Trump Trial Headline Analysis: what it looks like when the spooks are spooked

Apr 16, 2024

We love a good communication analysis in this substack (Emily Oster anyone?), and one of these headlines might even make you laugh out loud. Let’s dig in and analyze what they’re literally saying, what they’re really saying, and the most revealing, what was left unsaid…

Headline 1: 'Unprecedented' and 'stunning' number of Trump administration alums oppose his reelection

A minimum of 16 Trump administration veterans have sharply criticized the ex-president, with terms such as "threat to democracy," "erratic," "delusional" and "narcissistic."

Oh really? Are these the same people who talked him into staying in Afghanistan (the “adults in the room,” McMaster, Kelly, and Mattis) so that when Biden finally got around to leaving under duress, the pull-out was more damaging and mortifying than Vietnam’s Operation Babylift?? Unprecedented and stunning are interesting words. They describe the way the American people overwhelmingly voted against globalism, NAFTA, endless wars, and DNC sacrifices to Moloch all at the same time with the check of just one box the moment they voted ~~against Hillary~~ for Trump on election day in 2016. The Deep State is literally still stunned. Eight years later and they’re still obsessed with un-presidenting him. As with felony charges, they figure if they throw enough adjectives at the wall, one will stick.

No one cares. Thanks for sharing though!

Headline 2: On eve of hush money trial, big, bold Donald Trump shows he's nothing but a giant chicken.

Someone is definitely feeling fear. It’s not Trump though.

The article goes on to say,

You’d think an abundantly confident macho man like Trump would be chomping at the bit to get into a courtroom with his lawyers and prove the “Thugs and Radical Left Monsters” wrong, to pull back the curtain on this unjust persecution/prosecution, to shove the evidence of his angelic innocence right in their smug faces.

Hmmm. Would you think that though? True, Trump is abundantly confident. But shove “evidence of his angelic innocence” into the faces of deep state journalists, biased jurors, the petty judge, or anyone else? Definitely not. Trump knows the burden of proof is shouldered by the government. The accuser is the one obligated to present evidence of Trump’s guilt; the accused can sit there in silence and say nothing at all in his own defense. If the writer of this piece wasn’t chomping at the bit, salivating over the prospect of pulling back the curtain to watch Trump’s persecution, s/he might be thinking more clearly instead of being so distracted by the near frenzied state of arousal their fantasy courtroom scenario has them self-fellating to (metaphorically).

Headline 3: Donald Trump would be denied a federal security clearance if he tried to get one

Whoa whoa whoa. What does that mean? That sounds bad. Is he a bad man? What would it look like if a “bad man,” had a security clearance?? Gadzooks! Maybe Speaker of the House Mike Johnson can elaborate. Here’s what he said the other day about his time on the Judiciary Committee.

“When I was a member of Judiciary, I saw all of the abuses of the FBI — the terrible abuses, over and over and over, the hundreds of thousands of abuses…” [of Section 702 of the FISA].

Oh, abuse? Like something a bad man would do? Bad FBI men and women with top secret (or higher) security clearances? Gee, Wally, if being denied a security clearance makes Trump different from bad people who engage in terrible abuses, then I guess I’m ok with it.

But this article gets even more revealing. The mainstream media (and to be fair, this article in The Hill is carefully labeled an opinion piece) knows their incessant gaslighting about Trump is not working, not shifting the narrative, and not changing one voter’s mind, so they have resurrected the Bush era “axis of evil” trope. This is how desperate they are:

Our intelligence services are consumed with battling a new “Axis of Evil.” The updated phrase, first coined in 2002, now refers to Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. This powerful authoritarian alliance is determined to meddle in elections, launch cyberattacks, destabilize and wage wars against America and its allied democracies around the world.

