“But let me be very clear,” said Franks, pausing for effect. “As powerful at it is, this use of the internet to influence voters is only one battlefront in a theater-level war.”
“OK, I get it,” said Billings. “What are all these other fronts?”
Franks said, “May I show you something?” Billings nodded. Franks got up and sat down on the stone fireplace hearth next to Billings’ chair. Pulling a folded sheet of paper from his pocket, Franks unfolded it and leaned over to show it to Billings. On it was a hand-drawn sketch of nine small circles arranged in the shape of a large circle. Each of the small circles was marked with a name. There were arrows connecting the circles, sometimes across the page and sometimes from one circle to an adjacent or nearby circle.
Pointing as he went from circle to circle, Franks said, “First, we have the Traditional Media, then the Social Media, the Political Class and what I call ‘We the People’, which is typically made up of protesters or other people who come forward to claim wrongdoing or demand recompense. We typically think of these groups as small, but as we’ve seen in Hong Kong and Puerto Rico, they can be huge. These are followed by the Supporting Actors, who trigger actions and reactions from the media, the political class and the electorate and provide fodder for We the People to complain about. Then we have the Intellectuals and Elites, who provide the research, position papers, articles and social stereotypes we need to convince the media, the political class and all the other players our positions are sound and important for the future of the country and perhaps the entire world. And then we have the Leakers, who provide confidential information and oil the flow of positive or negative information to helpful places. In today’s world, the Leakers include the hackers as well. Next, we have what I call Special Projects and what people with long memories might call Plumbing or Dirty Tricks. And finally, we have the Contributors. These are the people and organizations who fund the PACs, the candidates and the special projects, as well as much of what I do.”
Franks folded up the sheet, placed it back in his pocket and returned to his chair. He said, “The arrows are just examples. Each of these fronts is worth exploiting on its own. Some are naturally related, and others work together relatively easily. But coordinating them all is surprisingly difficult, and the risk of exposure grows dramatically as more people become involved.
“When you coordinate a few of the fronts, the value add is linear,” Franks said, moving his hand in a low upward sloping angle. “In theater-level thinking, all of these fronts get actively managed together to achieve maximum leverage and maximum impact. The value add becomes exponential,” he said sweeping his hand in an accelerating upward curve.
“My expertise is the coordination and implementation,” Franks said.
Billings gazed at the fireplace and said, “Interesting. You come highly recommended. What you say makes sense. But as I said out on the trail, I need some real-world context.”
Franks smiled politely and nodded. He said, “Mr. Billings, I can’t give you the details of any actual operation. But I can try to use some hypothetical situations to give you the context you want. Let’s say you want to accomplish some political objective. Let’s start with something other than winning an election. Pick something, anything.” Franks waited for Billings to answer.
Billings said, “OK, let’s take the confirmation of another Supreme Court justice. God hope Trump doesn’t get another one of those, but the bastard might.”
Franks said, “Alright. Let’s look, circle by circle.
“Knowing a nomination is coming up, we need to get the Political Class and the People worried the nomination could threaten the balance on the court and result in decisions that could be dangerous to the country. Understand, this is not about the nominee, who hasn’t been announced yet. This is to set the stage for the conversation we want. We can use Traditional Media and Social Media to do this, but we need supporting opinions, articles and interviews from the Intellectuals and Elites to add credibility and provide or influence the content. To raise awareness and gain more media attention, we can activate some Supporting Actors to demonstrate, stage rallies and the like. There’s huge media leverage there. Once the Traditional and Social Media fan the flames, We the People step in and join the demonstrations and rallies. We can use all this to prime the Contributors to be ready to fund issue-based advertising once a nominee is announced. This works even better if we have recent court decisions we can reference to drive home the risks about where the court could be going, or where we have a lot of hatred and pent-up revenge left over from the last nomination fight. Pick your hot buttons. We can use the Leakers to bring short lists of nominees to the Media, where comments and concerns of the Intellectuals and Elites can be expressed.
“Once we have a nominee, we can get key members of the Political Class to scream about the risks the nominee poses to prior decisions, our party’s base, our nation and democracy itself. At the same time, we get the Intellectuals and Elites to look for anything that could possibly be negative about the nominee. We can unleash media campaigns funded by the Contributors, supplementing facts with misleading inuendo and outright fake news on Social Media, where negative or controversial news proliferates even better than good.
