Tag: politics

The Epstein Files: Were “Conspiracy Theorists” Right Again?

Anyone trying to convince you there is nothing there is either stupid or lying.

The biggest news story of our lifetime has dropped. So big, in fact, that it will make you reevaluate your entire world view. Over 3 million files were released in relation to Jeffrey Epstein, the “disgraced financier.” Now that we can see this is much darker than most had even imagined, “disgraced” seems like a nice way of putting it. And he was not a simple financier. His expertise, more specifically, was in organized crime – the connections, networks, and financing. He was a fixer, a middle man, a consultant for a network of global elites – heads of state, tech, finance, science, religion, intelligence, celebrities. He had his hand in every cookie jar you could think of. His toes dipped in every pond. The scope and power of his network and influence was immense. But he wasn’t at the top of the pyramid. We now know that he “represented” the Rothschilds, as his email to Peter Thiel said exactly that. And although we still don’t know exactly where he got all his money from, the files do contain a contract between him and the Rothschilds for $25 million. Additionally, more recently, Les Wexner has stated Jeffrey Epstein was a financial advisor to Élie de Rothschild and the Rothschild family in France.

There’s so much information to piece together that it’s hard to even know where to start. And so much brought to light that it’s difficult to process. Every time I look into anything just a little bit deeper, I realize it’s just the tip of the iceberg. The rabbit holes are bottomless pits. I pause and wonder, “how the hell do I explain this to anyone who hasn’t read it?” This shit is crazy. It’s impossible to fit it into just one post. For now, let’s focus on an overview of Epstein and his operation.

To understand Jeffrey Epstein and his activities, it is important to understand his network of powerful contacts and the structures that protected him1. Those networks and structures did not begin with him, nor did they die with him1. Epstein is not a unique singular case. He is not an anomaly. Guaranteed, there exist more Jeffrey Epsteins that remain in the shadows, doing this kind of work, keeping the network alive and operational.

Let’s begin with the interview done by Steve Bannon. In the first 20 minutes, Epstein describes being on the board of the Rockefeller Foundation and knowing David Rockefeller personally. He says that David Rockefeller put him on the Trilateral Commission in the 1990s. The reason for this commission was that politicians in most countries were only elected for 4 or 8 years at a time. Thus, in order to have “stability and consistency,” (ie. to solidify power over a longer period) the most important people would be businessmen. And so, David Rockefeller formed the Trilateral Commission of businessmen and politicians from three major continents: North America, Europe, and Asia. Epstein then goes on to explain that most political leaders are only there because they can convince people to vote for them. They become world leaders because they are popular. They have no expertise or degrees in things like finance. Many of them are just good at what they do in terms of politics. They aren’t scientists, they’re not intellectuals, they’re not great thinkers – they’re politicians. In this way, he is revealing that politicians aren’t the ones really steering the ship. They are merely figureheads that placate the masses. Underneath this facade lies a tightly interlinked, powerful global network of finance, media, banking, intelligence, corporations, heads of state, and royalty. The coordination of this network is managed and developed by fixers and consultants like Jeffrey Epstein.

A recorded conversation from February of 2013 between Ehud Barak, and Jeffrey Epstein was also released in this batch of the Epstein files. Ehud Barak was the head of Israeli military intelligence before he became the Prime Minister of Israel in 1999, after which he became Israel’s Minister of Defense in 2007. This recording is from one month before he left office in March of 2013. The conversation revolves around Barak’s transition into the private sector, and it sheds a light on Epstein’s role as an outside fixer that mediates the lucrative success of private careers for former government officials. Instead of focusing on marketing his skills or knowledge, Epstein tells Barak to make a list of people who owe him favors – those who owe him their life, their job, etc. This is how people in government convert government power into personal financial power: by cashing in favors. The incentive in government is not to do what’s best for the country, but rather, to accumulate favors from outside entities, so that when transitioning into private life, those favors can be called in for lucrative deals. And this is the way it works everywhere. Placements on lucrative board seats, book deals, consulting agreements, funding from foundations and philanthropies, stock options, start-up capital, and etcetera is acquired not from government work, but from the things people owe you from your time in government. Throughout the conversation, Jeffrey Epstein is arranging, through his vast and powerful network, to broker board seats to the tune of several million dollars for Ehud Barak. However much money he made in government is dwarfed by the multimillions of dollars his friend Epstein can help him make afterwards by calling in IOUs. This was one of Epstein’s roles in this global network.

