The White House's Influencers

Yesterday I wrote about the roundtable held the previous day by cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump to discuss Antifa. In addition to Trump administration officials, participants included several right-wing influencers. One point that I stressed is that these influencers work hand-in-hand with the administration to both provide justification for and generate acceptance of the administration's policies. In this respect, the influencers have an important propaganda role for the administration. The role of the influencers during the roundtable was to create a convincing argument that Antifa exists and presents a violent threat in order to justify Trump's plans to deploy military forces to American cities. In reality, Antifa in the United States is simply an ideological movement with no organizational structure. But Trump's cognitive state is such that he is incapable of distinguishing reality from illusion. Moreover, Trump is surrounded by those for whom his delusions serve their own ends. Therefore, the influencers were not only expected to create a false narrative for the American public, but for Trump as well. Given the outsized role now played by these influencers, it is worth knowing more about them.

I am not going to discuss all of the influencers at the roundtable. A couple of them were new to me, and I don't have time to research them. But across the board, they all provided the same message: Antifa exists, it's dangerous, and we are thankful that Trump is doing something about it. All three parts of this message are important. The first part creates the illusion that Antifa — something that does not exist as an organization — actually is an organized entity. The second part assures the American public that Antifa presents a violent threat to public safety. Finally, the third part confirms that Trump's actions to deploy military forces to cities in order to combat Antifa are correct. This is propaganda in its purest form. The influencers are expected to not only invent a pretext for Trump's plans but proclaim his moves to counter that threat are necessary and proper.

Obviously, I am not the only one to have noticed the cooperation between the Trump administration and right-wing influencers. The arrangement is readily apparent to anyone paying attention. An article published just today in Wired makes several of the same points. Specifically related to Portland and Chicago, the magazine says:

For the Trump administration, these creators don’t just amplify the White House’s messaging; they manufacture the evidence to justify it. The administration needs visual proof that Democrat-led cities, like Portland and Chicago, are overwhelmed by violence, and these influencers supply it in real time, often becoming the spectacle themselves. Influencer embeds are now fixtures of the administration’s media strategy—a content mill for consensus, flooding social media feeds with state-sanctioned clips and patriotic spectacle.

Yesterday I noted the feedback loop between the Trump administration and the online influencers. Today, Wired describes the same thing:

The Trump administration has created a seamless loop of content inspiring policy and policy inspiring new content as the government performs its own justification in real time. First comes the boots on the ground. Then comes the content. Rinse and repeat.

I only disagree with this in terms of what comes first. I would argue that the influencers help prepare the media terrain to make the boots on the ground acceptable.

One of the leading influencers at the roundtable was Jack Posobiec. Unlike most of the others who were amateurs that stumbled into a lucrative grift, Posobiec is a professional practitioner of information warfare. A former Naval intelligence officer, Posobiec was mentored by GOP dirty trickster Roger Stone. Philadelphia Magazine, in a 2017 profile, described Posobiec as the "King of Fake News." Posobiec first gained infamy when he became one of the leading purveyors of the Pizzagate hoax that contended that D.C.'s Comet Pizza, a restaurant that does not have a basement, was holding child sex slaves in its basement. Since that time, there has been virtually no conspiracy among right-wingers with which Posobiec has not been associated. In 2016, Posobiec organized a disinformation campaign in which a Posobiec collaborator participated in an anti-Trump rally holding a sign saying "Rape Melania". The phrase trended on Twitter and was used to smear anti-Trump activists as violent misogynists. Posobiec was also a leading proponent of the conspiracy theory that Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich was killed by the Clintons after he leaked DNC emails. Posobiec is also responsible for the End Wokeness Twitter/X account that has been the source of a slew of disinformation.

