A Declaration of Digital Independence

The Botched Democracy Offensive in Philly

Biden’s case for democracy was too grouchy, partisan, tone deaf to Trump, and an underestimation of his own strengths.

“Know thy enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles,
you will never be defeated.

When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself,
your chances of winning or losing are equal.

If ignorant, both of your enemy and of yourself,
you are sure to be defeated in every battle.”

– Sun Tsu, The Art of War

Last week at Independence Hall I wasn’t expecting eloquence. I was hoping for a spirited defense of democracy from the Commander-in-Chief. But the speech lacked inspiration along with an effective understanding of his adversary.

It was especially painful to hear the focus-group tested applause lines against his opponent’s gift for authentic speech. The sense that his predecessor is incapable of reading a room through a teleprompter because his gut can process in real time. It’s uncanny how the former President can access the darkest recesses of our animal spirits with the slightest sneer of accusation.

The simple act of calling out Donald Trump puts President Biden at an immediate deficit. That’s how fast Trump can deflect a punch and tank the voice of reason.

Flashback to September 29, 2020 and the debate stage in Cleveland. 1.2 million ballots have been cast. Biden is scribbling some zingers outside the margins while Trump flaps his predatorial wings and pounces on the dead air of Biden’s hesitations. His facts are inventions and his opinions never stay in one place long enough to be his. But it’s all personal. From the constant interruptions to the name-calling, who could doubt the sincerity of his own self-regard? What could be more convincing than that?

Nothing changes after the shouting ends. There is no advantage in scorecarding the lies or slow-rolling the swamp hypocrisies. That fans more oxygen for feeding his bull-charging aggression. It certainly doesn’t come from wresting the national stage away with investigations and court rooms. His own insatiable preening for fame remains to be paraded at a time of his choosing.

All the more solemnity here for the moment two years later when Biden goes on the offense. It falls flat. His rejection of “MAGA Republicans” sounds canned, shrill, and yes, divisive. He comes out swinging with the Labor Day bravado of a machine boss. He manages a left hook at the inviting target. It lands nowhere and connects to no one.

Why?

The Speech That Missed Its Mark

First there was the defense of democratic ideals. Biden’s delivery was devoid of the semantic honesty of democratic-republic ideals. It may not be true majority-wins democracy. But it the actual audience Biden was trying to reach with his affirmation. It is the system worth defending.

The grandeur of a national address was undercut by the melting pot of deplorables Biden was inclined to frame: Our fellow American opposition. There were no bargains being struck, bargains being weighed, or channels cleared opened. Was this yet another “let’s-just-be-reasonable” overture from the political center/left? Was democracy-or-bust a white flag shot full of holes?

There was no middle ground when Obamacare passed the Senate in 2010 without a single GOP vote. There was no prior expectation of a public healthcare system, so “reasonable” was never on the table. And how did that work out for us? How did his opponents respond to Obama’s assertion that universal healthcare is the right thing to do? Did they propose a truce? Aahhh … nope. They called in the calvary.

A dozen red states rejected Medicaid expansion as if those federal funds were minted in Act Blue donations, and not Treasury greenbacks. In fact, the free and fair elections of 2010 and 2014 suggest otherwise. Democratic voters sat on their hands while the Tea Party seethed, the dark money flowed, and the Federalist Society played the long game.

Remember the midterm shellacking that elevated Mitch McConnell to Senate Majority leader? Biden’s memory is challenged in this way: McConnell’s obstruction strategy was the procedural expression of a status quo-rejecting red wave that made little distinction between its radical fringes and mainstream figures.

All this was but preamble. Elevator music. It was the trailer before the theatrical release of the main feature. Cue Trump’s step onto Golden Escalator for a rough and tumble ride into an America hellscape of black crime, brown illegals, freeloading Western allies, and unguarded borders. The other GOP candidates were soon swallowed, stage makeup and all, by the imposing pulpit-shaped mouth of America’s leading personal brand influencer.

Many Americans may harbor strong feelings about Biden’s Presidency – while remaining somewhat indifferent to the many himself. Trump, on the other hand, has developed a personal relationship with every voter. So strong, that many may have been non-voters in the Bush and Obama years. No one turns voters out quite like Trump.

No one’s making the case that there’s no point in voting since they’re all the same. The point may be obvious but it’s rarely acknowledged: Having a personal relationship with Donald Trump is not based on reverence or contempt of the former President. It just is.

– God’s wrecking ball?