A major benefit of this network is insider trading. Epstein was able to gather sensitive economic information from top-ranking officials and businessmen. One example found in the files is Peter Mandelson, who was “for all intents and purposes deputy prime minister” of the UK. Mandelson was a top-level policy operative imbedded in the British government. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, he leaked highly sensitive government information, including advanced knowledge of bailouts and asset sales. In June of 2009, he sent Epstein a Downing Street memo on asset sales, with the comment: “Interesting note that’s gone to the PM.” Two months later, he leaked a confidential banking memo seconds after receiving it. Then in May of 2010, he tipped Epstein off about a €500 billion bailout, saying “[should] be announced tonight.” He even gave advance notice of PM Gordon Brown’s resignation, saying “finally got him to go today.”

Epstein was the fixer, and Mandelson was the inside man. Insider trading was another of Epstein’s roles.

Interestingly, Epstein also met with Zelensky a couple months before he rose to power as the president of Ukraine in May of 2019. Also in May of 2019, Zelensky solicited help from Epstein, saying Putin was being dismissive and claiming he’s run by Israelis. Five years prior, Epstein told Ariane de Rothschild in an email that “ukraine upheaval should provide many opportunities, many.” It would seem they planned on getting in on the Ukraine crisis, and profiting from the ensuing chaos and destabilization.

The files also contain a number of documents alleging that Zelensky is complicit in trafficking women and children, with one saying, “WHY IS THE MEDIA SO QUIET THAT UKRAINE IS INVOLVED IN THE EPSTEIN TRAFFICKING RING? JEAN LUC BRUNEL WASN’T IN UKRAINE FOR THE WEATHER, JUST SAYING HEY ZELENSKY!” Another file describes Jean Luc Brunel as “a model recruiter [who] was frequently around Epstein. Brunel would bring girls to Epstein. Many of the girls Brunel brought to Epstein had poor English language skills and appeared to be very young.”

Throughout the files, it becomes apparent that Epstein had many connections to “model recruiters” and scouts who were constantly finding young women for him. There were plenty of people emailing him about young girls, sending pictures of them, discussing getting in touch with them, and whether or not Epstein was interested in them. A recurring theme is promises being made to these girls about modeling contracts and acting careers. Epstein’s connections to Hollywood also played a role here. In one email from June 20, 2010 he told a girl, “Brett Ratner is going to film a big movie, snow white, I would love to take photos of you in a snow white costume. You can get it from the costume store.” To which she replied, “Will get it!” Then, on July 9, 2010, the former CEO of Barclays and JP Asset Management, Jes Staley emailed Epstein saying, “That was fun. Say hi to Snow White.” Epstein replied, “what character would you like next”? Another email to Epstein on July 10, 2010 reads, “the snow white was f..ed twice as soon as she put her costume”. It would seem Mr. Staley has a thing for Disney characters, as his reply to Epstein was, “beauty and the beast”; and another document in the files that appears to be written by a victim states, “The disgusting Mr. Staley if anyone ever calls me tinkerbell again I will lose my mind. He left bloody marks on my arms from his belt…”

