Outfoxed - Trump in BIG Trouble
Outfoxed - Trump in BIG Trouble
First cracks in the wall are showing
Washington DC 2 Aug 2022
The DOJ announced that the former President of the United States, Donald J Trump is under criminal investigation for his leadership of the Jan 6. coup plot. This was the first sign of a crack in the Trump wall. It was quickly followed by a series of fractures splintering out in all directions (such as Trump’s pick for AG being arrested in his underwear). The other great crack is it appears to be slowly dawning on Trump that he has been dumped by Rupert Murdoch. The media baron has decided to favor the most dangerous threat to Trump’s grip on conservative America - Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis. Murdoch’s decision to dump Trump has removed the propaganda machine that has kept Trump’s alternative reality alive for ~50% of the adult population. It also leaves Trump without a shield to counter-program the DOJ investigation that has no choice but to bring him down now that its existence has been revealed to the world.
In a banana republic most coups follow a standard pattern. Step 1, seize the barracks. Step 2, seize the state run television and radio station in the capital. Step 3, denounce the old regime. Step 4, put the leader on trial. Step 5, inaugurate an even worse leader (who at least had the moxie to take a run at the king so they should be better right? This is the strongman justification). Rinse and repeat. Hold out hope that eventually a people-powered revolution might come along and break the cycle (very rare - see the American Revolution, the Velvet Revolution that propelled the end of the Cold War, the 1986 Philippine and the 1998 Indonesian revolutions). Even then, the vast majority of revolutions rarely end with the result they aspired to gain at the outset (see the Arab Spring, and revolutions in France, Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela - basically all of Latin America, South East Asia, South Asia, and Africa).
Modern America is “exceptional” in the sense that its coups are “unusual; not typical”. At least two main coups have been attempted (along with a kaleidoscope of minor coups - typically within government departments in service of one of the main coups). The first main coup has now become orthodoxy. The President mounts a coup attempt against his own government to remain in power. Even conservative America is starting to see this coup because Rupert has lately decided it is in his interests to show it to them. This disclosure of reality to his devoted, slogan-loving, uncritical viewers is in fact the second main coup. It is not a final decision. It can be reversed. If, by some miracle, the accelerating net closing around the first coup plotters allows some to escape and live to see another day. As we will see, thats looking less and less likely.
Readers might be surprised how quickly the Murdock decision will change Trump’s fortunes and leave him exposed and vulnerable to the consequences of the truth about his conduct finally coming to light among the red hats. They will never accept they were wrong, they will just embrace DeSantis and move on.
Throughout Civil War II’s coverage of the coup, reference has regularly been made to the incredibly apt Hemingway adage from The Sun Also Rises, that significant change happens “gradually then suddenly”. This has been used to explain Trump’s emergence onto the scene and death grip on the body politic of America. Now it appears that the tables might have finally been turned. That the adage might apply to the arrival of the beginning of the end of the Trumpian nightmare and its replacement with an even worse leader per the banana republic standard.
The coup you dont see
In the Trump regime everything was upside down. Most dictatorships control and operate compliant state run media. The Trump regime was a ‘media run state’. He was effective and convincing because he really believed he was in charge. The problem is his psychology was such that he was wide open to manipulation. So long as his information sources were narrow, suggestive and controlled, so was he.
Real presidents get a presidential daily brief from an $80bn pa information gathering and assessment Goliath manned by 850,000 people with Top Secret clearances who can listen into any conversation on earth and read a cell phone screen by cyber hacking or drone camera. The president then consults teams of genuine subject matter experts to explore policy options. Ideas are fed into the bureaucratic equivalent of crowdsourcing to check if they make sense and don’t undermine other policies. Fully assessed and deconflicted, a refined set of ideas are returned for decision. Real presidents might be influenced by the national conversation but they are not directly controlled by a media empire.
Trump famously eschewed that system. He spent all morning every day watching cable tv. This was unironically catalogued in the diary as “executive time”. He got his daily programming (not briefing) from Fox and Friends and knee-jerked policy on twitter sitting alone on his couch with his grievances. When Chuck Todd asked “Who do you talk to for military advice?” Trump responded “Well, I watch the shows”. It should not be a revelation that the person making the shows called the shots. He still does. There are other outlets on the right but the gravitational pull of Murdoch’s dark matter overwhelms the competition.