-Dumpster fire in a suit?

Either way, two aspects of the Trump Presidency stand out:

Superpower: His ability to crowd reporters, arguments, and adversaries off the political stage is unprecedented. No neutral referee will dim the limelight on Trump’s facial highlights. Who invited them anyway? The cameras are his escorted guests. They gawk up this explosive spectacle. First his grievances. Now close-up on his rapid-fire condemnations, soaring above a thick, convulsing cloud of gaslighting. The monster truck of all debating strategies.

Achilles heel: His unfitness for the Presidency is only more true today than when the Electoral College rolled the dice in his favor six years ago. He had a full term to grow into the stature of the office and he diminished it. He went from being unqualified and ticked off, to clueless and livid, and ultimately, to a disengaged, chaotic, and ineffectual leader. He was by all accounts from competent members of his own branch, a colossal administrative failure.

The Speech Biden Should Have Made

Why Biden decided to call out Trump with no acknowledgement of his foe’s considerable strengths and weaknesses is unpardonable.

He could have played the greatest sucker punch known to the waging of all winning campaigns – the charm offensive. Once showing himself to be the more respectful, calmer, and reasonable of the two geriatric adults, Biden could play to his own strength, landing a blow where Trump is least equipped to counter-punch. Why? Because there is no defense for his record at the helm of a centralized government as its unitary executive. Unless… your goal is to do irreparable harm to that institution.

Here’s what Biden could have said:

Donald Trump is a reality TV star that used his run for office in 2016 to elevate his brand. His skillful use of broadcast and social media led to his unexpected win over Hillary Clinton. It was a victory that Mr. Trump himself did not see coming. During his time in office he continued to dominate headlines, talk rings around his opponents, and ran his White House much like his own business operations.
To this day he never quits. His tenacity is awesome. He remains a tireless fighter. For his own interests. Priority number one for our elected leaders are to enact policies and programs that help our fellow citizens. Priority number one for this guy isn’t pay forward. It’s payback. It’s retribution. It’s about settling scores with any elected official on either side who places the act of effective governing above personal loyalty to him.
81 million Americans expressed this through the power of the ballot. They understood that he was not interested in their healthcare, their safety, their roads, and their future. Policies and programs bored him to tears. Serving all Americans was off the table. A reality TV superbrand and influencer did what all showmen do. He put on a show. And I think we can all agree. It was a remarkable performance.
To this day, many of our citizens find Mr. Trump a dazzling performer. There are numerous platforms capable of hosting Mr. Trump and reinforcing the strong connection with his many followers. That arrangement, my fellow Americans, has nothing to do with running a country. And we would be well-advised for Mr. Trump to express his influence as a star entertainer, not in the conduct of an office he was never prepared for, or even interested in assuming.
Joseph R. Biden,
46th President of the United States

Could a more gifted orator still disarm Trump with some softer rhetoric? Railing public support against future fascist-like leaders may enlist arguments that can bypass pride-constrained men like Trump completely. Who knows? With some poise, and some pauses to anchor us, we could arrive at the obvious but unstated defense Biden was mounting:

I’m that guy. I’m that competent, boring head of a bureaucracy who can deliver us back to the cadences of stability. Not because the future is docile and predictable. Not because I even know what to say but because I know how to listen. I have the capacity to change minds, including my own. And the conflicts we face are not to be conquered but brokered by someone who understands when the government steps in and when it stands down.
This Political Moment

A more subtle defense of democracy could connect with some of those MAGA Republicans who reject Biden’s terms and choices, but share the same collective concern. The wrong track we’re on is a collision course. The winners have no use for losers. That’s the sound of one side vanquishing the other. We we needed to hear was a call for a renewed patriotism. It is not a campaign pledge.

They say that to know yourself and your enemy is the surest way to victory. But how many of us have the perspective-taking to do that work? How many of us have a studied and reflective understanding of what our opponents are trying to achieve? It’s hard to pull off. Especially when we’re always tuning into our own wants, needs, and the anxieties of having our buttons pushed.

Who has the mental capacity to hold opposable thoughts, let alone opposition desires that reflect their actual ambitions? It might be even harder than it looks. It’s only a 50/50 chance if we know ourselves and not our opponents. We’ve been living in 50/50 land for the balance of the 21st Century with claims on a leadership that feels as distant as any form of national unity.

These are not passing considerations. They’re defining and they are binding.

