How We Got Here: My Thoughts On Our Nation's Birthday

A Retrospective on Information Warfare and Democratic Erosion

Photo by Stephanie McCabe on Unsplash

Three years ago, when I first documented coordinated bot networks harassing Twitter employees during Elon Musk's acquisition, we were witnessing some of the earliest visible opening moves of what would become a full-blown assault on American democratic institutions.

Tonight, as July 4th draws to a close, I survey a landscape of innocent people of color cruelly targeted by Homeland Security, venerable federal agencies stripped of regulatory authority, a president openly discussing third terms, and the very real possibility of American concentration camps. The through-line has become clear: the gun barrel of information warfare, once exclusively aimed at foreign adversaries, is being turned inward against the American people themselves by their own government.

As I write this retrospective, the political climate has made investigation increasingly difficult. Both sources and writers are reluctant to speak, fearing they might "get added to a list" for denaturalization, deportation, or other future adverse government action.

This chilling effect represents perhaps the most troubling development of all: the transformation of democratic free speech into a potentially dangerous activity. Much of my research doesn’t make it into full articles due to time constraints and safety concerns, often instead appearing in fragments on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, itself now a deeply surveilled and compromised medium.

I want to thank both my free email subscribers and my paid subscribers whose support has made this work possible. Your patronage enables me to continue investigating these critical threats to our democracy, even as the environment for independent journalism becomes increasingly challenging.

A Personal Reflection

I've also slowed down personally on my writing because I’ve found it difficult to know what topics are truly worth elevating to my audience given the daily deluge of bad news. Each day brings new outrages, fresh constitutional violations, and escalating attacks on democratic institutions. The challenge becomes distinguishing between what deserves sustained analysis and what represents noise in the endless cycle of fascist provocations.

I want to be thoughtful and not get stuck reacting to the latest outrageous thing the administration is doing, and passing that outrage down to you. The goal has always been to identify patterns and systemic threats rather than chase headlines.

This retrospective represents my attempt to step back and examine the larger trajectory we've been documenting together, to see a larger forest through the trees of daily crisis reporting on social media and my posts here on Substack.

I can’t pretend these topics are the most important out there. I’m sure you could find fifty other worthy discussion points. Ultimately, these touched me for different reasons, and I strongly felt they were worth writing about.

---

---

The Evolution of the Threat

My early work focused on what seemed like discrete problems: Russian disinformation campaigns, the weaponization of social media platforms, the capture of critical telecommunications infrastructure. What has become unmistakable in retrospect is how these phenomena were components of a larger transformation: the conversion of America's information ecosystem into a vehicle for authoritarian control.

The pattern was there from the beginning. In April 2022, I documented how professional trolling operations were being deployed against Twitter employees, creating what I termed "Strategic Attacks Against Public Participation" (SAAPP).

The goal with SAAPP attacks isn’t simply to silence critics, it is to make the ordinary act of public engagement impossible for targeted individuals through the use of an escalating range of tactics–even highly injurious or violent means such as swatting. This increasingly common strategy has made traditional political opposition much more powerful through the systematic use of technological tools along with capabilities such as psychological operations to strangle democratic participation.

By 2023, the transformation of Twitter under Musk's ownership dissolved the last major platform which had seemed committed to content moderation and factual accuracy. Policy changes associated with verification systems, state-media labels, and meaningful oversight created what I then described as an "information warfare platform", a characterization which held true as the platform became a primary vector for election disinformation and anti-democratic messaging.

The Infrastructure of Control

My November 2024 review of business news associated with America's telecommunications infrastructure revealed how critical national security systems were being transferred to private entities that are actively opposed to federal oversight. My look into Koch Equity Development's acquisition of iconectiv (the company managing America's phone number portability system) showed how this transfer occurred just as the incoming administration prepared to invoke wartime authorities against immigrant communities.

When a single conglomerate controls both the routing of America's phone calls and the infrastructure processing law enforcement queries millions of times annually, we've created a "single point of failure" for democratic accountability.

My March reporting on the U.S. Treasury's Geographic Targeting Order explained that lowering money transfer reporting thresholds from $10,000 to $200 in border communities created additional infrastructure for tracking and controlling the economic activities of targeted groups. What appeared to be routine anti-money laundering enforcement was demonstrated to look more like a pilot program for comprehensive financial monitoring.

The Acceleration of Authoritarian Tactics

The pace of democratic erosion accelerated dramatically following the 2024 election. My February analysis of Trump's executive order on independent agencies drew explicit parallels to Nazi Germany's 1933 Enabling Act. The systematic dismantling of regulatory oversight follows predictable patterns from authoritarian playbooks worldwide.

Key developments included:

• Private armies with federal powers: The deputization of Elon Musk's private security forces with federal authority represents a crossing of historical red lines. When private armies loyal to individual leaders receive state authority, we move beyond regulatory capture toward feudalism.

• Neoreactionary infrastructure capture: My February investigation into how neoreactionary forces were capturing U.S. government infrastructure through Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) revealed systematic transfer of sovereign state powers to unaccountable private actors led by Elon Musk.