Fox is the black hole in the right wing media universe. There are a series of increasingly extreme dwarf planets of various gravitational force floating off to its right. OAN, Newsmax and Breitbart are some of the other better known outlets but they are tiny moons compared to Murdoch’s Jupiter. “Newsmax and OAN’s ratings are dwarfed by those of the three leading cable news channels, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News.”
Fox News’s prime-time opinion hosts dominate the conservative commentary world on television, averaging 2.4 million viewers nightly so far this year, beating Newsmax by more than 1,000 percent. Newsmax has only delivered 1 million viewers 17 times in its history, Nielsen ratings data shows.
Obsessed with ratings, Trump obsessed with Fox. He hired people to fill his administration because they “looked the part” or “sounded good” on Fox. Remember that Sebastian Gorka met the Trump standard as a policy genius. With Fox now gone, Trump is going to be very lost in a world with closing walls.
Outfoxed
The first hints that Murdoch had decided to let Trump swing from the yard arm emerged on 10 June when The New York Post and the Wall Street Journal launched a coordinated simultaneous double broadside on Trump. This eliminated any damage control spin Trump might attempt, perhaps claiming that it was a coincidence or a rogue editor, and covered the full demographic spread, from the tabloid classes to monied interests. There was no mistake, the intent was crystal clear. As someone in the Murdoch orbit put it, “Rupert’s a pragmatic guy. It’s understood now that the gloves are off”
The Post barked
“The King Lear of Mar-a-Lago” who cannot accept defeat has “become a prisoner of his own ego,” the Post said. “He won’t stop insisting that 2020 was ‘stolen’ even though he’s offered no proof that it’s true.”
The Journal volleyed
“Trump betrayed his supporters by conning them on Jan. 6, and he is still doing it”.
Some commentators dismissed this attack as irrelevant because ‘no one reads newspapers any more’. Well, they do - online. A multi-billion dollar clickbait industry surrounds what passes for 'newspapers’ in this domain. Papers still set the agenda of the news day providing fodder for cable tv to quote, conduct interviews, and panel debates. Placing a story this way provides cover, making its virality look organic. Its circulation might be low, but newspaper influence on the media machine is not. As we will see, the message started to appear ‘organically’ on Fox.
Ten days later, Piers Morgan, the one time winner of Trump’s Apprentice, thundered in the opinion pages of the Post that
Trump had become an “aging, raging gorilla who’s become a whiny, democracy-defying bore.”
The longtime Murdoch employee demanded conservatives dump Trump for DeSantis. “The game’s up for The Donald, who opened his political career STRONG but who’s now “died.” It’s time for The Ronald”.
If the message was not getting through, the second ‘battle of fleet street’ was launched by Rupert on July 22nd. Yet again the mighty ships of the line, The Post and Journal lined up on either side of the Trump troller, rolled their guns into their hatches and fired hot shot that cut through Trump’s paper thin ego and set fire to his credibility with the right.
If The Post had not gone far enough in June, on this occasion it essentially issued a political death certificate.
“as a matter of character, Trump has proven himself unworthy to be this country’s chief executive again.”
The editors did not leave themselves any room for maneuver. No loophole through which to return at some future point to resuscitate the corpse. On one level, anything is possible in the tabloids, but as signals go, this is about as total as they get. The Journal continued the same line of assault, praising the man he tried to have killed and labeling Trump the worst possible thing you can be in his worldview - a loser.
"Character is revealed in a crisis, and Mr. Pence passed his Jan. 6 trial. Mr. Trump utterly failed his," the Journal editorial stated.
Given a license to attack, green shoots of rebellion started to migrate from the Murdoch press to his tv empire. Responding to J6C footage, Fox News anchor Bret Baier, said Trump looked 'horrific', leaving his co-hosts staring blankly at the screen unable to speak because he went so far off message. Martha MacCallum said that J6C was a “huge, stunning and clear moment” that proved there was zero evidence to support Trump’s lies.
