How We Win the War
The philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point is to change it
This article was inspired by conversations with Ivan Throne, one of America’s most interesting political philosophers and aspiring tyrants. If you’re not reading his work, you don’t know what you’re missing. Check out Throne Dynamics to find out more.
Raytheon’s MALD mimics a jet’s radar signature. This distracts opponents and encourages them to send out anti-aircraft missiles that might otherwise be used to take out your planes. Mannequin soldiers, wooden tanks, dummy airfields—decoys have long been an important part of military strategy. Decoys can artificially inflate the size of an army, lure your opponent into a trap or cause them to waste scarce manpower and resources.
The Arab Spring of 2010-11 showed American leaders that social media could be a powerful disruptor. Those leaders also rightly extrapolated that other state and non-state actors could use social media to disrupt American plans. As protests broke out throughout the Middle East and North Africa, Occupy Wall Street gained traction throughout the United States. This made our 0.01% nervous. They knew that color revolutions were possible, and knew that they could be aimed at America’s ruling elite.
A few years after the Arab Spring, Trump won with the help of some cartoon frogs and God Emperor memes. Social media became a battlefield for War by Other Means. And like every other modern battlefield, you saw an increasing deployment of decoys. Bots, influencers, and media personalities railed against racism, sexism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, and just about every kind of badthink that didn’t involve classism.
These battles took place across the great chasm which divided the Shitlibs and Trumptards. One side loved our 45th President and the other hated him. To show indifference or express mild criticism was to make yourself the target of both sides. Donald Trump was the fulcrum upon which our future balanced. Only his triumph, or his defeat, could save us from tyranny.
Like Raytheon’s MALDs, these social media campaigns led many prospective activists to waste their time and energy on frivolities rather than real problems. They worked across the board. “White Nationalists” frothed and foamed over Black Little Mermaid and Brown Snow White, while giving little attention to the sad state of America’s White working classes. Instead of protesting against income inequity, “Social Justice Warriors” cheered every time a multinational corporation put up a rainbow banner or declared that Black Lives Matter.
The campaigns also served another common decoy purpose: they created an illusion of consensus. With thousands of people shrieking in the streets and millions shrieking online, it seemed like a solid majority was ready to riot should they not get their way. Because we’re pack primates, we’re hard-wired to follow the crowd. A great number of people base their political decisions not on morality or practicality but on what their friends and neighbors espouse.
For my regular readers, this is old news. You already know that these teapot tempests were brewed as a distraction. Many of you have thoughts on who is responsible for this plethora of psyops. But very few—not even yrs. truly—have done much thinking about the next question; why are they doing this? What do Fortune 500 companies have to gain by repeating rote slogans? What drives major studios to produce unpopular and unprofitable propaganda? The answer is simple. They are afraid.
The Arab Spring uprisings gave our bureaucrats new power, but with that power came a guilty conscience. As I noted in my last essay, they fear their people. They keep us chasing shadows because they are terrified of what might happen if we banded together. This makes them dangerous, but it also provides us with many opportunities. But first we must understand what they fear, and what they don’t.
Their ongoing mass actions against Trump looked like Arab Spring-style protests. But where those actions were aimed at overthrow, the American #resistance was more like a controlled burn. Their funders definitely wanted Trump gone, and wanted to present a show of mass solidarity against Orange Julius Caesar. But the absolute last thing they wanted was a revolution. Instead of channeling anger toward a coup, their goal was to defuse it in theatrical but ultimately harmless antics.
Black Lives Matter burned a few city blocks and got lots of media attention, but they were never going to overthrow the people in charge. Neither were genderspecials on SSDI, no matter how many “TERFs” they might assault or how many women’s shelters they might vandalize. Both groups were foot soldiers who could cause chaos, but who could be easily defused should they become disobedient.
BLM lost its funding and fawning media coverage after standing with Palestine. After the 2024 Democratic shellacking, trans activists are finding politicians are no longer returning their calls. Both groups assumed their support was organic, only to have the Astroturf pulled out from beneath them. All the while they thought they were changing the world, they were being used to maintain the status quo.
Whenever you see a problem cast as a Manichaean battle between Good and Evil, chances are you’re dealing with a ruse. The world is not so easily sorted into Demonrats and Rethuglicans, Christofascists vs Godless Secularists, or any other simple divide you can imagine. Including the 0.01%/Deep State/Professional-Managerial Class vs the People. Mental health professionals who treat borderline personality disorder refer to this kind of Either/Or thinking as splitting. Do you want to be more functional than your Cluster B ex? Avoid this trap like you avoid your ex.
Is the mainstream media pushing outrage against one atrocity or another? You can be sure that outrage won’t endanger the bottom line for the six companies that own almost all mainstream media. Nor will it endanger the corporations declaring their unconditional support for the cause du jour. To discover what our rulers fear, you need to pay attention not to their words but to their reactions.
