Anatomy of a Psyop
The United States Military defines a Psychological Operation or ‘psyop’, for short, as:
operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.
Their purpose can be strategic, operational or tactical, but they are always designed to induce or reinforce behavior perceived to be favorable to one party over another. Hence, psyops, also known as Information Warfare, ultimately impact public policy and the economy, in peacetime and conflict, and typically employ manipulative devices, including ‘alternative facts’ (lies), to confuse, disrupt and diminish the target or enemy. Broadly, we refer to this as “misinformation,” in public discourse.
Most Americans are unaware their government and political parties deploy psyops domestically, but it’s time everyone becomes aware.
Psyops can be fairly simple, like the National Rifle Association’s prolonged campaign to allegedly preserve your Second Amendment rights, by falsely asserting the Democrats are coming for your guns. No one is coming for your guns. They never have and they never will because money, power, corruption, and our elected officials’ utterly disgusting decision to sacrifice our nation’s women and children on the altar of “Freedom,” rather than tackle the complex issues related to intelligently regulating or restricting access to firearms. In a capitalist democracy, our electeds serve Wall Street and the corporate financial interests that create oligarchs and fund electoral campaigns; so, they are loathe to legislate anything that threatens profits, shareholder dividends and their personal interests.
The U.S. military-industrial and “border security” complexes rest squarely on the foundation of psyops designed to make Americans believe threats are everywhere, inside and outside our borders; so, we must invest our resources disproportionally in military “preparedness” and in arms research, development and acquisition. This psyop requires we literally buy into the idea that war is imminent and peace requires razor wire. Furthermore, the United States’ framework for safeguarding peace comes from its juxtaposition to the Judeo-Christian concept of sin, which posits the human condition is fundamentally flawed. It requires us to accept that we are born bad, woven in our fallen mothers’ wombs of wickedness, and driven by greed, lust, envy and gluttony, above all. If we, the People, believe this, it’s easy for politicians and corporations to draw lines to insecurity and play upon people’s fears.
Moreover, Christianity lauds sacrifice and largely promises peace and prosperity in the afterlife. For this reason, it is perfectly suited to capitalism. This predatory and extractive economic system is predicated on the subjugation of human beings and the degradation of natural resources, both of which will be restored and renewed in Paradise. Thus, Christianity and capitalism have been central features of expanding empires for millennia, to fortunes built on the backs of exploited labor, and to vainglorious attempts to sustain those empires indefinitely.
As the number of people in the U.S. affiliated with or identifying as Christian falls, decade after decade, disillusionment with and demands for accountability in business, our economy and government have grown. It’s as if once people begin to reject the idea of a patriarchal and omnipotent, overseer God who commands fealty and obedience, they also reject masters, demagogues and good ol’ boy bosses. This is terribly dangerous to the status quo in the U.S.A. As a result, we see political operatives devising greater schemes to twist the truth, distract from current events, like the on-going fight for civil, voting and human rights, and fan the flames of fear in this country, especially among Christians.
Playing upon the proven themes of greed, lust, envy and gluttony, psyops lean heavily on a villainous cast of characters coming to assail the things we are supposed to value most in this country, i.e. “Family, Faith and Freedom.” Witness the hungry, desperate foreigner who is coming to take what you have supposedly earned through your Puritanical, hard work ethic; the godless communist and misguided socialist, who will destroy the “rightful order” of things; the feminist and the sexual “pervert” who undermine the “Biblical decree” that our bodies are intended only for reproduction of the species; and the educated elite, whose privileged examination of everything imperils the faҫade of “civilized” society.
In response, we have the denunciation and rejection of education, book bans and mass book burnings by preachers. We have the persecution of LGBTQ youth and adults, and a renewed assault on women’s bodily and reproductive autonomy. We have right-wing evangelicals hardening their churches and training members against illusory attack, and marching on the Capitol, declaring their desire (intent) to execute the “traitors” they label evil socialists and godless commies. And last, but not least, we have the “dirty immigrant” who comes to desecrate and defile all we purport to hold sacred, from the pristine environment to the unsoiled virtues of sobriety and sexual purity.
