was secretly working against Jefferson despite the anti-Federalist's official consensus. Jefferson was feared by many as a radical ideologue more devoted to Virginia than the whole country and not the pragmatic man that was needed to conduct the Constitution along the path of compromise that would ensure a peaceful future for so many States with differing opinions and goals. He turned out to be not so committed to the lessening of Federal power once he wielded it, but Burr lost his chance at the Presidency which probably could have been his had Jefferson treated him like a partner and not an enemy in his Vice Presidency.
Trump, likewise, has gained allies and enemies in unlikely places. Then it was the power of the Virginian clique, which caused Jefferson to become tacitly allied with Hamilton due to his hatred of Burr. Now, it is the power of the Deep State, which is allied against Trump who is the focus of resistance to the corona-madness and other projects of the new form of government we find ourselves under. As we saw with Hamilton's crossing Party lines to embrace Jefferson, there is a new political alignment taking place finding common-ground in the common enemy: Burr, representing Northern power. This new alignment, North/South, became more and more strictly observed over time until the reclaiming of Northern executive power by Lincoln triggered the Civil War. I, therefore, trace the cause of the Civil War back not to the founding of our country, but to Jefferson's betrayal of Burr despite the alliance of New York and Virginia as big powerful States. The oft-unmentioned cause of the Civil War is not slavery in the Southern States, but slavery in the newly created States. This was the crucial question that would determine the balance of power in the Federal government, not to mention the other territories that the country might gain in its ongoing expansion. The bloodletting of the Civil War put a rest for a time to expansionary conflict, but it was not a given that the territory would stop expanding at all. After all, the world was coming to the United States to live as free men, so why shouldn't the United States come to the world? Of course, the migration was mainly to the North where labor was needed, mirroring again some of the most pressing questions of our own time.
But all that was far in the future and whether or not our Founders could foresee it, they were too circumspect to discuss it. Perhaps Burr did see this, though, and that is why he crossed the New York political machine? It is much safer to align oneself on principles than geography, since geographic lines on a map can easily turn into political borders. But principles can also be dangerous, if carried to an extreme. What then does a man, ambitious and brilliant, loved by the people and one step away from the Presidency align himself with? Why, his own star, of course! Thus we have Burr, refusing to accept Hamilton's slight, killing, fleeing, a sitting Vice President and yet a wanted man (in New York).
The duel Burr won, but in the larger battle Hamilton was the victor, at least in the sense that he destroyed Burr while canonizing himself. What would Burr have created, what would he have molded our country into had his character not been assassinated by Hamilton, beyond the grave? One can hardly tell, especially since most of his papers were lost at sea en route to his daughter in France. But, from his actions, we can see that Burr would have never given up until he achieved the Presidency. Even in exile he drew on his popularity with the Western people to assemble a force to invade Mexico and carve out his own State for himself. Probably he would have succeeded (for Burr was a warrior above all), but instead his own country took him to court for treason. One sees echoes of Alcibiades on his expedition to conquer Syracuse and being forced to defect to Sparta, crippling the Athenian chances to become an empire.
We can never know what Burr's defeat meant to our history, for a truly great man never reveals his sum to the world. Perhaps what makes men great is that they themselves do not know the limit of their ambition? But I do know that we need great men, for without them lesser men will always fall to bickering over Party, faction, and use those divisions to take what greatness they can scrounge for themselves. Not so with the outcast, the visionary, the man who casts aside orthodoxy and forges his own path. They sometimes succeed, more often they fail, but always they leave behind something for all of us to strive for. Donald Trump's legacy may be as black as Aaron Burr's, but I will always consider him a warrior who fought the best he knew how.
America got what they wanted: a reality TV star President. Now that he brought us over into the reality of that, do we go back to worshipping the personalities we see on TV? Or do we accept that this is America, accept all our flaws and failings? Are we willing to see the greatness beneath? I think that there are divisions in this country just as deep as those that eventually broke out into our bloodiest war. The world is not static, divisions are always either lessening or growing. If we resist that, we only exacerbate the existing divide. Aaron Burr was charged with conspiracy against the United States for organizing his invasion of Mexico, but was he just the victim of a conspiracy by the Virginians to destroy his power? Cass Sunstein said that denying the conspiracy just creates more belief in the conspiracy. So why is the government so eager to deny the zany Qspiracy? I think they want it, they need it, to justify some conspiracies of their own.
