We've Been Hacked!

Untangling the Largest Psy-Op in World History, Part One

JD Vance is far more dangerous than Donald Trump.

In the past few days I’ve communicated with many people, including friends I’ve cared about for many years – people I know through Burning Man and other contexts – who now support Donald Trump or say they will abstain from voting. Some plan to vote for Jill Stein. I seek to challenge the reasoning that led them to this position. I believe they can still be persuaded to change their minds. Personally, I am always willing to change my mind when I find better evidence that supports another point of view. I hope they share that openness. 

In fact, later on here or in a future essay, I want to look at the possible advantages, such as they are (hahaha), if Trump wins and the United States transforms into a Christian religious ethno-state, following the Heritage Foundation’s Project 25, and/or a technological dictatorship run like a corporation, as Curtis Yarvin and his acolytes such as Peter Thiel and Elon Musk want. I try to maintain flexibility of mind and, as Jack Kerouac put it, “Look for diamonds on the sidewalk.” So we will explore the possible “benefits”of such a situation.

As of now, however, I personally do not think it is a good idea for us to surrender  our democratic ideals, our Constitution, our freedom to dissent, our legacy institutions, and all of the other things that will happen if Trump, Vance, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, The Heritage Foundation, Opus Dei, Putin, Netanyahu, and Charles Koch “win” this election. In fact, I consider this an abysmal, horrifying prospect. 

I want to see more people —all of us, anyone who cares—working nonstop to prevent this from happening. I find that many people seem to be in a kind of trance — distracted, confused, or simply following their meandering impulses, backed up by poor judgment and casual research. They haven’t reached the conclusion, as I and many others have, that the election is an existential threshold for this country—for the world as a whole, considering our impact on climate negotiations and other geopolitical emergencies.

As I discussed in a recent essay, Right Wing billionaires, Russian oligarchs and hackers have invested a huge amount of money and energy into a prolonged effort to make America give up its (admittedly flawed, imperfect) Democracy. This long campaign culminates with this election. In itself, this contradicts the cynical, defeated sense many of us have that the political choices in our Right vs. Left duopoly is meaningless: We may not care about the choice we get to make on November 4. But some very rich, powerful, and arguably malevolent forces definitely care a great deal. 

I find a few issues to be particularly galvanizing for this segment of the population, many of whom support RFK Jr and Tulsi Gabbard as trustworthy sources. The anti-vaccine sentiment remains very high. They feel tremendous moral outrage around the ongoing Israel war and the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza (although some contest the idea this can be called a “genocide,” I find it increasingly evident that the word fits). 

Another area that galvanizes them in their fury against the Democrats is that of free speech. They believe the Right Wing is now the party committed to free expression, while the Democrats have become the party of censorship and coercion. For instance, they point to the Twitter Files and the recent letter Mark Zuckerberg sent to Congress, detailing ways he was asked to censor Facebook posts, as evidence for Biden and Harris not only rejecting free speech but colluding in a much deeper strategy to impose a globalist “New World Order” on the world. Certainly, this would be a bad thing, and apparently it is something the Libertarian / authoritarian / Trumpian Right would never do. 

There are tendencies in how people think that, it turns out, can be quite easily weaponized to manipulate us. We tend to create dichotomies: If something on one side is deemed to be “bad” or “wrong,” then the other side must somehow be “good” or “right.” It is very difficult for us to handle ambiguity and complexity: To remain in gray areas, acknowledging imperfect shades of morality and amorality.

One master-stroke of current Right Wing rhetoric is use of the mirroring tactic, where anything you might say about them is immediately thrown back at you. Perhaps the only way to counter this is to keep calling it out as a rhetorical strategy designed to produce mental exhaustion.

Another major problem we confront now is the “filter bubble effect,” where people tend to receive algorithmically sorted posts and media that confirms their already-held biases. This makes them more entrenched in their beliefs and less likely to pay attention to any argument or evidence that contradicts their fixed ideas. Once they have gone down a dark, twisty tunnel into a particular belief system, their ego-ic identity gets tied up with what they now think to be true. They find it too painful and awkward to disentangle themselves once again.

I intend to go through all of the areas mentioned above and offer sensible counter-arguments against the positions held by many Trump supporters. Let’s start with the vaccines. 

COVID-19 Vaccines 

The ongoing Right Wing outcry over the COVID-19 vaccines blames the Biden-Harris administration for their creation, distribution, and promotion. There is a minefield of misinformation around this area, marked by incendiary rhetoric and deeply polarizing narratives. Many critics across the political spectrum attribute what they still believe to be the harmful and coercive vaccine policies solely to the Biden/Harris administration. To refute these claims, we need to explore the distorted views on the vaccines while we reconsider the policies that shaped their development and distribution.

People should remember that the COVID-19 vaccines did not originate with the Biden-Harris administration. The development and initial rollout of vaccines, including Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, began during the Trump administration. Operation Warp Speed was a collaboration between the federal government and private pharmaceutical companies. Launched in May 2020, this initiative accelerated vaccine development, which most people thought was a great thing. 

Medical professionals universally celebrated the rapid deployment of the first vaccines, which became available at the end of 2020. Back then, Donald Trump proudly took credit for the rapid development of the vaccines. It was celebrated as a victory for his administration. If we ignore the bipartisan origin of the vaccines and place sole responsibility on the Biden-Harris administration due to some Deep State / WEF paranoid fantasy, we distort the reality of what happened​.