Immigrants, labeled murderers, rapists and thieves by former President Trump, were central to one of the most successful domestic psyops in recent history, We Build the Wall. This psychological operation was organized by Trump’s former Special Advisor, Steven Bannon and associates, to accomplish multiple, political and strategic objectives. While most people believe this was a spontaneous, citizen-driven initiative started by a U.S. Navy veteran and “patriot” to fund government border wall construction, it was a full-fledged, military-grade, misinformation campaign designed “to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.”
On the surface, one can clearly see how an entity utilizing Trump’s signature platform and meme-based, “build the wall” chant could be used to convey selected information to an audience to enhance engagement and advance an anti-immigrant agenda. It did this exceptionally well. However, it also raised millions in “dark money,” funds given to a non-charitable nonprofit for political spending without donor disclosure or financial accountability. These organizations are often 501(c)(4)s and are designated outside the realm of electoral politics, which is subject to U.S. laws and regulated by the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the agency charged with enforcing applicable laws.
But the truth is dark money is very much a part of the electoral process and politics. In this case, monies raised by We Build the Wall not only lined the pockets of Bannon, front man Brian Kolfage and their co-conspirators, currently under federal indictment; but also paid political operatives, including Dustin Stockton and Jennifer Lawrence, to campaign for Trump, advance his Big Lie in Stop the Steal, and help stage his attempted coup d’etat.
In the course of raising the popularity of Trump, riling up his base, promoting his largest, domestic construction project, and seeding another, million-dollar slush fund, We Build the Wall harvested conservative donor data and contact information that could be sold as a solicitation list to candidates and campaigns across the county, over and over, again. This activity is something for which the entity’s legal counsel, former Kansas Secretary of State, Kris Kobach, has faced formal FEC complaints in the past.
To bolster their pleas for donations, We Build the Wall deliberately took aim at the borderlands and the National Butterfly Center, in Mission, Texas, which it maliciously disparaged and defamed along with its parent organization, the North American Butterfly Association. It employed social media channels, fake news websites, like The RunDown News, and unscrupulous content creators at Bannon-associated media outlets, including Breitbart and America’s Voice, to publish and promote inflammatory lies about the environmental conservation nonprofit being a front for “the cartel” and human traffickers. Manufacturing completely false statements about the center and piggy-backing them on the myth of an open southern border, across which ‘bad hombres’ are pouring, to people who already espouse these things only serves to reinforce their beliefs, even if they are baseless.
In this way, We Build the Wall galvanized conservative, public sentiment and motivated people to call and pressure their U.S. Representatives and Senators to vote to fund Trump’s wall with taxpayer monies, while showcasing the efforts of one private, for-profit builder whose sole goal was to capture government wall construction contracts. We Build the Wall’s builder-partner, Fisher Sand & Gravel, executed both of their “private border wall” construction projects, first in Sunland Park, New Mexico, then in Mission, Texas.
It took violating the International Boundary & Water Commission (IBWC) treaty with Mexico, TWICE, for Fisher to finally be awarded a public contract for the government’s border wall.
For more than a decade, the U.S. government — specifically, the Department of Homeland Security — has been looking for ways to effectively waive this treaty, in the same way they are able to waive every law for border wall construction; however, Congress cannot grant themselves or anyone else the authority to do this, just as they cannot waive the Constitution. The government has tried a variety of things, without success, but We Build the Wall, with the help of a friendly, Republican, federal judge, found a way to effectively set legal precedent for disregarding the treaty.
When construction began on the private border wall in Mission, Texas, the center filed suit against them to stop the project which will result in land damage and loss to the center’s property upstream. The IBWC also filed suit, to uphold and enforce the bi-national treaty that governs the Rio Grande River, its banks, boundaries and water distribution. Although both plaintiffs were granted Temporary Restraining Orders to immediately halt construction, Judge Randy Crane of the Southern District of Texas lifted the orders, allowing We Build the Wall, Fisher Sand & Gravel and Neuhaus & Sons LLC to proceed in violation of the treaty, which Crane is sworn to uphold.