Among the most common tactics used by MAGA activists such as Posobiec is to accuse their opponents of having the same faults that they themselves have. "Every accusation is a confession," as the saying goes. Posobiec is a leading employer of this strategy. Last year, Posobiec authored a book titled, "Unhumans: The Secret History of Communist Revolutions (and How to Crush Them)". The thesis of the book is that just about any group in history that Posobiec doesn't like was communist, and today, the left in America is communist. Moreover, the left is planning to use violence and fear to establish a communist dictatorship in America. Never mind that it is Trump currently seeking to deploy military forces into cities against the will of the local residents and political leadership, and that it is Trump who is attempting to rule by diktat. It is often said that an important step toward destroying an enemy is to dehumanize them. Posobiec skips directly to this step. The title of his book, "Unhumans," is used to describe leftists, a group he does not consider to be human. The American civil rights movement is described by Posobiec as communist, which would make Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., among others, an "unhuman". Posobiec further argues that "Democracy has never worked to protect innocents from the unhumans" and, therefore, he favors authoritarian governments led by "great men".

At the roundtable, Posobiec attempted to take a scholarly approach to explaining the threat posed by Antifa. He started off by saying, "Antifa has been around in various iterations for almost a hundred years in some instances, going back to the Weimar Republic in Germany..." Of course, the leading opponent of Antifa during the Weimar Republic was the Nazis. But then Posobiec immediately suggested that Charlie Kirk's assassin was associated with Antifa, an accusation for which there is currently no known evidence. Posobiec went on to lump all political leftists together as "Antifa," the same approach used in his book with "Antifa" replacing "unhumans". According to Posobiec, Tyler Robinson (Kirk's assassin), Luigi Maggione, Thomas Matthew Crooks (who attempted to shoot Trump), and Joshua Jahn (the shooter at the Dallas ICE facility), were all aligned with Antifa. Again, there is no evidence that this is true. Posobiec appeared to have two goals: 1) create the image of Antifa as a broad-based organization that reaches throughout the country and presents a threat of "murderous violence"; and 2) establish himself as prominent within Turning Point USA, the organization founded and led by Kirk. A number of personalities are seeking to gain influence after Kirk's murder, and this appeared to be a strong effort by Posobiec toward that end.

Posobiec's lesson that all anti-Trump individuals should be labeled as "Antifa" has clearly not been lost on Republican politicians. Just today, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson referred to planned "No Kings" demonstrations as an "Antifa crowd". Keeping in mind that, according to this roundtable, Antifa presents a violent threat and that Trump has issued an Executive Order designating Antifa as a domestic terrorism organization, this is a clear instigation of violence toward the demonstrators.

The second prominent influencer at the roundtable that I want to discuss is Andy Ngo. Ngo has a history of selectively portraying protesters, who he consistently identifies as "Antifa," as violent. To be clear, at many protests, leftist demonstrators have turned violent. However, Ngo has a habit of exaggerating and misleadingly reporting on violence that he has witnessed. On multiple occasions, Ngo has been the victim of attacks by demonstrators on whom he has been attempting to report. Ngo has made his victimization on these occasions central to his identity. Indeed, Ngo started his talk at the roundtable by recounting an attack that he suffered in 2019 which he claims "led to me nearly losing my life." To hear Ngo tell it, he was innocently reporting on a protest that suddenly turned violent and he was "ambushed in a mob beating". What Ngo left out, however, was a considerable amount of context.

Specifically, as explained by a liberal activist who went undercover as a member of the right-wing Patriot Prayer group, Ngo coordinated closely with Patriot Prayer and would accompany Patriot Prayer members as they marched to demonstrations and attempted to provoke violence. That was the case on the day that Ngo was attacked. He was present for Patriot Prayer's planning and he marched to an anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protest with members of Patriot Prayer who immediately attacked the protesters. Ngo never reported that Patriot Prayer had provoked the confrontation — five members of Patriot Prayer, including the group's leader, were charged with felony riot incitement — after the incident. Instead, he exclusively described the event as being violence initiated by Antifa.

Ngo was caught up in the melee and pretty badly injured. Afterwards, he filed a lawsuit against more than 50 individuals and a local group named Rose City Antifa. A judge ruled that Rose City Antifa was not a legal entity and, therefore, could not be sued. Eventually, almost all the individuals were also dropped from the case. Ultimately, two demonstrators went to trial and both were acquitted.