This brings us to the part of Epstein’s operation that has gotten the most attention: human trafficking. This is another of Epstein’s roles. In order to expand the network, make deals, make his clients happy, gather intel, acquire kompromat, and push an agenda forward, one thing he offered was young beautiful women. Through his network, he could secretly and discretely fulfill the desires of those in powerful positions. And since this was done discretely, it didn’t matter how immoral or illegal it might be. Epstein could get whatever was desired – girls? Boys? Doesn’t matter how young. Torture? Murder? Epstein was the man that could provide. There may not necessarily be any smoking guns in the files, but there’s a preponderance of evidence pointing to this being the case. There is a lot of documentation of similar stories, as well as evidence in Epstein’s own emails, and the emails and messages of those close to him that may have been co-conspirators. In one email, Epstein wrote, “I loved the torture video.” The recipient, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, has recently stepped down from his position as chairman and CEO of DP World due to the revelation of his email exchanges with Epstein. In another email, someone seems to have attempted to blackmail Epstein for bitcoin, claiming that “somewhere in the hills outside the Zorro, two foreign girls were buried on orders of Jeffrey and Madam G. Both died by strangulation during rough, fetish sex”:

It’s blatantly obvious that Epstein preferred very young girls. In one email, he tells a recruiter that a 24 year old girl looks too old. In fact, there are plenty of emails about girls being too old. During Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial in connection to Epstein and sex trafficking, one victim claimed she became “too old” at 18. In that trial, victims alleged to be groomed and abused from as young as 10 years old. While going through the files, I’ve read mentions of children as young as 7 and 8. One email that stands out as particularly strange is of someone emailing Epstein a picture of someone’s 5 year old daughter. Curiously, Epstein emailed a prominent lawyer to ask about the legality of “sex tourism” with minors:

But how did Jeffrey Epstein get away with all of this for so long? Yes, he was well-connected to many of the most powerful people in the world, but that isn’t even the full story. Mainstream reporting on Epstein was, at one time, relatively open about his ties to intelligence. British media reported as early as 1992 and throughout the early 2000s that he had ties with both US and Israeli intelligence1. With his close ties to powerful connections in the UK, it is now also believed that he had ties with British intelligence as well. Given that Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, also had deep ties to multiple different intelligence agencies, this isn’t far-fetched. Additionally, there are FBI documents released in the files with claims he was trained as an Israeli spy. Not only that, but there is a text conversation where Epstein says, “going into a scif talk tomorrow.”

Another file shows this same conversation in a different format, with Epstein’s name unredacted, but Bannon’s name redacted

What is a SCIF, you may ask? From Google’s AI overview: “SCIF stands for Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. It is a secure, accredited, and enclosed area within a building, ship, or temporary site designed to prevent unauthorized personnel from eavesdropping on or accessing high-level classified intelligence.” If Epstein is going into a SCIF, he has access to high-level intelligence. In addition to all that, Alex Acosta, who served as US attorney for Southern Florida during Epstein’s 2008 “sweetheart deal,” had been told by unspecified figures at the time that he needed to give Epstein a lenient sentence because of his links to “intelligence”1. He also later disclosed that he had signed off on the deal because Epstein “had belonged to intelligence”1. Jeffrey Epstein had backers and benefactors powerful enough that he had a Get Out of Jail Free card, giving him basically untouchable status. Finally, it seems that Epstein was somehow tipped off when the FBI launched a renewed federal investigation into his sex trafficking operation on December 6, 2018. Documents in the files reveal that on that same day, Epstein purchased six 55-gallon drums of sulfuric acid. While there are legitimate uses for sulfuric acid, this amount is a little excessive to say the least. The files also reveal that their usual order seemed to be about two drums every one and a half to two years. Suddenly tripling that is curious, especially on that particular day. As for illegitimate uses, sulfuric acid could be used for destroying evidence (human remains, for example). It is more than likely that Epstein operated at a very high level in intelligence.

Circa 1990, former CIA officer and Iran-Contra whistleblower, Bruce Hemmings, said the following – and I believe it offers pertinent insight into not only intelligence agencies at large, but Jeffrey Epstein’s activities in particular:

Who are these people?… They are in and outside [the] CIA. They are… Right Wing Republicans, …Democrats, mercenaries, ex officio Mafia and opportunists within the group. They are CEOs, they are bankers, they are presidents, they own airlines, they own national television networks… and they do not give a damn about the law or the Constitution or the Congress or the Oversight committees except as something to be subverted and manipulated and lied to.