The Black Hole of Blindspots

Part One:
Primping in Front of Smoke and Mirrors

I am an unreliable witness to my own existence.
― Russell Brand

In our last post we explored our metaphorical nose for sniffing out the evidence that doesn’t quite smell right: Keeping Your Nose Clean: BS Detection in a World of Fake News and Real Threats. Recognizing and acting on the stench of social media infused misinformation is not an elective but a mandatory requirement for maintaining an informed citizenry in a 21st Century Democracy. Fair enough.

But what about when we’re the messengers of our own research? What happens if our own personal biases compromise our findings? What does it matter if we’re connecting events, matching patterns, calling out questionable behaviors, and assessing the exposure of search targets in our case outcomes? Why show at the presentation if our research methods are not beyond reproach?

In this dispatch we reflect on fine-tuning the information filters that pass through all of us and onto those around us. These are the signals picked up through our words and actions that undermine our ability to investigate and compromise the success of our investigations.

In Part One, we’ll get acquainted with the blindspots — the self-defeating intuitions buried right under our noses (and our stars). I believe that researchers and consultants have a special relationship with blindspots. It’s us agents of knowledge who need to test the limits of our own self-awareness. It’s at the root of our reputations and effectiveness. Only through a growing and continual pulse-taking of our unintended selves can we see our investigations through to the promise of resolution, justice, and a greater understanding of past events by the future histories we’re called on to inform.

On the Merits

Professions all have rites of passage. From passing the bar, to the CPA exam, to the laminated medical license in the exam room, there are a myriad of milestones and certifications to validate the quality of service delivered by a certified professional. There is no such credentialing for professional investigators. Our work must stand in place of any formal degree or accreditation process. It must stand on its own merits:

- - - Doubt on the investigation’s sources and methods
    - Suspicion on the investigator’s motives for conducting it

There is one self-imposed quality check at the disposal of the investigator. The probing for one’s reflexive judgments or blindspots is the researcher’s equivalent to “Doctor, heal thyself.” More than one’s personal loyalties or internal biases, blindspots are the shadow elements that cast…

It’s not a passing coincidence that these two criteria are non-negotiable. They are the deal-breakers for producing credible recommendations drawn from sound research: The two gold standards from which hinge the independent judgment of the investigator.

Can You Look Bad Breath in the Face?

We are rarely the first to notice our own unadorned scents and odors. All but the closest friends and family are loath to let us in on this most universal of blindspots. This private humbling packs some additional positive takeaways besides the need for breath mints. That’s when we exercise our sniffers as a form of entertainment.

There’s nothing escapist or recreational about getting closer to our own blindspots. Yet removing our own self-serving natures is essential for confronting our own limitations in:

A. Imagination: What’s being talked about in the discussions I’m excluded from? What’s my capacity to write a gossip column: (1) about me, and (2) without access to primary sources?

B. Perspective-taking: How am I being engaged in ways that bring optimal benefit to the other parties? Am I an emissary, broker, pawn, or stooge?

C. Wish-fulfillment: Where am I missing the subtext or nonverbal signals that deny or pushback on what I believe to be reasonable, deserved, or warranted? Can I remove my sense of how things should go from how they actually went?

All three play starring roles in the writing and production of plot twists we never see coming but the audience can sense from a mile away. Call it an overestimation of our talents. Overconfidence in our powers to influence. A tendency to get in our own way — even when walking a straight line. There’s no warm welcomes, smooth landings, or YouTube replays.

How else to explain our insatiable appetite for non-fictional crime stories? Do we believe the characters? Does it seem more or less likely that the well-reported narrative actually went down in the manner depicted in the Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon series? More times than not, it comes down to the frailties — to that realm of human weakness also known as a surplus of pride, a lack of self-awareness, and the shock ending that leads to the tragic fall of our antagonist. Why? A black hole of blindspots, that’s why.

There is, however, a deeper appreciation for the humility needed to endure and learn from the muted glare of blindspots. That living classroom lesson is easily transported to our role as researchers — a role that calls out for self-control, attentive listening, and not playing a starring role in our own insular narratives. These aren’t just codes of conduct and decorum. They are the very ambitions for truly excellent investigators to build on.

(Keep on Playing Those) War Games

While many of our own biases are exposed in our politics and expressed behaviors, blindspots land below the surface. They are the unknown-knowns. Their arrival time is also unknown and their blindsided landing zone is of little solace to the methodical and well-prepped. Well-resourced organizations have as much to protect as they have to imagine about the agents of surprise and disruption.