Yes, two decades ago, we — decent Americans, traumatized by watching airplanes fly into buildings on live national television — consumed the government propaganda fed to us by the nightly news about WMD’s and then often turned for solace to SNL to see Will Ferrell’s rendition of the President’s literally laughable obsession with evil, and the axis therein. But this “updated” definition and use of the phrase axis of evil has only very recently begun to be thrown around — carelessly — since 2022. When we ask ourselves why, and look to history for the answer, we can confidently conclude that the word evil is being used again to induce in us two important emotional states because its use was able to successfully induce them in us in the past: fear and compliance. In cool contrast, Trump is the human antidote to automated consent to military-industrial-complex demands.

The other disturbing element of this piece is the flagrant disregard for Trump’s legitimate authority as chief executive while he was in office. Emphasis added:

Intelligence agencies were always concerned and took necessary precautions during Trump’s presidency. “Officials were even more cautious about what information they provided Mr. Trump because some saw the president himself as a security risk,” the New York Times reported in 2022, quoting CIA counterintelligence official Douglas London.

What precautions did they take? Did they lie to the President of the United States? And they’re brazen enough to imply that in this article?

And if “officials” saw him as a security risk, why couldn’t they present evidence to the American people that there actually was any? In 2018, a friend I made through a dog adoption organization here in DC asked me to watch “Active Measures,” the so-called documentary about Trump’s Russian connections. I watched the whole thing. The credits rolled. I was still waiting for something, anything, to make me question Trump’s patriotism or the veracity of his stated policy positions. Ok, so he wasn’t quite the money mastermind I had imagined from episodes of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” I watched as a kid. He was something even more valuable. Brave. While watching his rallies during the summer of 2016 when I found myself politically homeless, I heard him say, “Bernie Sanders endorsing Hillary Clinton is like Occupy Wall Street endorsing Goldman Sachs.” Then I heard him say he was for fair trade, not free trade (be still my heart! did he volunteer at the co-op too??). After months of watching the DNC railroad Bernie who I caucused for in St. Paul, MN, I very quickly decided I was voting for Trump. Fast-forward two years, and, to my surprise, the “Active Measures” documentary was actually disappointing! Its cloying boring repetitive emptiness meant the intelligence community really did have nothing. I mean, zilch. Nada. Zero.

LOL.

And all those former Trump administration officials who oppose his re-election? They all had or have security clearances.

Here is the livestream version of this post for those who enjoy that kind of thing!

And now for the New York Times piece.

Headline 4: It Turns Out the ‘Deep State’ Is Actually Kind of Awesome

Beware: clicking on the link leads to video propaganda, not an article you can quickly skim. I did not make it through more than 15 seconds of the film myself, but the important element here in the communication analysis is the acknowledgement of a deep state. If you do a basic search of “deep state,” articles such as this one from 2018 may pop up: “Why the term ‘Deep State’ speaks to conspiracy theorists.” But since 2018, the phrase conspiracy theorist has become so commonplace from overuse that it has lost its derogatory punch. So the new tactic involves resorting to admitting its existence but sculpting the narrative around sharing the secret of its existence with you to convey something sophisticated, refined, hip even. Like Biden in his aviator sunglasses, the very real — but very now and very vogue — Deep State is not your grandfather’s MK Ultra torture/tobacco shop. Nor is it your dirty old school Gitmo enhanced interrogation dungeon. No siree Bob, this is the 2024 Deep State. Next level bureaucracy. It’s vital to the regime. Metastatic. Like cancer spreading across the empire, the deep state touches the life of each and every citizen. It’s — well, awesome and whatever else the NYT says it is.

So. This is what “concern” looks like. The minders mind. The spooks are spooked. The masters of the universe are feeling a little out of their league. These headlines almost make me feel bad for them. What to do with a problem like Trump? Go for a walk, get some sunshine, eat lots of fresh fruit and veggies! And then read a fun spy novel and take a nap? I myself enjoy a gratitude practice where I thank God for three things I’m not experiencing. For example, I’m thankful I’m not being force-fed Ensure, I’m not being diapered, and I don’t work for unethical sadists who would just as soon line a birdcage with the Bill of Rights as an old issue of the New York Times.

I’ll be voting for RFK Jr this fall. But I won’t be sad when Trump wins. Again.

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