They abhor sunlight and love darkness. They deal in innuendo and character assassination, and planted stories, the incomplete thought and sentence. They burn and shred files if caught, they commit perjury, and when caught they have guaranteed sinecures with large US corporations.

If you let them, they will take over not only [the] CIA but the entire government and the world, cutting off dissent, free speech, a free media, and they will cut a deal with anyone, from [the] Mafia to Saddam Hussein, if it means more power and money. They stole $600 billion from the S&L’s and then diverted our attention to the Iraqis… They flooded our country with drugs from Central America during the 1980s, cut deals with Haro in Mexico, Noriega in Panama, and the Medillin and Cali cartels, and Castro, and recently the Red Mafia in the KGB.

They ruin their detractors and they fear the truth. If they can, they will blackmail you. Sex, drugs, deals, whatever it takes.

-Quoted in Webb1

In the world of espionage, there exists the acronym MICE: Money, Ideology, Compromise/Coercion (blackmail), Ego. These are motivations for espionage, and are used in counterintelligence as well as recruitment to motivate individuals to betray their country, company, organization, etc. In short, these are the four main pillars used to coopt people into joining a cause. It seems to me that Epstein was able to use these very effectively in his own operations. He had access to vast finances for funding which gave him an enormous amount of influence; and he had cameras everywhere while running a sex trafficking ring in order to compromise and coerce those in powerful positions, if need be. The sex trafficking may have also played into Ego, as powerful people were able to “live on top of the world” as it were, and fulfill their deepest desires, no matter how depraved.

Honestly, the release of the files has been done in such a way that makes it difficult to digest. Over 3 million files all at once, with no structure, no context, no categorization, no guidance for any coherent connections. The UI is clunky and on the surface the whole thing looks sloppy. But it makes me wonder if this was not, in fact, deliberate. The Trump administration has been dragging their feet, reluctant to release any of the files. Early on, they announced that they would, but have since tried to walk it back, again and again. They say these 3 million are half of the files, but within the files, an FBI email exchange says there are over 16 TB of data. Supposedly, that means these 3 million files actually only make up 2% of the files. It is also important to keep in mind that only FBI files will be released to the public. Anything the CIA has will stay hidden away.

Internet sleuths are still going through the files and finding more and more every day. There is just so much to piece together. Anyone trying to convince you there is nothing there is either stupid or lying. This is the biggest news story of our lifetime.

  1. Webb, Whitney. One Nation Under Blackmail Vol. 1. Trine Day LLC, 2022. ↩︎

Divide and Conquer: How Propaganda Shapes Perception in Society

Propaganda thrives on negative emotion.

Do you believe in magic? Have you ever been hypnotized? What if I told you that in this day and age, regardless of what you may believe, the real answer is most likely yes.

In both subtle and obvious ways, throughout our entire lives we are conditioned. Our personalities are molded in a myriad of ways, from the meal training given in early childhood, to the steadiness or chaos of our upbringing; from the reservedness of our friends to the discipline of our schools and the competitiveness of our clubs1; from the advertisements in your periphery to the movies you watch; from social media, to the news media. Everything in your environment is going to influence you. For good or bad, there’s no way around it. But – and this is especially so with modern technology – many of these influences can be deliberately manufactured and manipulated to affect your beliefs and behaviour. The modern means of mass communication bring the entire world daily into each and everyone’s hands; the techniques of propaganda have been refined and systematized; and there is scarcely any hiding place from the constant visual and verbal assault on the mind¹. Through systematized suggestion, subtle propaganda, and more overt mass hypnosis, the human mind in its expressions is changed daily in any society¹. You are unwittingly controlled by the magician, the hypnotist, the propagandist.