Some dedicate entire control centers and war rooms just to role play emergency attacks or adverse events that could expose a closely-held secret or compromise a key competitive advantage. These simulations are run in the name of risk management. Really what the participants are trying to do is anticipate the improbable harm that comes to organizations without the capacity to imagine these catastrophic off-the-radar scenarios.

Most war room maneuvers never live out beyond the darkest fantasies of their executioners. A few become false alarms. Some are legitimate enough to impose new fire drills or precautions needed to keep a lid on the potential dangers. All of them change the thinking of the risk professionals, competitive intelligence managers, and top executives who run through these paces. They improve their perspective-taking.

These exercises force them to look at the world from the outside and contentious views of those with much to gain from disrupting that world. We might not be stirred by the altruistic path of empathy when walking in the shoes of an enemy or adversary. But it is a critical to our own safety and preservation in conflicting, often hostile conditions that we can see them as an us. When we objectify our own positions we can better understand, relate to, and ultimately address those who wake each morning with the incentive to find and exploit our blindspots.

In our next installment, we’ll explore the more personal level of coming to terms with our blindspots: What that looks like in the context of “business as usual.” How we can take our own shortcomings on-board in order to raise our game as researchers. In our cases, this means…

- - - - Speaking with greater presence about events we didn’t attend,
      - Delegating to collaborators whose strengths include sparing us the investigative roles we’re not best suited to perform, and
      - Developing empathy for persons of interest who we may share little more than a unique assortment of blindspots.

Keeping Your Nose Clean (Part Two): Calling Out the Disinformers

In our last dispatch: BS Detection in a World of Fake News and Real Threats. Defining the fundamental differences and mutual dependencies between misinformation and disinformation in a complex world flooded with sweeping assertions and unproven claims.

So how do we identify these forms of coercion? So much of our public space is occupied by the intention of persuaders to influence our behavior that we’re likelier to notice the absence of manipulation in our digital interactions than neutral actors whose only impartial goal is to put their information before us.

You know you’re on the receiving end of a disinformation campaign when at least 3 of the following conditions are met:

Passive Voice:  Using the passive voice to validate a  premise or conclusion defies  plausible explanation, i.e. "it's been  said" … "people are saying" …  "we're hearing more and more", etc.  
Implicit Agreements: Messengers bury the unstated agendas of their sponsors and underwriters. 
Inconvenient Complications: They're glossed over when they don't match, confirm, and ultimately undermine the campaign goal. 
Battle-ready Posturing: Building resistance is the point -- not the actual conflict in question. 
Reflexive Responses: Ignoring a late-breaking event with narrative-altering potential. 
Gaslighting: Framing  an adversary with the very accusation that accounts for the disinformer's own misdeeds, rogue behavior, and punitive actions.
Time Warps: Confusing the ordering of events separates fact patterns from the arguments they're supporting.  
Self-confirming Statements: "I feel. Therefore I'm right." 
Circular Reasoning: This is the echo chamber of ad nauseum talking points. 
Under the Radar: What's  not only explicit or implied but escaping the notice of the messenger  completely, a.k.a. their blindspots. The wider the unawareness, the more  likely we are under a disinformation attack.

Reclaiming Our Agency as Investigators

So how de we keep our bearings in this cloudiest of landscapes? How do we regain our footing when the stampeding crowds are oblivious to detachment and perspective-taking?

Self-awareness: Our first line of defense against a muddle of mis- and dis- is to recognize our own predilections and assumptions. Only by recognizing our personal biases and instincts can we assess our own blind spots. Where are we most persuadable by misleading actors? Where do we let our guards down? When can we be most easily played?

The middle ground: Once we move past the polar bear clinging to the melting glaciers, we need to cast outward to the motivations of the message sender. Is it merely self-interest that places us in the line of their motivational fire? Have they gone the extra step to be transparent: “don’t take my word…” or conversational, especially if the motivation is of mutual concern.

On one side of the fence, accusers tend to inflate actual damages. On the other, deniers tend to under-estimate the unintended consequences of their public statements. Investigators should factor these confirmation biases into their own findings.

Smell test: Finally, we need to calibrate our BS detector. What’s the end game here? How complete is their full disclosure. Are they running past some loose-ends still a long way from resolution? How do you know your sniffer is working?

