Obama Promises to Root Out Maga
Hits a bit different when Barry says it, amirite?
Washington DC 6 DEC 2023
So I ran a test
I took Trump’s words and attributed them to Obama and put them in the homeland security page on LinkedIn. It was taken down within ten minutes for being hate speech. Which it is.
Then
I then placed the original in the same group... it's been two weeks. Nothing.
It will never be removed.
LI and Legitimacy of its Users
This was not a random test.
Linkedin (LI) is supposed to be different from most social media to the extent that it does not allow anonymity. It purports to present real people, using their real names and photographs, presenting their life’s work in the best possible light, so that they may link with others for professional purposes. LI offers various opportunities not just to network for employment opportunities, but to exchange views on professional matters both in public and private.
Like any social media, LI has bots and is a known hotbed of spies. Typically, it’s not that hard to spot either: recently joined, few followers, scant achievements or credentials, pretty pictures, generic content usually in the category of “sales”. Or much more rarely, the exact opposite - far too many followers, outrageous claims/credentials, and extensive posts claiming authority in important matters. In either case, a simple google search usually exposes a suspect profile. Anecdotally, CWII estimates about 30% of national security profiles on LI are bogus and/or run by foreign influence operations for anti-American political purposes.
Extremists are in the national security apparatus
J6 was a violent attempt to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after an election that all the courts, and all the states in the land, certified as legitimate. Only extremists in the US House and Senate refused to certify the election based on a completely fabricated claim that a handful of states had not certified the election or had done so under some kind of unspecified duress. All of that has been proven to be a complete lie and all involved have been changed with various crimes by the Department of Justice.
CWII’s pro-democracy warnings and assessments on LI met a very different response after J6, than before. LinkedIn exploded with support for the attack on democracy. Evidentially, the fascists felt empowered to speak out. J6 appeared to have removed the shame of their anti-American beliefs. Significant numbers of obviously real people working throughout the national security establishment proudly and vociferously supported terrorism against the United States.
This was surprising. Even allowing for undetected fakes, here were real people, many of whom swore to protect and defend the constitution, praising and defending those who attempted to destroy it. When this contradiction was noted and reference was made to the new continuous monitoring system used by OPM for security clearances - some went quiet, but most doubled down.1
At a minimum, those expressing extremist views knew that they will be potentially exposing themselves to scrutiny and risking professional opportunities. Unless they thought they were the “true” majority and that pro-democracy content had become something to be vigorously resisted and expunged from the discourse.
That was the tell.
It was at this point that CWII decided to explore the radicalization of the United States Secret Service. CWII has a TLDR piece on the “intelligence failure” leading up to J6 in the draft file. There was no failure. The pro-maga bias of law enforcement prevented obvious indicators and warnings from being taken seriously. When analysts look at a terrorist movement and realize they are looking in a mirror, it is hard for them to issue warnings on themselves (or their kinfolk back home). Especially when the Commander in Chief had spent months saying peaceful protestors are terrorists who should be shot by the Army under the Insurrection Act.2
Here are examples from the past of CWII engagements with the homeland and intelligence community extremists.
Homeland security:
Intelligence Community:
So what?
This is one of those small things that may point to a much bigger problem. The public rely on the national security apparatus to protect them from all enemies. Defense of the constitution is the cornerstone of America. What does the future look like when national security personnel turn on the constitution? Trump is counting on this cadre to stand back and stand by until the time comes. Does this little, one-off anecdotal test prove anything? Scientifically? Not really. However, it shows that hundreds of homeland security and intelligence professionals are willing to show their faces and risk their clearances and careers to support attacks on America. That suggests they believe they are either in the majority or are such a vocal and energetic minority they have a good chance to overwhelm the pro-democracy forces inside the national security apparatus.
Just like it is a five alarm fire that it was necessary to ask a presidential candidate if he plans to be a dictator, it should be a similar concern that anyone charged with protecting the constitution want to burn it to the ground.
Security clearance monitoring of this kind of material is controversial and only recently introduced. Previously there were gaps of 5-10 years between clearance investigations. That has changed under the Trusted Workforce program. A US Army site explains “continuous vetting… is the ongoing review of a cleared individual's background using automated records checks from criminal, financial, terrorism, and other databases”.
Protestors did riot. As rioters have always done, they damaged businesses and property. This is illegal and prosecutions were conducted. It is propaganda to conflate rioting with an attempt to violently stop the legitimate transfer of power. Yet many millions have been brainwashed that smashing windows and looting shops on a few nights of the year is terrorism, but storming the capital, killing people, and almost executing multiple members of the continuity of government to install an unelected dictator was just tourism. There is a huge flashing red flag here and yet most do not even see it. This is the power of propaganda.