Now, the IBWC is settling with Fisher, after We Build the Wall and Neuhaus managed to get dismissed from the lawsuit; so, it appears the illegal private wall will stand, until the mighty Rio Grande sweeps it off its shallow, two-foot-deep foundation. This premeditated act — part of a well-planned psyop — has basically cleared the way for the U.S. Government to build in the floodplain, on the banks of the river, in violation of the treaty with Mexico, as it has sought to do by hook or crook, for nearly twenty years.
Kobach testified on behalf of We Build the Wall, in what he must have thought was a brilliant legal maneuver, that they were not in the wall building business, “actually don’t control anything going on here,” and were not funding construction; rather, they were “social media cheerleading” for Fisher and the project. Indeed, this may be true, given We Build the Wall ceased all spending on more than $608,000 in political Google Advertising online, after Fisher won his first government contract in early December, 2019. Too bad the feds at the Southern District of New York were monitoring the court proceedings and, likely, obtained the transcripts for their investigation into Bannon, Kolfage and associates, who were subsequently charged with using We Build the Wall in their conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.
Targeted advertising is something Bannon, formerly of Cambridge Analytica, a subsidiary of “global election management agency” SCL Group, knows well. A former U.S. Navy officer, Bannon became vice president of the board of this private, intelligence company prior to becoming the CEO of Trump’s presidential election team. In fact, he oversaw the collection of Facebook data used to manipulate voters and influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
Unfortunately, media exploitation, targeted messaging and the type of information manipulation used by Bannon and others have emotional and psychological impacts that can move people to violence — and this may be the last and final objective of the We Build the Wall psyop. At the end of June, 2019, Bannon and associates, including Kolfage and Fisher, held a three-day fundraising rally and celebration of their private, border wall construction in Sunland Park, a suburb of El Paso, Texas. Featured speakers at this special event ranged from Donald Trump, Jr. and former law enforcement officers to “angel parents” of people who allegedly lost their lives in incidents involving immigrants. While the mood was jubilant, the theme was deadly serious, with overtones of white supremacy and echoes of the nationalist, “you will not replace us” movement. For this reason, the end result should not be terribly surprising.
Just a few weeks later, a ‘lone wolf’ gunman who espoused those same beliefs drove from Plano, Texas, to the Walmart in El Paso, where he massacred 22 people, and injured 23 more.
Following years of inflammatory, anti-immigrant tripe and outrageous statements broadcast across mass media intended to demonize Mexicans, specifically, on the southern border, all the stars aligned to incite stochastic terrorism on a scale never seen before against any Mexican-American community in the United States. This type of terrorist act is usually carried out by a ‘lone wolf’ who commits mass murder in a public setting due to personal grievances and a desire to exact revenge against or eradicate a specific group of people.
Unlike the militias, which also responded to We Build the Wall’s racist rhetoric and descended on the borderlands, the lone wolf is hard to spot and, perhaps, harder to stop, than a group of associated individuals flashing symbols and brandishing flags that herald their arrival.
By all objective standards, the We Build the Wall psyop was a success. To date, it has accomplished every goal, except for the reelection (or election overturn) of Trump. Bannon received a presidential pardon at the 11th hour for his role, allowing him to continue to bombast and brainwash his devotees daily from his WAR ROOM broadcast; and, to date, no one involved has been held accountable for any aspect of this operation.
Through this exercise and excellent gamesmanship, Bannon has become the high priest of the populist MAGAverse, a self-serving realm he created with the help of Russian and Chinese oligarchs to destabilize our flawed democracy. Meanwhile, the environment is damaged and lives are destroyed, by border walls and punitive policies that separate, violate and extirpate; the majority of all illicit drugs and immigrants continue to enter the U.S. at legal ports of entry; and our country still has little defense against domestic terrorism.
In the wake of We Build the Wall, it’s getting easier for people to recognize psyops, but the borderlands will bear the scars of this campaign for decades to come. Unfortunately, militarization, misinformation, massacres and border walls cleave communities in two and leave monumental wreckage that malevolent strategists, corrupt officials and mad men will not be made to clean up. For this reason, we must all learn to discern truth from fiction in the public arena, if we are to recognize psyops, combat the ‘firehouse of falsehood’ propaganda model, and defeat these dangerous political ploys when they start; instead of trying to overcome them when they are finished.