Weekly Insurgency 11/16/2020
Antifa attack on Million Maga March, Election Integrity, and Podcast updates
Welcome to the Contextual Insurgent Project by writer, researcher, and activist Erin Smith.
This is your Contextual Insurgent weekly roundup, where I link you to a selection of the previous week’s previous notable events/articles/tweets and contextualize them with a short analysis drawn from a synthesis of hands-on experience and theoretical knowledge.
Podcasts:
https://anchor.fm/erin-sith/episodes/Episode-8-Quo-Vadis--election-analysis-and-the-art-of-managing-expectations-em8h19
https://anchor.fm/erin-sith/episodes/Episode-9-Courage-is-not-enough-lessons-from-the-Montgomery-Bus-Boycott-emdv16
Last week’s two podcasts included Episode 9, a deconstruction of the Montgomery Bus Buycott, where I illustrate the importance of training and organization (in addition to courage!) and find plenty of usable lessons for us today. Did you know that cancel culture was a thing in 1950’s Alabama, and they took it into account when they planned their actions? That the bus boycott was actually in the works for 6 years, and Rosa Parks actually wargamed out her arrest earlier that summer at an activist training school? Tune in to learn more!
Episode 8 is part 2 of my election analysis, which discussed our dominant downballot position -in a redistricting year no less!- and how it has us poised for a red wave in 2022. I also discussed the political realignment that Trump appears to have kicked off, which in my opinion offers tremendous promise for the GOP’s medium and long-term prospects.
The reality is aside from the POTUS matchup (which is still being contested) this was arguably more a red wave than a blue one, which shocked almost all of the credentialed twitterati. We seem to have picked up 13 (so far) seats in the House and lead in several more races, the Dem majority has a high likelihood of being trimmed to 2-5 seats; a far cry from pre-election predictions which suggests Dems were likely to *pick up* 8-15 seats.
Trump seems to have struck populist electoral gold right when we were primed to transition from the sixth party system to the seventh, and any politician that chooses to mine this vein slightly more carefully has a bright future indeed.
(quick intro to the concept of historic party systems) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Party_System
(Good piece on the Dems’ grim strategic analysis) https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/11/12/2020-election-analysis-democrats-future-david-shor-interview-436334
In Episode 8 I also gave a short overview of four networks theory and explained the structural reasons that give conservatives an advantage in the electoral and military spheres, while leftists dominate the economic and cultural networks. Here’s two good tweet threads supporting my thesis:
Election Integrity
Let’s talk a moment to talk about election integrity. To be up front I have no secret knowledge about any potential fraud that might have happened this year, but I have serious reservations about the way we run our elections, as well as the way we discuss and approach the process of voting. Let me walk you through some axioms:
Humans will steal anything of value;
Power is the most valuable thing in a nation-state;
Elections are the way we apportion power in liberal democracies, and thus things of value in their own right;
Election fraud has been rampant in American history (Tammany Hall and battle of Athens anyone?);
People today are not appreciably different in moral forthrightness than the past, and there’s no reason to believe their inherent virtue around such things has increased;
The margin of apparent victory (70k or so votes between GA, AZ, and WI) is less than confirmed fraud in the recent past (last week’s roundup included a link to a 1982 confirmed incident of over 100k fraudulent votes in Chicago)
Election fraud is a non-violent paperwork crime and relatively small potatoes, especially once you consider there were legitimate pre-election discussions by Dem establishment types willing to work at convincing Dem state governments to threaten secession and send alternate slates of electors pledged to Biden, regardless of the vote;
Our null hypothesis about election fraud( elections are inherently secure unless convincing evidence is presented to the contrary) is incredibly problematic, and recognizing and treating elections as the critical system they are would mean shifting to something more fitting for Airliner parts or nuclear reactors(i.e. treated as suspect unless a rigorous, systematic, and transparent process is followed, with significant penalties for any deviations).
Again I’m not making claims about what may or may not have happened this year, merely pointing out that a nation with discredited institutions and lacking social trust would be well-advised to approach this process with a degree of overkill. Contextual warfare is ultimately about manipulating perceptions, and it’s not enough to merely have a factually secure election; it also has to be perceived as one by a supermajority, and unfortunately that probably means taking some frankly ridiculous precautions given our parlous state.
Million Maga March
This past Saturday 130k-200k Trump supporters assembled in DC for a “Stop The Steal” rally. There was no apparent property damage from the MAGA contingent and somewhat limited conflict during the day, but the situation apparently began to deteriorate after the program was complete and turned into full-blown street battles at night.
https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2020/11/15/situation-report-blm-antifa-violence-in-d-c/?fbclid=IwAR3unAuWzxZcjvWXk5-TVZ3cp0snprVG_-VuEcXHG0RjXynClYw0TYjRBNU
The CSP link above gives a good overview with links to a selection of video clips, my observations from these as well as monitoring livestreams repeat my observations from my 10/26/2020 weekly report, as well as add a few more:
The 2-3 block transitional space around an event -as well as the immediate perimeter- continue to be the area of gravest danger, and event organizers are still doing a poor job of coordinating safe transit corridors and alerting attendees about the dangers in traveling alone or in a small group. Antifa places pickets along likely ingress and egress routes and uses mostly skirmisher tactics against rallygoers, this means the transitional space must be crossed with sufficient numbers and at a good pace to maintain safety.
Police will often be overloaded and unable to intervene even when an assault happens within their sight, and security perimeters/riot lines can sometimes increase disorder and violence by funneling two opposing sides into direct conflict. This played a significant role in intensifying the violence at Unite The Right in Charlottesville, and happened several times in DC this past weekend.
The shields used in the antifa black bloc front line were predominantly the plastic scutum-style made from drums, they’re overall a more versatile design and offer superior performance against impact impact munitions than the flat wooden shields. They are also better for the preferred skirmisher-style tactics, with somewhat reduced performance in shield lines. The wooden shields are really inferior in most respects to the plastic design, their one marked advantage is in the interlocked, modified-testudo shield walls for which they were specifically intended, designed, and constructed. They’re also prone to “unzipping” where one or two people on the right flank flee, and the entire formation can be rolled up fairly easily (hint hint any LE reading this).
After dark antifa engaged in harrasment campaigns at outdoor restaurants and tried to initiate conflict with MAGA supporters near MAGA-aligned establishments like the Trump hotel and Harry’s (a local bar that’s just around the corner) but they appear to have lost the main clashes. Skirmisher-oriented, hit and run, melee tactics usually don’t fare well against frontal assaults, especially when the immediate street layout precludes antifa’s ability to maneuver.
If you’d like to know more please go back and review my 10/26/2020 Roundup analysis of the 10/17 Free Speech rally in San Francisco which saw many of the same tactics. Also consider acquiring our new antifa book (#1 in the Amazon terrorism category!) which covers this and so much more. The tactics chapter is amazing, and I’m not just saying that because I wrote it. :)
https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2020/11/03/twice-as-1-on-amazon-our-new-report-on-antifa-follows-our-biothreats-book-as-top-terrorism-title/
Also here’s my piece on two weeks spent undercover in antifa black bloc, because it’s definitely topical.
https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2020/08/25/contextual-insurgency-lessons-from-a-week-observing-portland-black-bloc/
10/26 roundup with the SF analysis:
https://contextualinsurgent.substack.com/p/coming-soon
Thanks for reading! Also be sure to tell your friends!