Project Lakhta is the internal name for the disinformation operation that Yevgeniy Prigozhin‘s Internet Research Agency is running to interfere in elections across the Western world, according to the Robert Mueller indictments relating to the Russian attacks on the 2016 election. The op included/includes bots on social media, fake influencers, paid crisis actors, massive propaganda, […]
Legal statute requiring those persons lobbying on behalf of a foreign government or other entity to register such with the U.S. government. Folks like Mike Flynn and Jared Kushner ran afoul of this law during their time in the US government. History of FARA The Foreign Agents Registration Act, often abbreviated as FARA, is a […]
Cancel culture refers to the practice of publicly calling out or boycotting individuals, companies, or institutions for behavior that is perceived to be offensive, controversial, or problematic. The goal is to hold these entities accountable for their actions and to pressure them to change their behavior. This can manifest in various ways, such as social […]
Many people around the world were shocked in the aftermath of World War II. How could “polite” society break down so utterly, so swiftly, and so zealously? Why did authoritarian personality traits come to dominate human affairs, seemingly out of nowhere? How thin is this veneer of civilization, really? The authoritarian personality is characterized by […]
Gerrymandering is a political tactic used to manipulate the boundaries of electoral districts to favor one political party over another. It’s essentially the opposite of what the Founders meant by representative democracy — voters are supposed to choose their representatives, and not the other way around. The practice is named after Elbridge Gerry, a governor […]
We glibly believed it could never happen here even though we’ve been warned again and again. And in some sense, even though it’s been here all along — hiding in plain sight. It could happen here, and it did, because it’s happened here before. This dictionary of American authoritarianism collects definitions and charts the rise […]
The Big Lie about the 2020 Election was hardly the first or even the Biggest of the Big Lies in American history — fomented in vast majority by the right wing. Call it a personality trait, an ideology, or perhaps a financial preference — but Republicans seem to lean towards the disingenuous end of the […]
Hate speech is a way of dominating & monopolizing the conversation: Hate speech is a weapon being used to shut down political discourse — under the guise of promoting it. It’s a kind of false flag operation — a strategy of war disguising itself as “legitimate political discourse.”Putin and the American right-wing are using the […]
The Founders meant for the republic to be agile in philosophy — always changing to meet the new demands of the next generations. They meant for us to be self-governing, and empowered to create policy for problem-solving in new eras they themselves could not even conceive of. Thomas Jefferson wrote forewarningly of the Dead Hand […]
Forbearance is one of the two essentials for a functioning democracy described by Steven Levinsky and Daniel Ziblatt in their book “How Democracies Die.” Along with mutual toleration, forbearance enables more rounds of the electoral game to continue, as opposed to devolving into a civil war over the legitimacy of authority. Forbearance essentially means, “self-control.” […]
Stay tuned for quotes, theories, and ideas from some of the world’s foremost thinkers — concepts that have stood the test of time. Featuring selections from: Timeless wisdom from early history Timeless wisdom from the Stoics Epictetus (50 – 135 AD) Timeless wisdom from historical figures James Madison
The radical right is a fervent anti-government strain of Libertarian ultraconservative, emerging out of the anti-New Deal ideology of the 1930s. From McCarthyism to the John Birch Society, from fiscal conservatives to Christian nationalists, the radical right contains some of the most extreme ideologies in the right wing. Conservative ideology has gotten more and more […]
Some of us have been boning up on this topic for about 6 years already, while others are just tuning in now based on the horrors of recent events. It can be overwhelming to come in cold, so here — don’t go it alone! Take this: Putin’s war against the west President Biden “declassified” an […]
The caricatures of the TV show — at least some of them — ring true, especially politically these days. The MAGA folks who remain loyal are truly stuck in time. They’re back at an event that’s over — some to spend the rest of their lives relitigating the election and holding onto its Lost Cause-style […]
This is more of a scratch pad of ideas at the moment I’m afraid, but I’m aiming to come back and curate this as we get further into 2022. Cliff’s Note version: Broken Record messages for 2022 About Democrats We have a terrible habit of being Debbie Downers about our own party. No matter how […]