Roger Alies first gave Trump a weekly spot on Fox and Friends in 2011. So it must have really thrown Trump when his stablemate and perhaps the dimmest bulb on set directly challenged the great helmsman during what should have been a softball segment. Referring to Trump’s election fraud claims Brian Kilmeade said “Your guys have been unable to prove it as of now”. Trump spluttered, “Excuse me, excuse me, we have proven it,” and quickly alters course away from the rocks.
Soon Fox was not being so friendly on a regular basis, airing CNN polling (!) that showed DeSantis ahead. The polling showed Trump’s “support within the Republican Party has instead left him weakened, with nearly half the party’s primary voters seeking someone different for president in 2024 and a significant number vowing to abandon him if he wins the nomination.” Trump immediately started lashing out at Fox saying it has gone to the “dark side”.
One recent segment on FoxNews.com featured interviews with Trump supporters who were
overwhelmingly unenthusiastic about a possible third campaign, saying that they thought “his time has passed” and that he was “a little too polarizing.” Then they offered their thoughts on who should replace him on the ticket. Unanimously, they named Mr. DeSantis.
The same drift has been slowly unfolding elsewhere in the Murdock empire. They no longer carry his speeches live, and sometimes not at all. Believing that the DOJ will not prosecute a presidential candidate, Trump has been reportedly considering an early nomination. If you tease a presidential run at a rally in Arizona that is not covered by Fox, did it really happen? Instead Fox played a long interview between DeSantis and Laura Ingraham. Days later DeSantis was being feted by the biggest name on Fox right now, Tucker Carlson.
In what must have been a devastating insult, Fox also gave air time to former VP Mike Pence at the expense of Trump. Both men returned to Washington DC on the 26th of July to speak at competing political conferences just streets apart. Fox aired the complete 17min speech of the man Trump attempted to have assassinated and no live coverage to Trump. There is nothing he hates more than a rating loser.
Say what you want about Steve Bannon, but he knows propaganda. His only hope for a second pardon is a second Trump term. Bannon is seething as he watches his chances flicker in the dying light because of Murdoch’s power.
“Fox News, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Times of London, The Sun etc etc etc ― all lockstep against Trump,” Bannon bleated. He attacked the Murdochs as “Australians via England — not American” who have “never sacrificed anything for this Country.” Murdoch became a U.S. citizen in 1984.
Hannity is the Fat Lady - keep an eye out for his aria
The big pivot would be Hannity. Would he dump his old pal? In the beginning, he was speaking to Trump in the White House daily. Any pretense to being part of a ‘news’ outfit was thrown out of the window when he turned up on stage at Trump rallies pointing at his ‘colleagues’ in the press and declared them the enemy of the state. On Jan 6, Hannity was in constant contact with Mark Meadows giving guidance and direction, in effect he was the shadow White House communications director.
If Trump loses Hannity he is toast and the signs are not looking good.
Mr. Trump has complained recently to aides that even Sean Hannity, his friend of 20 years, doesn’t seem to be paying him much attention anymore, one person who spoke to him recalled.
Trump has been AWOL from Fox for 100 days “since calling into Hannity on April 13 and falsely claiming he won the election” Vanity Fair wryly observed.
With no propaganda shield, Trump’s soft flanks are exposed to the sword of justice like never before
The Justice Department has had its fair share of public relations disasters too this year. Desperately trying to avoid the fate of the hapless James Comey, it now appears that the mild mannered former appellate judge and sitting Attorney General Merrick Garland, was playing a slightly too subtle political and PR game that blew up in his face.
By the summer of 2022 the DOJ had charged 800 maga foot soldiers but no leaders. Repetitious anodyne statements that the DOJ would will follow wherever the evidence leads them were wearing very thin in light of the momentous eye witness testimony exploding across screens during the summer of the J6C. Garland’s old law professor, Lawrence Tribe, spoke for many when he comment that it appeared a political decision had been made not to pursue coup leaders for fear of the damage it would do to the country.
This impression was compounded when reports emerged that the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson was “largely new” to the DOJ and they were “astonished” by what she was saying. Reporting further showed that the department had “only recently intensified its investigation of Donald Trump’s closest associates and that the defeated former president’s name has essentially gone unmentioned in internal discussions about the investigation'.” This alarmed seasoned departmental booster, Andrew Weissmann, who issued an urgent call to action. The bottom-up approach was taking too long and needed to be supplemented by a ‘hub and spoke’ criminal investigation.