According to Rich Condit, a professor emeritus of molecular genetics and microbiology at the University of Florida: “Not only did COVID vaccines go through the usual phase III trials, but we also have phase IV data now. These vaccines were rolled out globally, and we've seen millions of doses and extensive monitoring, which has confirmed their safety.”

An excellent Youtube series.

On his YouTube channel, Debunk the Funk, Dr Dan Wilson, a molecular biologist, refutes the many claims made by vaccine skeptics at great depth and specificity. For instance in this episode, he skillfully refutes RFK’s anti-vaccine positions: “RFK Jr. says that vaccines skipped proper testing, but the truth is these vaccines were tested in randomized, placebo-controlled trials before approval. In fact, the coronavirus vaccines had some of the largest phase three trials ever, with tens of thousands of participants.” He informs his viewers: “Well over 90 percent of the people who die from COVID are unvaccinated.” Wilson also has episodes on Steve Kirsch, Robert Malone, Alex Berenson, and so on. 

While vaccine skeptics call them unsafe, the COVID-19 vaccines underwent rigorous testing and evaluation by independent health authorities, both in the U.S. and globally. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) all confirmed the safety and efficacy of the vaccines. Billions of doses have been administered worldwide, and studies consistently show that the vaccines reduce the severity of illness and prevent death in the vast majority of cases. Framing the vaccines as harmful or insidious ignores overwhelming evidence and the global consensus among scientists and public health officials​.

Certainly the coronavirus vaccines, like all medical interventions, carry risks, even if, statistically, serious adverse effects are very rare. Most side effects – mild flu-like symptoms or arm soreness – are minor and short-lived. There are reports of more severe reactions, such as myocarditis, particularly in young men, but these cases are rare, if scary. These generally resolve without long-term effects. Although it hasn’t been medically verified, it does seem that a tiny proportion of the population suffered more averse effects. A few may have died as a result of taking the vaccines. 

Basically the entire medical establishment, except for a few outliers, agree that the risk of severe outcomes from COVID-19, including hospitalization and death, is far greater than the danger posed by vaccines. Covid can also cause heart problems, myocarditis, etcetera. Transparency about the risks is important – and it wasn’t made clear at the beginning of the vaccine rollout – but the data overwhelmingly supports the overall safety and benefit of the vaccines in reducing the pandemic's spread and morbidity.​

Another aspect of this debate involves the spread of misinformation about how the COVID vaccines work. According to one persistent myth, spread by many influencers in the wellness community, mRNA vaccines permanently alter a person's DNA. This is simply false. The vaccines instruct cells to produce a protein that triggers an immune response, but they do not interact with DNA in the cell’s nucleus. Despite the scientific clarity on this matter, conspiracy theories keep fear-mongering through social media. 

Many Trump followers no longer believe establishment sources of information, such as the CDC or WHO, but prefer their own half-baked sources like Naomi Wolf, who has no training in virology. Wolf is known for falsifying research: One of her books had to be rescinded after publication due to false claims. She has claimed “that mass murder was taking place through vaccinations,” amping up hysteria. The admittedly less exciting establishment sources present masses of evidence and peer-reviewed research​ that testify to the safety of these vaccines. 

Vaccine promotion was part of a broader public health strategy meant to counter a fast-moving, life-threatening emergency. The government sought to control the pandemic, reduce death tolls, and prevent the collapse of healthcare systems. The administration’s push for vaccination—while controversial in some circles—was a response to the fact that voluntary vaccination rates were insufficient to achieve herd immunity. They mandated vaccines in certain sectors, such as healthcare and federal employees, because efforts to increase vaccination rates through incentives and public outreach were met with significant resistance.

Vaccine mandates are not new or unprecedented in public health policy: For decades, schoolchildren have been required to receive vaccines for diseases such as measles and polio​. In fact, polio vaccines also cause deaths or serious adverse reactions in rare cases, and this is also true for MMR and other vaccines.

What is new in the hyper-individualistic Internet age is that people do not trust science, government, or the mainstream media. In our culture of hyper-individualism, many feel their own beliefs or instinctive biases are more likely to be correct than any expert or authority. They respond to whatever online influencers fit their preconceptions or biases.

The real-world positive impact of the vaccines under both Trump and Biden was significant. By mid-2021, according to data, vaccines had already saved hundreds of thousands of lives and prevented millions of hospitalizations in the U.S. alone. A study by Yale University estimated that the vaccines prevented an additional 279,000 deaths in the first six months of 2021​

The data makes it clear that vaccines played a major role in reducing the pandemic’s toll. According to vetted sources, the benefits of the vaccines are much greater than the risks. Those who pushed an extremist anti-vaccine narrative had a lot to gain from taking this extremist position, which many people wanted to hear. Many of them, like Alex Berenson and Robert Malone, turned out to be Right Wing libertarians with a political project. Many are also deniers of anthropogenic climate change. Denigrating the vaccines has become part of a broader project to discredit public projects and government initiatives in health care, education, and so on. 

Over all, it makes no sense to blame the Biden-Harris administration for the vaccines. Vaccines were developed under a Republican administration and continued to be promoted by the Biden administration in the interest of public health. Mischaracterizing them as harmful or nefarious ignored the global scientific consensus and the tangible benefits they provided in saving many lives and reducing suffering during the pandemic. If this is a major issue shaping your political ideology and making you reject the Democrats, it is time to use your mid and rethink it.

Next time: Gaza.