• Open judicial defiance: My documentation of the administration's open defiance of federal court orders in immigration cases shows calculated strategy to place executive action beyond judicial review. White House officials' admission that "we wanted them on the ground first, before a judge could get the case" reveals deliberate circumvention of constitutional constraints.

Today's news confirms this pattern is only intensifying.

The Washington Post reports that the Supreme Court and Congress have this past week effectively ceded powers to Trump and the presidency, creating a "turbocharged executive" operating beyond traditional constitutional constraints. SCOTUS’s recent decision to sharply curtail federal judges' ability to block presidential actions nationwide, even when they find them unconstitutional, represents the most dramatic expansion of executive power in American history.

The case stemmed from a Trump executive order that aims to end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants. This is based on a fringe legal theory by disbarred attorney John Eastman, arguing that the 14th Amendment only grants citizenship to those with full political allegiance to the U.S. while excluding undocumented immigrants. For over 120 years, the 14th Amendment has been interpreted to grant citizenship to nearly anyone born on U.S. soil, as upheld in the 1898 Wong Kim Ark case.

In my opinion, this case when decided could set a dangerous precedent, potentially stripping citizenship from children of not just undocumented immigrants, but also legal residents and visa holders, leading to more chaos, entirely new classes of unlawful deportations and rights violations, and family separations.

The Psychology of Normalization

I’ve touched on how ordinary Americans will adapt to each shocking escalation through psychological mechanisms that historians recognize from previous democratic collapses.

The transformation of the extraordinary into the ordinary (what I termed the making of "the ordinary impossible") follows predictable patterns.

My analysis of American eugenics history, particularly Edwin Black's "War Against the Weak," provided me crucial context for understanding how scientific institutions can be weaponized against vulnerable populations. Unfortunately, the bureaucratic mechanisms that enabled forced sterilization programs in the early 20th century are being reconstructed through capture of the government and our administrative state.

The attempt by Minnesota legislators to classify political opposition as mental illness–documented in my March story on Senator Eichorn–reveals how psychiatric terminology can be weaponized for political control. The parallels to Nazi Germany's "degenerate art" campaigns aren't mere historical curiosities, but active templates being deployed against contemporary political opponents.

The human cost of these policies has become undeniable.

As an example, there is too much to write about here regarding the disastrous systematic impacts of the repeal of Roe v. Wade.

NPR reports this week that immigrants with no criminal convictions now represent the sharpest growth in ICE detention populations: nearly 30,000 people without criminal records have been detained, sharply contradicting administration claims about targeting "the worst of the worst."

The case of Pastor Maurilio Ambrocio, deported after 30 years in the United States and 13 years of compliant check-ins with immigration authorities, exemplifies how our infrastructure is now deployed against community leaders and law-abiding residents.

The Global Context

Trump's casual dismissal of the Twenty-second Amendment and his declaration that he is "not joking" about pursuing a third term represents a concrete and logical culmination of his broader assault on American constitutional constraints. The current pattern of democratic erosion in the U.S. follows patterns established by authoritarian leaders worldwide. My April analysis of third-term strategies reviews various global precedents for extending executive power beyond constitutional limits.

From Putin's constitutional manipulation to Erdogan's presidential system reforms, the playbook is available for any leader brazen enough to try it.

The international dimension was crucial.

My write-ups of Russian information warfare tactics, Chinese state actors gaining free rein over our telecommunications systems, and hybrid warfare strategies during disasters such as the Los Angeles wildfires provide a small window into how foreign adversaries have been actively exploiting America’s institutional vulnerabilities while domestic actors adopted their methods.

• Russian information warfare: My documentation of Russian information warfare tactics reveals how foreign adversaries exploit American institutional vulnerabilities while domestic actors adopt their methods.

• Hybrid warfare during crises: My analysis of hybrid warfare strategies during natural disasters like the Los Angeles wildfires shows how emergency situations become opportunities for destabilization.

• Attacks on cybersecurity professionals: My January 2024 analysis of attacks on the Cyber Threat Intelligence League demonstrated a sophisticated campaign to discredit cybersecurity professionals through "disinformation about anti-disinformation efforts". Another campaign, this one from Trump himself, targeted former CISA Director Chris Krebs via Executive Order (Note: I once interviewed for a role at Mr. Krebs consulting firm). When organizations defending against foreign influence operations face coordinated attacks questioning their legitimacy from high office, we can easily see that information warfare tactics have turned inward against America's own defensive capabilities.

• Unmoderated platform exploitation: My December 2023 investigation into Telegram's role as a haven for hate speech shielded by corporate secrecy discussed how unmoderated platforms provide infrastructure for coordinating harmful activities while maintaining plausible deniability through their business structures.

Technological Authoritarianism

My work traces the evolution of technological authoritarianism: the use of digital infrastructure to achieve political control that would have been impossible in previous eras.

• Surveillance advertising: My January investigation into advertising technology talks about how “real-time bidding” systems create surveillance capabilities that would make any intelligence agency envious. The same systems that track consumer behavior for commercial purposes can power the monitoring of political dissidents, mapping of social networks, and prediction of behavioral patterns at individual and population scale.

