MAGAReport 12/28/24 - PsyWar in MAGA

Designing a psyop to fracture MAGA

The MAGA Civil War over immigration (that I wrote about yesterday) continues. If you missed it, the tl;dr is that Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk have taken a strong pro-H1B visa stance which most MAGA voters are strongly against. Since yesterday’s post, Steve Bannon has said Elon Musk is “owned lock, stock, and barrel by the Chinese Communist Party”. Elon continues deleting the accounts of critics. The MAGA message boards are in a tizzy.

As often happens when there is anything complicated in MAGA spaces, many Trump supporters are claiming this is a psyop. For example:

This is not a psyop; it’s a legitimate policy disagreement among Trump supporters. But let’s look, hypothetically, and how one would run a psychological operation to fracture MAGA in this moment.

In a proper psyop, we want to leverage what we know about psychology to influence people’s beliefs. In this case, we would want to look at what holds the MAGA movement together (at least in online spaces) and poke at that. I see these as the three core parts of MAGA identity that we can push on:

• Unwavering support for Trump

• A narcissistic self-righteous sense of superiority and victimhood (or Collective Narcissism, which I wrote about a while back)

• A belief in American exceptionalism

To mess with this, we need to find points that create cognitive dissonance on these issues.

Are there points where their support for Trump could waver? Yep! Consider this user, who represents a lot of commenters: “If Trump takes a pro H1B stance, his legacy is OVER. I'll be the first to leave the Trump train.” For the America for Americans and MASS DEPORTATION NOW part of the crowd, Trump’s support for immigrant labor could be a major problem. We can use this against them.

Are there points where their sense of Collective Narcissism could be turned against them? Yes again! Vivek and Elon have been doing this. Vivek said American culture values mediocrity and Elon agreed with right-winger Ian Miles Cheong’s post that called them “retarded”:

So high-profile people in the movement and the incoming Trump administration are insulting these supporters, insulting their belief that they are superior and the victims of an unfair system.

Can we manipulate their belief in American exceptionalism? Yes! In fact, the heart of this issue is that companies want to hire foreign workers instead of Americans. If we are the best in the world, why would tech companies want to hire anyone else??? Elon and Vivek are arguing that foreign workers are more skilled and work harder than Americans.

We can also leverage a few other points that are critical to the MAGA movement. For example, they are firmly anti-DEI, to the point that they have pushed many big companies to drop their DEI policies and departments. During the campaign Trump regularly bragged about how he would shut down DEI initiatives if he were reelected. So can we leverage this anti-DEI stance in the context of the immigration debate? Yes we can!

To deploy this operation, we would present ourselves as pro-Trump, pro-MAGA, pro-America and also pro-H1B visa. We would argue that it makes America more competitive if we steal the best people from around the world to come work here.

We would then move to insulting the anti-immigration MAGA crowd on the points outlined above and highlighting places were Trump and his appointees support immigration.

Tactically, a post might look like this: “You want companies to hire mediocre Americans over higher-skilled Indians? So basically, instead of hiring on merit, you want people to get special consideration in hiring based on their demographics? That sounds like DEI to me!”

We would highlight Trump’s statements about H1B visas, like sharing this article from the New York Post (a trusted source in the MAGA community), from Bloomberg, or even this one from the Times of India:

We would emphasize the power that Vivek and Elon have in the new administration, the trust that Trump has put in them, and, importantly, that Trump is dependent on big tech for money and support. We want to show that Trump is somewhat weak and is likely to capitulate to big business interests, rather than living up to his mass deportation, anti-immigration promises of the campaign.

Again, this would have to come from a pro-Trump position, so we would emphasize how his dependence on big business is tactically smart. We might push the line that Elon Musk Is A Genius (a common misconception in the MAGA crowd) along with Trump’s business genius, and argue that if they are both in favor of immigrant workers, it’s obviously the smarter choice. We would insult anyone who argues otherwise, in the same way that Elon and Vivek have been doing already.

We would leverage this to turn the MAGA crowd a little against Trump, and a lot against his efforts. This would be a way to sabotage DOGE’s influence (DOGE, remember, is run by Elon and Vivek). If a large part of MAGA can be turned against it, DOGE’s impact may be muted or it could even fall apart.

We would use this to raise doubts about all of Trump’s other nominees, checking how well they pass MAGA purity test. I think RFK, Jr. would be a natural next target because he has positions that are out of line with Trump (and out of line with reality).

Together, such efforts could weaken the MAGA movement and the early Trump Presidency. A few hundred active people on patriots.win, Truth Social, and in the comment sections of prominent far-right figures would likely be enough to have an impact.

If you were a foreign government trying to influence US politics, this would be an easy effort that would likely produce some impact. If you were simply an opponent of Trump who wants to mute his impact, you could honestly make headway by hosting evening get togethers with your liberal friends, where you have some drinks and food and spend a few hours of posting in MAGA spaces. It’s amazing how effective these operations can be with relatively small efforts.

More updates as they come!