On the morning of December 4, 2024 United Healthcare CEO was shot and killed on a Manhattan street by a lone gunman. Five days later authorities detained Luigi Mangione at an Altoona, Pennsylvania McDonald’s. Mangione remains in police custody on state and federal charges. While New York does not execute criminals, Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for what she calls “a premeditated, coldblooded assassination.”
CEOs have never been popular with the masses, Donald Trump being a notable exception. Insurance CEOs, who concentrate more on the company’s bottom line than on the health and satisfaction of its insured, are less popular than most. Many on all sides of the political spectrum have come to see Luigi as a folk hero. But even the loudest and angriest Never Trumpers who tried to justify Trump’s Butler, PA shooting have by and large condemned Thompson’s assassination.
For its part, mainstream media has generally been quick to wag a finger at the pro-Mangione movement. While they may grudgingly accept that people are angry at the super-rich, they also add obligatory disclaimers that Violence Is Never The Answer. More often they produce pieces like:
Inside the fanatical Reddit world — complete with cakes, cross-stitch and fan fiction — devoted to alleged killer Luigi Mangione (New York Post, April 9 2025)
The Glorification of Luigi Mangione Is Disturbing – But Not Surprising (US News & World Report, December 18 2024)
U.S. government surveilling accounts with 'negative' views of health insurance companies (Daily Express US, January 21 2025)
One of the most interesting examples of this comes from the December 16 2024 USA Today, which gave us an article headlined “Michael Moore pens letter after Luigi Mangione arrest for CEO killing: ‘I condemn murder.’” But when you read the article you soon discover that context is everything. What Moore actually said on his Substack was:
Yes, I condemn murder, and that's why I condemn America's broken, vile, rapacious, bloodthirsty, unethical, immoral health care industry and I condemn every one of the CEOs who are in charge of it and I condemn every politician who takes their money and keeps this system going instead of tearing it up, ripping it apart, and throwing it all away.
When somebody says “violence is never the answer,” you can safely ignore them. Violence is the last answer when all else has failed. When you disavow violence, you tell the world that you can be safely ignored. As the great American poet Robinson Jeffers puts it:
What but the wolf’s tooth whittled so fine
The fleet limbs of the antelope?
What but fear winged the birds, and hunger
Jewelled with such eyes the great goshawk’s head?
Violence has been the sire of all the world’s values.
Who would remember Helen’s face
Lacking the terrible halo of spears?
Who formed Christ but Herod and Caesar,
The cruel and bloody victories of Caesar?
Violence, the bloody sire of all the world’s values.
Am I advocating for violence? I’m flattered that you think readers take my writing that seriously. The truth is that I could no more talk a pacifist into violence than I could talk an assassin into nonviolence. The only thing I’m guilty of is stating the obvious. But if you assumed otherwise, I can’t blame you. Our leaders believe that guys like me are capable not only of advocating violence but of provoking it too.
In a 2011 blog post, G2Geek described “Stochastic Terrorism” as:
1. The use of mass communication to incite random actors to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable.
2. Remote-control murder by lone wolf.
According to G2Geek, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, and Sean Hannity were three of the biggest purveyors of stochastic terrorism. Their rhetoric cleverly avoided direct calls to bloodshed, but used allusions to violence in the hopes that a delusional person would read between the lines. (Shades of Henry II’s “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”)
As G2Geek puts it:
You heat up the waters and stir the pot, knowing full well that sooner or later a lone wolf will pop up and do the deed. The fact that it will happen is as predictable as the fact that a heated pot of water will eventually boil. But the exact time and place of each incident will remain as random as the appearance of the first bubbles in the boiling pot.
And so the unstable shooter, the sick kid or crazy grownup, will be taken into custody where they will rant a disconnected version of your own rants. The fact that they are clearly nuts will enable shifting the public discussion away from your hateful rhetoric and toward the overt insanity of the shooter or bomber.
After that, you get to go on the air and tut-tut along with everyone else, and say "Oh So Sad," and all that crap. But behind the scenes you drink a toast and cheer: one down, a bunch more to go.
The “stochastic terrorism” meme fit in well with the Gramsci Left’s idea that harsh words were violence. But while those fans embraced it, critics noted that “stochastic terrorism” can easily be used to shut down controversial opinions. Any spicy meme can be treated as a virtual hand grenade thrown at the vulnerable and marginalized. There’s some truth to that. Wokesters certainly love performative and manipulative victimhood. But there’s another very important point to consider. The people throwing the phrase around genuinely believe that stochastic terrorism exists.