Ngo is particularly insidious because, while he portrays himself as a legitimate reporter, he is actually a partisan activist who routinely helps instigate violence about which he then provides one-sided reports. On the rare occasions that Ngo is personally caught up in the violence, he exploits it in order to raise his prominence. The Trump administration relies on Ngo and others like him to provide content that reflects the administration's claims that protesters are violent.

The last roundtable participant I am going to discuss is Nick Sortor. Sortor is not well known outside of right-wing social media circles. However, he gained some prominence just over a week ago when he was involved in a series of incidences outside the Portland ICE facility. There have been peaceful demonstrations at the facility since Trump announced that he would deploy National Guard units to the city. Trump and his administration have been eager to portray the demonstrators as violent and posing a threat sufficient to justify the use of military troops. MAGA influencers such as Sortor have been tasked with generating content that shows that there is violence where there is none.

Sortor's first confrontation occurred when he witnessed a protester burning an American flag. As video of the incident shows, the man was basically being ignored by everyone, and he was mostly being left to himself. One lady dressed in some sort of costume was the only other person in the area. Sortor ran over and grabbed the flag, which was attached to a pole, and then put the fire out and ran off with the flag. There are a few issues that should be noted here. Despite a recent executive order by Trump regarding flag burning and related claims by Trump that he has ordered one-year prison sentences for those who burn flags, flag burning remains legal in the United States. As I have repeatedly stressed, Trump cannot create or modify laws with executive orders. The flag that Sortor took was, presumably, the property of the man from whom Sortor took it. Therefore, Sortor likely committed theft.

After stealing the flag, Sortor began parading around the demonstration while carrying it. A few days after grabbing the flag, Sortor attempted to enter a crowd of demonstrators who blocked his way. He tried to push himself through the crowd but was pushed back. At one point, a man put his arms around him and carried him away from the crowd. A scuffle broke out, and Portland police moved in and arrested two demonstrators along with Sortor. Sortor was charged with disorderly conduct.

One thing that became evident to me while preparing this post was how misleading most reporting on this incident has been. First of all, most reporting is from right-wing sources such as Fox News and the New York Post. Fox News has been particularly spurious in its coverage of the demonstrations with repeated reports that would have you believe that full-scale riots were occurring. The coverage of Sortor's arrest was similarly contrived. Sortor was described as a reporter who was assaulted. I may not be familiar with the entire code of journalistic ethics, but I am pretty sure that stealing a flag is not included. At any rate, after Sortor's arrest, the full power of the U.S. government was deployed in his defense. No less than Trump personally wrote to Sortor to provide support. Attorney General Pam Bondi even opened an investigation into the Portland Police Department. Ultimately, the charges against Sortor were dropped.

Sortor began his talk at the roundtable by holding up the flag that he had seized. I found it disconcerting that he was actually sitting in front of our nation's highest law enforcement official, and the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with what is arguably stolen property and being praised as a hero. Trump spoke up to say that he "took the freedom of speech away" and asked if Sortor could identify the flag burner. When Sortor said that he could, Trump urged him to tell Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel (referred to within the White House as "a giant douche canoe"). Therefore, while stolen property was being ignored, a legal exercise of freedom of expression was being reported as a crime. Welcome to the upside-down world.

Just to be clear about Trump and flag burning. Trump claims that he has instituted a one-year jail sentence for burning a flag. However, the executive order he signed says no such thing, and it wouldn't be legal if it did. Trump suggested that he could make flag burning a crime (he can't) because it constituted "fighting words" and provoked riots. Trump even suggested that the flag burning Sortor interrupted was causing people to "go crazy" when, in fact, video shows that it was mostly being ignored. Regardless, the Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. Johnson that flag burning does not constitute fighting words and continues to be legal. Therefore, both Sortor and Trump are wrong in this incident.

The Trump administration is relying on a group of charlatans, liars, and disinformation specialists to provide pretexts for and justification of policies such as deploying National Guard units to American cities. The administration works hand-in-hand with these right-wing influencers, providing them with content and utilizing the content they produce to support its policies. While they portray themselves as "independent journalists," they are actually government propagandists. More and more, these influencers have become a primary means for the administration to communicate with its supporters.