“President” Trump’s weekend re-tweet of a conspiracy theory linking the Clintons is actually causing law enforcement troubles beyond the obvious takeaways. I confess, my first and only thought regarding the re-tweet didn’t entail much more than lamenting an inextricable “theory” sure to be believed by too many people.
But, the problems go beyond that, according to a story within Business Insider, and noted on Daily Kos with perfectly fine, but different, analysis than here. The Business Insider reporting quoted here:
“The Epstein case was hypercharged from the get-go,” one current FBI agent, who requested anonymity to freely discuss Trump’s actions, told INSIDER. “The last thing investigators need is the president of the United States fanning the flames with these bulls— theories that have no basis in reality.”
Sure, we knew as much this weekend, we’re all educated folks who follow Trump’s usual cause and effects. Re-tweeting obvious nonsense does threaten to sway the public away from his troubles. So, we’re off to a good start.
Another FBI agent told INSIDER that Trump’s actions make the FBI’s job harder as it combats homegrown extremism, particularly after its latest finding that conspiracy theories pose a new domestic-terrorism threat.
“The FBI assesses anti-government, identity-based, and fringe political conspiracy theories very likely motivate some domestic extremists, wholly or in part, to commit criminal and sometimes violent activity,” the FBI said in May. “The FBI further assesses in some cases these conspiracy theories very likely encourage the targeting of specific people, places, and organizations, thereby increasing the likelihood of violence against these targets.”
Here, we must analyze, together, a more pernicious level of manipulation than I initially recognized.
This does go straight to a “Pizza-Gate-like” situation, and where Bannon’s theories about the “Deep State” take their darkest turn.
Beyond ridding Trump of meddlesome middle managers in administrative departments, the Deep State at its most extreme, entailed references to a group involved in international crime, a group that encompassed everything from child sex-trafficking to international interest rates.
As always, according to the Trumpies, the Clintons purportedly control a significant role in this obviously ridiculous theory. The story requires Trump to represent the only real hope to end such intolerable abuses. In other words, this is all Qanon, with details, in a regular-insane re-tweet, splashed out in sunshine, not hidden in dark corners of the internet.
That the FBI is, once again, noting the possible homegrown terrorism result is reassuring. I guarantee the Secret Service has increased its vigilance in guarding the former president and secretary of state. I worry about how they sleep at night.
Let us take our analysis one step further.
“Propaganda” in its most effective form does not represent a plot to get a population to believe any one thing. No, propaganda, when most effective, leads a majority of the population to simply give up on the very idea that there exists a “truth.”
“Fake news” anyone? I guarantee that Trump was coached in propaganda, likely by Russians, who are the world’s leading experts in this science. And it is most definitely a science, studied thoroughly.
Thus, propaganda’s ultimate goal is to lead a good portion of the public to believe that all “stories” are manipulated by opposing sides who give their slant to everything.
So, having said that, we now come to a spot where we must distinguish between propaganda and our crises with respect to trusting an investigation into Epstein’s death.
We here have noted that due to Barr’s previous untrustworthy acts, we have no reason to trust an investigation overseen by Barr. But that does not mean we have succumbed to propaganda. We certainly have not been manipulated to the point where we fundamentally do not believe in truth, that there is not a real explanation, based upon real facts.
But have no doubt, there are some who believe the truth is unknowable. They have internalized the belief that all sides have their agenda, and the agenda impacts real facts to the point that “real truth” no longer exists.
Propaganda at that level truly is an existential crises in these peoples’ existence because it makes no intuitive sense. However, that never bothered the scientists implementing real propaganda. Some in society simply do not have the ability to follow the logical fallacy in such a situation. One out of every four people is in the bottom quarter of intelligence, that just “is.” Some people are simply unreachable, a disturbing amount of people, perhaps one in four.
Moreover, to ensure success with people who are ordinarily capable of critical thinking, the manipulators of these dark arts simply overwhelm the population with wholly contradicting theories, to the point someone trying to take it all in is “lost.”
Trump is masterful in this one aspect, again, surely coached.
Think about this. We have not seen a single picture of Bill Clinton with Jeffery Epstein, nor any clip of Bill Clinton discussing his wonderful friendship with Epstein, we do not have witnesses who speak about incidents where Epstein brought 25 girls to a party with Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton did not start a modeling agency of interest to Epstein, a model agency specializing in recruiting very young women from Eastern European countries, nor did Bill Clinton ever walk through Ms. Teen USA changing rooms, demonstrating a very twisted idea of boundaries concerning young girls.