• Dual-use infrastructure: My story touches on ties to controversial political figures, such as Michael Flynn's use of domains connected to BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma, and the complex web linking that ad infrastructure to Russian state assets, demonstrating how commercial surveillance systems can serve dual intelligence purposes.

• Information security frameworks: My October 2024 analysis argues that disinformation represents a fundamental information security problem, requiring the same systematic approach we apply to malware and network intrusions. The parallels between cyber threats and disinformation campaigns–from threat actors and attack vectors, to payloads and impact assessment–provide a framework for defending against information warfare using existing security methodologies and mental models.

The Failure of Institutional Response

Throughout this period, the consistent failure of American institutions to respond adequately to emerging threats has been front and center.

• Cybersecurity dismantling: The CISA layoffs, dismantling of election security teams, and withdrawal of offensive cyber operations against Russia each represents deliberate weakening of defensive capabilities at precisely the moment when threats intensify. My follow-up showed that while CISA publicly denied changes to its Russian threat monitoring, multiple contradictory sources suggested the reality was more complex.

• Judicial failures: SCOTUS’s systematic transfer of power to the executive branch creates what Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has worryingly described as "a zone of lawlessness within which the executive has the prerogative to take or leave the law as it wishes."

• Legislative abdication: Yesterday's budget bill passage, with its massive expansion of ICE funding and cuts to social services, demonstrates how Congress similarly abdicates its constitutional responsibilities.

The practical consequences have been immediate:

• When Democratic lawmakers are denied entry to inspect taxpayer-funded detention facilities in Florida

• When the administration ignores bipartisan congressional legislation on TikTok while extending operations through executive order

• When Trump uses antisemitic language like "Shylock" at campaign rallies, then claims ignorance of its meaning while facing no accountability, normalizing hate speech under expanded executive authority. His response to challenges about language that evokes "centuries-old antisemitic tropes" is deflection rather than accountability, a pattern that extends to all aspects of his governance.

The Path Forward

As this Independence Day ends, there are two paths before us.

We will either continue marching down this forced path of technological authoritarianism, accepting masked agents, increased surveillance, information and economic warfare, unlawful federal action, and the gradual transfer of state functions to private actors, or our proverbial immune system will activate to recognize the moment as American democracy's last clear chance for self-defense.

Either direction we choose will produce highly consequential changes for not just our nation, but the history of the world.

My work over the past three years has documented not just symptoms of democratic decline, but many of its mechanisms:

• How information warfare can operate through commercial infrastructure

• How infrastructure capture functions through private acquisition of public systems

• How psychological manipulation can exploit cognitive vulnerabilities

• How bureaucratic warfare makes ordinary life impossible for targeted groups

Understanding these mechanisms provides the foundation for effective resistance. The tools of authoritarianism may be powerful, yet they remain dependent on public acceptance of their lawlessness.

The rapid construction of facilities like Florida's "Alligator Alcatraz", a detention center built in eight days across 10 miles of Everglades terrain with 200 security cameras and 28,000 feet of barbed wire, demonstrates how quickly authoritarian infrastructure can be deployed once democratic guardrails have been removed.

Despite recent polling by NPR with PBS News and Marist showing 52% of Americans disapprove of Trump's immigration enforcement approach, this public disapproval and weeks of copious nationwide protests have failed to constrain overreach by the Trump administration.

While legal challenges have achieved some temporary victories, observers remain on tenterhooks about whether the judiciary will maintain independence or eventually bow to Trump.

A Personal Reflection

Looking back on this body of work, I'm struck by how much the fundamental challenge remains constant, even as its manifestations evolve. From the beginning of my time observing these phenomena in writing, that challenge was never primarily about technology, or even politics…

It was about power, and who gets to wield it in a democratic society.

The threats and harassment campaigns, the infrastructure capture, open flouting of rule of law, and the constitutional crises all represent variations on a single theme: a systematic effort to make democratic participation impossible for ordinary Americans while concentrating unprecedented power in the hands of a small number of political and economic elites.

My November 2024 letter to President Biden and Vice President Harris calling for a forensic audit of the 2024 election highlighted irregularities that many now suspect indicate the election was stolen, not to mention the various suspicious statements made to that effect by the president or those close to him. The concerns I raised about foreign interference reflected serious concerns about vulnerabilities in our electoral process shared by many, which I firmly believe deserve investigation rather than dismissal.

What gives me hope is that this work has found an audience.

The fact that you're reading this retrospective suggests that enough Americans understand the stakes to make resistance possible. Democracy has always required vigilance, but the specific challenges of our technological age demand new creative forms of civic engagement. Most Americans, being largely unaffected by war, are not easily able to imagine the pain that was experienced to set this country and her people free.

The republic our founders established was explicitly designed to be permanent and enduring. Despite this intention, each generation must choose whether to preserve it or watch it dissolve. The choices we make in the coming months will determine whether future generations will mark July 4th as Independence Day, or as the anniversary of our democracy's final capitulation to tyranny.

The extraordinary has indeed become ordinary.

The main question now is whether we will take extraordinary steps to make the ordinary–meaning constitutional governance, democratic guardrails, and accountability to rule of law–possible again.

---

---