Propaganda thrives on negative emotion. It stirs up powerful emotions: outrage, anger, hatred. It takes your anxieties, your frustrations, and directs them at an intended target. It subtly changes your thought patterns. It manipulates your beliefs and behaviour. All without you ever realizing – as if it were a magic trick, or hypnosis. But how does it do this?

People are not the rational creatures they think they are. Most believe that their opinions, ideas, and conclusions are all made consciously, when in actuality, 95% of human thinking is subconscious – and is a response to accustomed patterns2. Only the remaining 5% is conscious thought, and of that, only a part is a consequence of reason². And underneath it all, in the unconscious, lies a storehouse of deeply buried memories, emotion, and strivings, including many infantile and irrational yearnings, which constantly influence the conscious acts¹. Humans do not construct their beliefs and attitudes by reason. We are primarily emotional creatures that operate largely via subconscious pattern recognition. There are plenty of times when we think we’ve reached a conclusion based on logic and reasoning, but we are in fact just rationalizing an emotional reaction.

Effective propaganda (and what is now called Psychological Operations or PsyOp) therefore targets this kind of thinking. It plays on emotion, memories, desires and attempts to stimulate the subject (ie. you) into interpreting patterns in the desired way. It targets your thoughts, not at their expression, but at their construction. This subsequently shifts beliefs and behaviours.

In fact, “reality” itself hinges on one’s cultural indoctrination, education, experiences, prejudices, desires, and emotions². The sum total of all of this serves as the lens through which it is “perceived as reality”². This means, by altering these things, we may alter one’s perception of reality. Think of them as knobs or dials that can be used to tune in to, or fine-tune, one’s reality. This “reality” also includes assumptions concerning the population, both individually and as a whole, of which some are politically and culturally acceptable and others are not². For instance race, religion, sex, the role of the genders, slavery, economic systems, and political ideologies are all factors with extremely powerful influence².

So what does this propaganda look like? Let’s start with a simple, ancient technique: Divide and conquer. This strategy breaks down groups (typically opposition) into smaller parts, weakening them by preventing their unity, and allowing the divider to gain or maintain power and control. Ideally, they can then additionally use these smaller parts to impede and attack the remaining opposition. Nowadays, it commonly takes the form of one of the following: left vs right, republican vs democrat, liberal vs conservative, identity group vs identity group. These false dialectics are all a big political melodrama that play out across mainstream and social media. It’s kabuki theatre. It is the misdirection in the magician’s trick: it grabs your attention, it conjures emotional outrage, and leaves you believing in the magic show.

The target audience is identified, then fed carefully selected information, and emotions are prodded and pushed until behaviour changes. The goal here is to isolate the target audience, pump them full of outrage, and ultimately create a tribal us versus them mentality. This tribal thinking will result in such a strong in-group preference, and such a strong out-group devaluation that people will believe any lie about the other side, cheer when people suffer, and excuse things they would never excuse if it were happening in their own neighbourhood. This is the playbook for how to get otherwise decent, kind people applauding for and laughing at violence and murder on the internet. It is how a country is radicalized without firing a shot.

Identity groups are commonly used and pitted against each other for this purpose – especially in Canada. Canada is uniquely situated for this to be particularly effective, as it has a philosophy of being a “cultural mosaic,” as opposed to something like the U.S. philosophy of the “melting pot.” The melting pot means that people of different cultures and backgrounds entering the U.S. should all melt together, and become American first and foremost, prioritizing American values over any previous ones. It is a cultural philosophy of assimilation: American culture comes first in America. The cultural mosaic, on the other hand, is a philosophy where people of different cultures and backgrounds get to keep their culture and their values, and fit together like a mosaic inside of Canada (and thus Canadian culture is not prioritized – which is a large factor in why it is dying out). This has made Canada an ideal playground for divide and conquer tactics. Not all cultures are equal, and many of them have incompatible views and values. This makes it easy to pin them against each other. Canada offers plenty of identity groups to pick and choose from – to grandstand for, and to demonize. It’s no wonder that this is a go-to strategy for the Canadian government. Justin Trudeau loved to do this, invoking the LGBT community as a political shield to deflect, calling unvaccinated people racists and misogynists, or ironically calling his political opposition divisive. The Canadian government and the media apparatus that supports them largely use this technique to obfuscate problems, corruption, and crimes; and to insulate and protect themselves from accountability. Recently, the tribal mentality of Liberal versus Conservative resulted in people harassing and review bombing a restaurant in western Canada, simply for hosting Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre.