Always brake for integrity. Someone share a compromising piece of info? At whose expense? Clear your spyglass and take in an extra breath of empirical deliberation if it “costs” the provider something in the process.
Don’t let a skeptical nature dismiss competing explanations. Persons of good faith may differ but an understanding of those differences demands this.
Resist the rush to judgement. We’ve all been burned. We’ve got our suspicions. But they can be harbored under the protection of your better judgement while keeping an open mind to opposable sets of facts, alternative interpretations, and unshared experiences.

There are other fog-clearing practices to clarify the incoming mis and determine the unstated intentions buried in the dis. The hard part is absorbing the force of the disinformer’s aggression. Surprise and haste are two calculations made by disinformation campaigners to engage our visceral impulses.

We need to rise above the insistence to react at the provocation before us. This is not an unresolved issue up for debate. This is a willful act to influence the persuadable and shutdown the opposition.

In such matters the independent voice falls outside of either camp. We need to consume the message without absorbing its uncritical acceptance of its claims on our own judgments. Only then can we tell what’s worthy of attention from the falsehoods planted to distract our focus. Our own goals are not to evolve into impartial fact-checkers but of independent investigators, swayable by evidence. Only when we come to know the motives of the disinformer can we petition for our own interests.

Keeping Your Nose Clean So Your Sniffer Can Tell When Things Don’t Smell Right

Part One: BS Detection in a World of Fake News and Real Threats.

Dissing the Missing

We were once inundated with information overload. These days an information fog shadows us as persistently as the dragnet of personal data collection. Its density thickens with a sprinkling of the toxic twin-headed vapor trails of mis- and dis-information. These droplets rain down on us from clouds of doubt that fall on cynical brains. Conditions for a mis- and dis- cloud burst are rife for conflicts. In the gloom of low visibility, they descend with no clear path to resolution and “no good options” for getting there.

Why, you say, do I need the twins? I’m plenty confused and doubtful in the density of my own fog. I’m already being pelted with incoming mis. Now you’re seeding the clouds with additional dis? Facts and opinions are now going bump in broadest daylight. Conspiracies are flourishing, egged on by persuasion-filtered innuendo. The evidence is sketchy. Context is disappearing, and now at the tail of the 2010s, we’ve truly lost our way. Took no effort at all!

Another snoop can’t retrace our own footsteps. But I do have some suggestions about how you can get yourself back on track — become your own service animal in the quest for an empirical truth. But first, what of the twins? How did they grow into this hydra-headed two-faced scrambler of once common understandings and shared values? Can they metastasize into three heads? Egads, let’s look at that one with our eyes drawn away from direct exposure.

First, let’s step back over the bridge to the land of national media networks held together with printing presses and TV antennas. There’s a dot on that distant landscape called fringe media and it’s a xeroxed pamphlet or poster fastened by a dangling staple or pushpin. The low rent district has some exclusive members. And no one’s in a hurry to join the club.

Mis and dis are no strangers to conspiracists, bloviators, and persuasion seekers, heels firmly dug in. In fact, they have a working arrangement of mutual benefit. Think of them as a tag team. But there’s no carrot or stick here. We’re not talking good/bad cop interrogations.

Misinformation is a side-show. A distraction. Tall tales and urban legends. Misinformation scrambles the signal, amplifies the flog, sows the initial seeds of doubt. If there is any collusion it’s that a blob of misinformation is disorienting. Two blobs can throw us into a state of confusion. Three blobs and we’re flying blind.

Up the Frustration Vent

Enter the clarity and purpose of deliberately misleading information. And don’t discount certainty. In the hands of true believer it may be a leap for some. But in the hands of the disinformer, it’s an intoxicant, providing an outlet for those festering anxieties and uncertainties induced by a thick trail of mis. Disinformation provides the escape valve:

- - Grab your pitchforks!
  - Head for the exits!

A successful disinformation campaign not only clears the air but fans the grievance flames so that their frustrations are channeled towards the object of their hostilities. Often, they come with a lesson or instruction to act on the proof offered by the disinformer. In the case of social media, actors like Russia’s Internet Research Agency posed as like-minded American activists. The goal was for hostile agents like IRA to amplify already polarizing conflicts. Each schism a brand-ready theme for opening a new disinformation campaign front.

Disinformation is the main act, planting those seeds deep enough so that the earlier misinforming falsehood is sprouting up as a clearly absorbed conclusion. One in which recipients may be encouraged to take sides but will just as likely desensitize the un-inflamed:

This is a political food fight. Both sides are talking over each other and no one’s speaking to me.

In our next dispatch:

Category: A Declaration of Digital Independence

The Black Hole of Blindspots