Noise As A Tactic For Political Destabilization

     From this article by self-proclaimed “expert on everything” Tom Nichols, one could easily get the impression that President Trump is a borderline lunatic, and that the Trump Administration is a pressure cooker about to explode. Such impressions are easily fabricated with the use of the right rhetoric. Nichols’s piece, a pure exercise in what was once called agitprop, is a perfect example.

     The astute Richard “Wretchard” Fernandez puts the proper coloration on it in this Twitter thread. The meat of the matter:

     The new liberal strategy is not to argue but to confuse. Create phantom objects, devise imaginary plots, sow intrigue, all with the view of giving Trump "a taste of his own medicine". They reckon that by reducing the battle to pure noise output the Mighty Wurlitzer will win.

     The problem with this approach is that it multiplies chaos and essentially fries the normal comm channels. Nobody gets the "word" because there is no word, unless that word is Noooooooo!!!

     There is a second component to the liberal strategy: a deliberate attempt to be unpleasant, increase anxiety and induce an atmosphere of crisis. The goal is to inflict deliberate pain, a pain that will only go away if you give them what they want.

     I would add to Wretchard’s observations that “frying the normal comm channels” is to the advantage of that side whose internal (and therefore protected) communications network is better established. The Left believes that it has an edge in that regard. It could well be so. Whatever the case, the Right needs to buttress its own communications networks. Else persons disposed to support the Trump Administration and its essentially libertarian-conservative thrust could be winnowed away from like-minded others. While that might not expose them to subversion, the Right needs all the support and supporters it can muster. The gloves are off, and they won’t be put back on at any time in the foreseeable future.