But this can be taken even further. What do you think happens when the media portrays the people that disagree with you, not as your fellow citizens or your neighbours, but as an enemy or a threat that needs to be destroyed? As a danger to society? What if they suggest that violence against them may be justified? Or even necessary?

Consider the Two Minutes Hate in George Orwell’s 1984. Citizens were forced to participate in a daily, mandatory ritual of expressing rage and hatred against a manufactured enemy on a telescreen. Collective negative emotion was thus directed away from the ruling Party and toward a scapegoat, while those participating learned to deny any counternarrative, any semblance of truth that disagreed with the Party, by hating the person speaking it:

The programmes of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party’s purity. All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching…

Goldstein was delivering his usual venomous attack upon the doctrines of the Party – an attack so exaggerated and perverse that a child should have been able to see through it, and yet just plausible enough to fill one with an alarmed feeling that other people, less level-headed than oneself, might be taken in by it. He was abusing Big Brother, he was denouncing the dictatorship of the Party, he was demanding the immediate conclusion of peace with Eurasia, he was advocating freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought…

And all the while, lest one should be in any doubt as to the reality which Goldstein’s specious claptrap covered, behind his head on the telescreen there marched the endless columns of the Eurasian army – row after row of solid-looking men with expressionless Asiatic faces, who swam up to the surface of the screen and vanished, to be replaced by others exactly similar. The dull rhythmic tramp of the soldiers’ boots formed the background to Goldstein’s bleating voice…

In its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People were leaping up and down in their places and shouting at the tops of their voices in an effort to drown the maddening bleating voice that came from the screen… In a lucid moment Winston found that he was shouting with the others and kicking his heel violently against the rung of his chair. The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic.

(Orwell, 14-17)3

There are a couple of important points in this passage that I would like to cover. First is another common technique that is readily apparent: Pavlovian conditioning. In this technique, the propagandist ties two things together in a way that makes the audience create an association between them in their mind. This is typically done in such a way as to elicit a desired emotional reaction from the target audience. Remember: what’s important here is not for the audience to consciously connect these things, but for them to do so subconsciously, and therefore eventually transplant their thoughts and emotions tied to one thing onto the other. In this case in 1984, the target of hate, Goldstein, is shown on the telescreen with enemy soldiers marching in the background. This creates the association of Goldstein with the enemy, and whatever thoughts and feelings the audience has for this enemy will end up also being connected to Goldstein. When this conditioning eventually sets in and is successful, the affected audience will have an involuntary emotional response to Goldstein, the same as they would have to enemy soldiers, but without the need for the military imagery.

Another important takeaway from this is the mob mentality – the inability to resist joining in. This can act like a sort of group hypnosis, where the individual loses their individuality, rationality, and moral compass. The more the individual feels himself to be part of the group, the more easily he can become the victim of mass suggestion¹. Since the society in 1984 is totalitarian, this group psychology dynamic gets into Mass Formation (which I will discuss more in-depth in a later post). This is a form of group hypnosis that destroys the individual’s ethical self-awareness and robs them of their ability to think critically4. George Orwell’s Two Minutes Hate touches on this hypnotic effect, and reveals the destruction of ethics via the “desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer [that] seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current”³.