Things really got out of hand when the ghost of Jim Comey appeared in the form of a standard election year policy memo that suggested no federal indictment of Donald Trump would be allowed before the November election. This coincided with Trump publicly musing about an early declaration of his candidacy for 2024. At worst, if the DOJ did come after him he could roll out the ‘witch hunt’ grievance, and at best, he would in fact receive immunity from prosecution. The policy memo looked like the DOJ was signaling to Trump that they would not touch him.
The uproar that ensued prompted justice deputy Lisa Monaco to issue what was intended as a clarifying statement that was just as vague and wishy washy as all the rest. It was read by many as confirming Trump’s safety. Sensing the danger, former prosecutor Barbara McQuaid urged Monaco to stop playing games and come right out and say it.
DOJ policy forbids confirming existence of investigation except when necessary to assure the public. Exception applies here!
The very next day in a coordinated double strike, the department relented and admitted that Trump was in fact under criminal investigation. The second prong of the attack was a rare televised interview of the AG where he was asked if Trump could evade the law if he announced a 2024 run. Garland said “we intend to hold anyone who was criminally responsible for any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power accountable".
The DOJ is now irrevocably set on course to charge Trump. There is simply no way all the evidence of the J6C can be ignored. Failure to charge him for his many manifest crimes would be an incentive to lawlessness on a scale “the likes of which you have never seen before”, to use a favored Trump phrase.
We are entering the moment of maximum danger
As the summer of the J6C winds down, we know a lot of important facts that we did not know in the spring. The outlook for Trump has decidedly shifted into very dangerous territory. In the spring, Civil War II assessed there was almost no chance he would face justice. Civil War II now assesses that there is a moderate and growing chance that the 45th President of the United States will end up behind bars.
The only way for him to regain immunity from prosecution is for him to regain the Oval Office. This is still possible and is being pursued with renewed fervor by dedicated extremists. His diehard supporters have been filling positions in election offices in battleground counties all over America. Candidates dedicated to overturning elections in his favor are on the cusp of being elected to state and federal office. All of these efforts will likely be supported by an unhinged Supreme Court that appears ready to vacate any sentence he may receive.
In addition to these political options, paramilitary options are open to his fanatical supporters. The destruction of norms of civilized behavior that he has done so much to advance, continue to erode the faith of people in institutions and in one another as citizens with equal rights. His politicization of the national security apparatus of the United States should concern every citizen. Having successfully corrupted the secret service, text-gate is spreading like wild fire to other national security institutions. Government departments with legal obligations to maintain official records and gather evidence at crimes scenes would have us believe that data from just Jan 5 and 6 has gone missing due to technical errors. This absurd lie has spread from the secret service into the DHS and most recently the Department of Defense. One department, maybe. All of them - impossible. There can be no doubt that this is evidence of a large scale systematic cover up of illegal activity in support of the coup inside the government. It brings into stark relief Civil War II driving concern about whether an arrest of Trump would be the 21st C Fort Sumter. Underestimate all these powerful forces at your peril.
The race is on. The possibility of political and paramilitary actions resulting in successful completion of the coup initiated in 2020 are growing in direct proportion to the threat of justice finally catching up with the criminal in chief. It is not yet possible to know which side will beat the other to the finishline.
Perhaps his only last ditch hope is to declare his candidacy and, as he has done on every other occasion, talk his way out of trouble. However, just as he legal woes deepen, and his need to regain office peaks, he has received even more devastating news. The GOP just announced that it will stop paying Trump's legal fees as soon as he declares a run for office, making it very difficult for him to afford to declare his candidacy.
But it is his ability to talk his way out of trouble that is in the most doubt. In the past Trump has shown a remarkable capacity to manipulate the public to avoid the consequences of his actions. However, his ability to do that has been taken away by Rupert Murdoch. Right at his moment of greatest need for a megaphone to manipulate the maga army to resist, he has been muzzled. Propaganda matters more than politics. It influences what people think. In some cases, it controls what they think. It is for this reason that Trump is in real trouble. If we manage to emerge from this national nightmare without major bloodshed it will be a miracle. In the most spectacular irony of all, thanks largely to the man who put him there in the first place, Rupert Murdoch.