The Rules of Information Warfare: The Left Doesn't Understand How the Game is Played. And It's KILLING Us, Part Two

Continuing, from Part One...

1) Political Polarization

One of the most important documents available to the general public resulting from Mueller's ongoing investigation is the Department of Justice' criminal complaint against Elena Khusyaynova.

The media's coverage of this has been abysmal at best.

If there is one document you need to read today it is this one, which I have included here.  Subversion and information war is neither a right-wing nor left-wing phenomenon.  If you're not convinced of this, please read on and be stunned:

Khusyaynova Complaint

2) The Overton Window

In the mid-1990s, Joseph P. Overton (a researcher with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy) developed a concept known as the Overton Window, which sought to visualize the range of ideas acceptable in public discourse and, conversely, the political viability of ideas based upon how those ideas might be received in the court of public opinion.

The following diagram represents Overton's concept:

Overton's concept is helpful for the purposes of visualization. For the sake of argument, the radical and unthinkable ideas at the bottom of the diagram might consist of the following:

• Tarring and feathering
• Slavery
• Discriminatory laws

But Overton's concept has a fundamental flaw, because it doesn't take political subversion into account. And I would argue that in the world of political subversion the idea itself is less important than how that idea, along with its opposite counterpart, is weaponized.

In fact, political subversion in America has created this:

In other words the Overton Window, while helpful in understanding the intersection of ideas, public opinion and political viability, cannot address the dangers inherent in a society that is politically divided.  There remains an inherent bias over certain radical and unthinkable ideas over others.  If an idea is outside the realm of public discourse, its dangers are unknown.  This is because, in democratic societies, we discuss issues.  We sit down at the table and consider the pros and cons of an idea before demanding that an idea become public policy.

Moreover, the divisiveness of an idea on the fringes of public discourse likely benefits the provocateur more than the policymaker.  In my experience, if the idea and the idea's opposite counterpart have loud and obnoxious advocates on social media, more often than not, you're probably staring at an information operation with nefarious origins that's keeping us politically divided.

For fans of Marshall McLuhan, information war has proven him correct.

"The media is the message"

The message is merely the tool.

3) Phony Opposition

If you have followed John Schindler's, Eric Garland's and my work, along with the work of Twitter's #TeamPatriot information warriors, you have seen that the information space, particularly social media, is totally littered with phony opposition.  In fact, Trump's phony opposition overwhelms the voices of those of us who are trying to educate and inform the general public.  We have called these individuals out, ad nauseum.  It is difficult to get the truth out, while they continue to disinform, distract and obfuscate.

Here are just a handful of them:

• Sarah Kendzior
• Andrea Chalupa
• Alexandra Chalupa
• Leah McElrath
• Seth Abrahamson
• Malcolm Nance
• Joy Reid
• Naveed Jamali
• Michael Avenatti
• @Fraude_1
• Scott Stedman
• Cassandra Fairbanks
• Peter Daou
• Shaun King
• Jeremy Scahill
• Betsy Woodruff
• Cenk Uygur
• Chris Stroop

Bookmark this if you like, but what the general public will soon learn from the Mueller investigation is that people such as the Chalupa sisters, Cody Shearer, Sid Blumenthal and Donna Brazile along with others like those listed above such as Sarah Kendzior, who sought to disenfranchise large swaths of middle America, were instrumental in helping Trump win the 2016 elections.

What could possibly go wrong?

4) Russia, the Mafia State.

This is too lengthy a topic to cover in this article. But here are some great sources for catching up:

• "McMafia", by Misha Glenny
• "Putin's Kleptocracy", by Karen Dawisha
• "Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes and the Man Who Makes War Possible", by Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun
• "The Less You Know, the Better You Sleep", by David Satter
• "Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia", by Peter Pomerantsev
• "The Politics of Organized Crime and the Organized Crime of Politics", by Alfredo Schulte-Bockholt

5) Trump is the product of organized crime, not Conservatism

Again, this is too lengthy a topic to cover in this article. But I would suggest reading Robert Friedman's "Red Mafiya", a book about the Russian mafia in America. The book was published nineteen years ago and covers some of Donald Trump's Russian mafia connections, such as the notorious Vyacheslav Ivankov (aka "Yaponchik"), a Russian mob boss who owned and lived in several units in Trump Towers.

Stay tuned for Part Three...