Thank God that was only fiction. In the real world, Two Minutes Hate is actually 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and is accessible at any time, from anywhere, via your favourite device – TV, computer, smart phone. Through the media, you are deliberately shown what makes you angry and hateful. They’ll show you the worst of the other side: the extreme, the fringe; the loud, the dumb; the professional lunatics. The more enraged you are, the more you will stay hooked on the narrative.

Before we get into specific real-world examples of these principles and techniques in action, let’s go over Chase Hughes’ three step formula5 for radicalization through divide and conquer tactics:

  1. Isolation: the goal here is to isolate the target audience so that they do not interact with people who disagree; they don’t date them, they don’t work with them; they cut anyone who disagrees out of their lives. (This is also step 1 of joining a cult)
  2. Echo Chambers: the goal here is to have the target audience surround themselves only with opinions that sound the same. Social media can make sure of this with its algorithms. As Yuval Noah Harari has said, “power is in the hands of those who control the algorithms.” And the algorithms serve you more of what already stirs up negative emotion like anger, outrage, and frustration. The echo chambers ensure that rage gets recycled and concentrated. (This is also step 2 of joining a cult)
  3. Tribal Script: this is the creation of the us versus them narrative. The goal is for the target audience to view themselves as righteous, while the other side is evil. Every issue is framed like a holy war – it doesn’t matter if it’s education, taxes, or healthcare; they are all treated as life or death, good versus evil. With outrage and righteous superiority, people will feel morally justified in hating the other side, silencing them, and celebrating violence. This is true radicalization.

So what does this look like in the real world? For this example, we turn to the United States of America. Let’s take a look at the following clips from the media leading up to Trump’s second term:

Notice anything familiar? These are just a few examples of the media shaping the political climate in the years leading up to where we are now. But how does this affect public behaviour?

For that, let’s turn to the recent events involving ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). ICE has been at the center of controversy since Donald Trump took office last year. In sanctuary cities, law enforcement at the local levels have been ordered not to cooperate with ICE. Local police do not hand over criminals in their custody to ICE; instead, they let them go free. This has forced ICE to go out into the streets to hunt down criminal illegal aliens. And, in turn, it has given politicians and the media the opportunity to spin the story: ICE is like the Gestapo – the secret police of Nazi Germany. Here we see the media continuing the narrative of fascist, Nazi, authoritarian symbolism and linking that to the current Trump administration. We know this is Pavlovian conditioning, but let’s examine it further.

Let’s look at immigration before Trump versus immigration after Trump. Below is a compilation of politicians speaking about illegal immigration and deportations before Trump’s Presidency, juxtaposed with politicians after Trump took office:

Unsurprisingly, tensions have been rising over the past year. Time, fear and continual pressure are known to create a menticidal hypnosis¹. As such, a radicalized fringe minority has taken to the streets. Protesters have been clashing with federal agents at various ICE facilities for months. Then, in September 2025, an anti-ICE shooter opened fire on an ICE facility in Dallas from a nearby rooftop, killing two detained illegal immigrants, and injuring a third. But it doesn’t end there.

To get a good look at how this really affects public behaviour, let’s talk about Minnesota. Tensions rose to a boiling point when an anti-ICE protester taunted ICE officers, ignored their commands, and then drove her vehicle at one of them. She was shot and killed. And the media finally got what it had been pushing for: a catalyst for outrage against ICE.

Below are a number of videos following this event that show mobs in the grip of propaganda’s magic, hypnotic effect. Take a look at where we are now:

Throughout these clips, we see the repetition of words like racist, Nazi, and fascist. Didn’t we hear those somewhere before? But, what do they mean? The truth is, these words have lost their communicative function – they no longer have intrinsic meaning. They have been turned into conditioners, emotional triggers, serving to imprint the desired reaction patterns onto their hearers¹. They are battle cries and Pavlovian signals¹. Just like in the passage from 1984, Pavlovian conditioning to these special words forces people into an automatic thinking that is tied to them¹. Catchwords like these help the individual to rationalize immorality and evil into morality and good¹. They are a suggestive intrusion masquerading under the name of justice or some morally righteous cause. What do you do when a fascist, or a Nazi is right in front of you? What is the correct course of action when this person is a threat to your society? To your existence? These questions, and the answers to them are all tied to these catchwords. The meaning of these words no longer matters – it is the emotions evoked by them that holds weight. The individual citizen becomes a parrot, repeating ready-made slogans and propaganda catchwords without understanding what they really mean, or what forces stand behind them¹.