Nobody fears treachery like the treacherous. Once you succeed in sparking a Color Revolution, you’re going to see Color Revolutionaries everywhere. And the longer you play at being victimized, the more you see yourself as a victim. Pattern recognition is a useful survival skill, but it doesn’t take much to amp it up into paranoid ideation. And while the mad may seem incoherent, with a little study they become very predictable indeed.
Populists use the tension between “the elite” and “the people” to their own ends. The definitions of those terms can vary depending on the populist movement. Mao and Stalin both targeted the modestly prosperous. Andrew Jackson went after bankers. Fifty years after Jackson left office, the People’s Party supported small businessmen and farmers against robber barons, big industry, and the gold standard.
Alas, in place of American history, today’s professional-managerial classes inevitably see populism through the lens of a certain failed Austrian painter. To protect us from the Second Coming of Hitler, they have used every sort of lawfare, propaganda, and election chicanery. In their efforts to discourage the rise of Nazism, they have become the Weimar Republic. And we all know how that ended last time.
In place of unpredictable strong men, the PMCs prefer safe and reliable company men whom they can promote with carefully measured and calculated promotional campaigns. When you hold the Great Unwashed in contempt, you’re going to think of them as easily manipulated rubes. But to create an effective campaign you have to not only understand your audience. You also have to empathize with them. Lacking that emotional intelligence, you get Coconut Brat Joy Failure.
If the EU and Great Britain are any indicators, we can expect the lawfare etc. to keep ramping up as our leaders grow increasingly insecure. Trump continues to stretch the boundaries of Executive power. While the bureaucrats scream every step of the way, they will happily wield that extra power once they regain control. But should they face a hard economic downturn — and they soon will — they will find that committee-crafted strongmen are a poor substitute for the real thing.
There is no Cincinnatus waiting in the wings to save us. Only the most ambitious and power-hungry are willing to run the gauntlet which is an American presidential run. Those who make it to the Oval Office have little interest in making themselves weaker for the good of the people. For so long as we have a Presidency you can expect that the President’s power will grow in proportion to the man who holds the office, and that the Presidency will end when there is no longer a man capable of wielding that power.
The PMCs are well acquainted with the aftermath of Weimar-era hyperinflation. They spend much less time ruminating on the Great Depression and how the American Presidency changed after FDR. The harder the crash, the more power our strongman-to-come will claim. Unemployed people will back anyone who gives them jobs. Hungry people will back anyone who gives them food.
The luxury beliefs that have sustained a #resistance for a decade will soon fall by the wayside when we can no longer afford to coddle them. Very few of the Tesla-keyers and sign-wavers will continue their protests after they first encounter live ammo. When that happens the rebellion will move from the streets to the shadows. And its cues will no longer be to win social status but to instill terror.
Dylann Roof did not spark a race war. Eric Frein didn’t inspire a wave of police killings. Brenton Tarrent didn’t rouse New Zealand to kick out the Muslim hordes. The masses are unimpressed by temper tantrums, and so lone gunmen generally fail at their goals. Fevered dreams of stochastic terror bombs aside, you can’t start a revolution without revolutionaries, plural. As Robert Taber writes in his indispensable book The War of the Flea:
When we speak of the guerrilla fighter, we are speaking of the political partisan, an armed civilian whose principal weapon is not his rifle or his machete, but his relationship to the community, the nation, in and for which he fights.
In 1914 six Bosnian Serbs managed to take out an Archduke and spark a Great War. In December 1956 Fidel Castro and 81 Communists landed on an eastern Cuba beach; within a month all but 19 of his men had been captured or killed. Two years later Castro ruled the island. A small but determined group can go a long way with just a little respect from the people.
Note here that I said “respect” rather than support. It’s certainly nice if you have a large and enthusiastic following amongst the masses. But lacking that, you can get by with healthy fear. If supporting the government becomes more dangerous than supporting the guerrillas, most of the populace will choose a neutral position. They might not cooperate with your group, but they won’t report you to the authorities and they’ll grudgingly tolerate shakedowns for money, food, and supplies.
The smart guerrilla will do what he can to help the people and make as few demands as possible. But he will punish informers, soldiers, and government sympathizers without mercy or pity. These efforts will lead the beleaguered government to engage in ever more brutal acts of counterterrorism. But that generally leads to even greater ill feeling. The 9/11 attacks and the 7 October Hamas raids dragged America and Israel into costly, unpopular conflicts that left both countries hated worldwide.
When the conflict comes it will be settled with bullets, not memes. The conflict may start when a weak, divided government attacks like a cornered animal in a desperate attempt to survive. Or it may begin after that weak, divided government dies a natural death and the jackals come to feast on the corpse.
Most will lay low and do our best to keep ourselves and our loved ones out of danger. A few who are very brave, very clever, and very lucky will rise to power. They will be the ones who are willing to die and to kill. It has always been this way. It will always be this way. Anybody who says otherwise is either a liar or a coward.