All that said, we have no direct evidence that Trump committed any criminal acts while conspiring with Epstein. However, the evidence that does exist suggests that Trump lived on that “edge,” closer to Epstein, than Bill Clinton. So, of course Trump re-tweets something implicating Bill Clinton, when really, it is Trump that should be forced to answer some uncomfortable questions.
The truth, to some, becomes irrelevant, unknowable, non-existent. The FBI understands that truism, and exists to extinguish any crime springing from such a sickening cycle.
Now, we know. It is even worse than we originally thought.
At least, that’s my analysis.
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Peace, y’all
Jason
Let Trump’s actions serve as a warning…never confuse personal suspicion with actual facts.
The scare factor in all this, (potty mouth in the WH), business, IS, he himself is totally unaware of any of the damning things he actually creates and, ultimately will circle around to hit his own family HARD, before long, the gross output of his uninformed mind is just the ticket …. people will read these lines and, since I am building my empire, collateral damage is possible … too damn bad …, those with total do or die … rules in their countries enthrall him … Kim is his kissing cousin, DJT envisions a US where everything he wants to do is the rules of the moment, even if his desire was to have a room reserved in the WH for 20-40 naked young girls on display for his personal inspection … instead of being the rightfully sickening thing any normal person would feel about that, Trump would be swimming in his own drool …
Trump has shown repeatably, he has no compassion, sympathy, empathy or simple caring for anyone but himself, and that IS his undoing in the longer run …
He has a maniacal, malignant narcissism, incurable, so his immediate removal from the oval office is the only solution …
I don’t disagree with a word you state. The only thing I would “add” is that “how to get from here to there” was “assisted” by people who “know” how to best manipulate the public to further their own ends, and there is not a chance in hell he came up with that himself.
Jason, you are an amazing writer!
Warm all over. 🙂
So, I’ll ask again. When is Twitter going to shut this moron’s account down.
If an average citizen was making it difficult for law-enforcement to do their job, the account would be silenced faster than you can say “Pizza-gate”.
We should get a petition started to pull the plug before he causes more harm.
There has to be something in their TOS. I don’t have, nor do I ever plan to have a Twitter account, so I am unfamiliar with the netiquette.
Probably the moment he has 50 followers instead of 150 million or whatever. Twitter is a tech company, they care about nothing beyond making money. It is almost as bad as FB.
Your piece evokes a lot of thoughts, many of them about how we shoot ourselves in the foot (or both feet) and contribute in a major way to keep IOKIYAR going.
This: “We have not seen a single picture of Bill Clinton with Jeffery Epstein, nor any clip of Bill Clinton discussing his wonderful friendship with Epstein, we do not have witnesses who speak about incidents where Epstein brought 25 girls to a party with Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton did not start a modeling agency of interest to Epstein, a model agency specializing in recruiting very young women from Eastern European countries, nor did Bill Clinton ever walk through Ms. Teen USA changing rooms, demonstrating a very twisted idea of boundaries concerning young girls.”
We have also seen openly what kind of women have stepped forward to claim they had slept with Clinton: very well-developed, shall we say, ADULT women. He had a type, and it wasn’t underage. He wasn’t openly saying of girls barely in their teens “In a few years, I could be dating her.”
Yet I don’t know how many people on the left I heard say piously that if the Epstein dragnet caught Clinton up too, we should be quick to acknowledge it and condemn him. Condemning our own so we can virtual signal is one of our biggest shortcomings and drivers of IOKIYAR. There was this assumption among too many of the left that just because his name had been mentioned as having gone on some trips with Epstein, we should be ready to turn on him.
And look: Clinton overpaid for what he did, consensual sex with an adult that was none of anyone else’s business except maybe Hillary’s. Impeaching him was ridiculous; newspapers calling for him to resign, which are now NOT calling for Trump to resign for violating the law and the Constitution, corruption beyond anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes, and deliberately stoking hate, violence and division, is absurd. If we’re going to go “But Bill Clinton,” we need to stop and think about this, and how no one is holding Trump accountable, how he got elected after the pussy-grabbing tape (thanks in part to his Russian friends, who quickly released John Podesta’s stoke emails to distract from it).
I am extremely confident that Clinton will not be caught up in Epstein’s mess. I am not so confident Trump won’t be.
It is time, Speaker Pelosi.