Here’s another question to think about: what do you think happens when anyone and everyone who disagrees with this radicalized fringe population is called a racist, a Nazi, a fascist? These words end up losing all meaning in the common discourse as well. People stop caring about racists and fascists, because those words don’t mean anything anymore. And then there are some who will embrace the new identity given to them. They get caught up in the drama and theatrics, and feel pushed into the opposite fringe side. This polarization effectively radicalizes both sides.

To this end, the media are not showing you reality of any kind, but a narrative designed to put you on a side, keep you in a loyal tribal mindset, and addicted to their twisted version of reality. What is happening in Minnesota isn’t some side effect or byproduct of politics or the media – it is deliberate. And the outcome predictable. They show you the fringe lunatics on one side screaming about how “you’re either with us or against us,” and create a false dichotomy, pitting different groups against each other. When this inevitably escalates to a breaking point, debate breaks down, negotiations become impossible, and violence ensues.

Chase Hughes talks about the “concrete law of history”⁵: The moment your ideas require violence to enforce or spread, they are already completely bankrupt. Every tyrant, failed ideology, social collapse starts the same way: the debate dies, then violence takes the place of debate, and you can’t argue with a gun⁵.

But consider for a moment, what isn’t the media showing you? They will never show you how much you have in common with people who vote differently than you. If you strip away all the talking points, what do regular people actually want? We want safety, stability, a roof over our heads, a partner, kids, and some food to feed them – and we want some honesty from the people who claim to represent us. You have more in common with your neighbour, with the people across the political aisle that may disagree with you, than you have with media CEOs and politicians – with psychopaths and profiteers – with those parading their narrative over the media.

I bring attention to the ICE situation just as an example of how this can manifest in the real world. The goal is to look at this as a phenomena. Did you feel any outrage? There are a few questions like this we should be asking ourselves when we see things like this in the media: How does it make you feel? Are you angry? Outraged? Recognize the emotions that are being stimulated. Why does it make you feel that way? Is it the way it’s being framed? How is it being framed? Notice the choice of words being used. Is there anything missing? Think of a few questions about it. And ask yourself, who benefits from this?

The battlefield is not some far away place. It is in your living room, your bedroom, your office; on your phone, your TV, your computer screen. There is an ongoing war for your mind. So how can you best prepare and defend yourself? I think a good starting point is to follow Chase Hughes’ suggestion to pledge to yourself the following⁵:

  • Do not let the media decide for you who your neighbour is.
  • Do not let propaganda tell you who to hate.
  • Do not let political violence become normal.
  • Do not cheer for blood.
  • Choose sanity, unity, and to see the humanity in people before their politics.
  • And finally, I would like to add one more: Do not allow yourself to live in a world where there is no room for love.

Being aware of these techniques and tactics, and how this all really works will also help you recognize when this is playing out in the real world, right before your eyes. There’s still a lot more still to come on topics like this, so don’t forget to follow the blog via email or Facebook. You can also help get the word out by sharing this via the social media links below. As always, I thank you for your support.

  1. Meerloo, Joost. The Rape of the Mind. Martino Publishing, 2015. ↩︎
  2. Aquino, Michael A. MindWar. Barony of Rachane, 2013. ↩︎
  3. Orwell, George. 1984. Penguin Group, 2000. ↩︎
  4. Desmet, Mattias. The Psychology of Totalitarianism. Chelsea Green Publishing, 2022. ↩︎
  5. Chase Hughes: https://www.youtube.com/@chasehughesofficial ↩︎