“Once the hearings start, we have a stage for the next act of our play. The Intellectuals and Elites can offer their endless spins on the latest disclosures about the nominee, which the Political Class and the Traditional and Social Media will be all too pleased to parrot. The Leakers can dig up particularly provocative rumors about the nominee and use their contacts with selected media to be sure they receive press or web coverage. The more controversy we have coming into and out of the hearings, the better the media coverage and the larger the audience, which gives more publicity to the participating members of the Political Class, making them even more willing to offer up sound bites to their base. As the Kavanaugh experience showed, hearing rooms and Senate hallways are great for protests instigated by Supporting Actors and joined by We the People, and elevators are good places for Supporting Actors to corner unsuspecting Senators, all conveniently played in front of live news cameras feeding the politicized media to inflame the party’s base and influence independent voters. Of course, all this inspires the Contributors to write more checks. If you think about the circles I drew earlier, the feedback loops here are remarkably effective, especially if the events are occurring near an election—as happened with Kavanaugh and the 2018 mid-terms. Just imagine what a nomination during the 2020 primaries would bring, especially after what the Republicans did to Obama’s ill-fated nomination of Merrick Garland in 2016.
“Special Projects can fit in almost anywhere, and it does more often than most Americans realize. Influencing a reluctant witness to testify about the veracity of rumors is popular, as is coaching the witness to improve his or her memory. Soft incentives can range from emotional satisfaction and revenge to offering carefully selected free legal counsel to giving the person celebrity or hero status. Hard incentives can run from promises of future employment to destroying or preserving a reputation or career. This last one is especially relevant today, where mob-fueled social shaming can create permanent destruction quickly. Apologies and forgiveness don’t count anymore.”
Standing up, Billings asked, “So how much of Special Ops is brilliant strategy and execution and how much is just taking advantage of opportunities?”
Franks smiled and said, “Particularly over the last few years, you’ll find situations where luck and art combined to create results. Seeing or creating the opportunities, figuring out how to play them in a theater-wide context and actually making them happen are a lot of what I do.”
“So, which is it,” Billings asked. “Do you stumble across the opportunities or do you create the opportunities?”
Franks said, “Both. Sometimes, we identify broad social trends that could be valuable to exploit. The Republicans are remarkably bad at this. It’s not so much they don’t see the tr
ends; they just can’t bring themselves to exploit a trend rather than fight it. There are lots of examples, from the increasing diversity of our population to the country’s growing acceptance of abortion and LGBT rights.
“I’m always fascinated that the Republicans, who were once the party of opportunity, the party of the American Dream, have managed to piss off the Latinos and most other immigrants. I also wonder how many Republicans realize what their Pro-Life stance has done both to alienate women generally and to increase the population of the very voters who vote Democrat. I know, that’s sacrilegious. It’s supposed to be a God thing. But if you’re just thinking about the number of voters, I’d say allowing abortion favors the Republicans.
“Some trends, like the rise of the #MeToo movement, offer both broad and targeted opportunities. On the broad side, the increased focus on respect for women plays to Democrats and independent women, especially in the suburbs, which basically handed us control of the House in 2018. On the targeted side, it can be weaponized into a virtual assassination tool that can be used to encourage politicians to retire, take out candidates or, as we almost saw with Kavanaugh, destroy Supreme Court nominees.
“Let’s say we some person with a history of arrests, threats or mental illness or some belief they have been wronged by someone. With some creativity, hard work and often some luck, we may be able to turn the person into a Supporting Actor we can exploit and use. In a police movie, we’d probably call that ‘entrapment’. I prefer to think of it as ‘enticement’.”
“How do you find these people?” asked Billings.
“Politicians are great magnets for people who have an axe to grind, legitimate or otherwise,” Franks said. “They write their Senators and Congressmen, which is exactly what poor Christine Blasey-Ford did. Every good government servant understands the importance of helping their constituents. But sometimes alert staffers recognize an opportunity to use these people in more manipulative ways, as Senator Graham passionately alleged at the second Kavanaugh hearing. In those situations, the interests of the person reaching out to their Congressperson properly become secondary to the interests of politics.
“Finding people has become a lot easier. Even without politics, the internet has created a world where everyone wants to be an influencer—somebody who has millions of followers on Twitter or videos with millions of views on YouTube, someone who gets followed by the paparazzi, physically or electronically. In addition to being able to monetize their popularity, these people feed their egos as visibility builds their power.
“When we’re searching for people who may have memories helpful to a virtual assassination, we always scan the influencers and the people who want to be influencers. Of this group, the people who are political wannabes and hangers on are the best resources. That includes party workers and people who are in the early stages of some hoped-for political career. They want the fame visibility affords them.
“The real danger to our democracy—I won’t go so far as to call it an opportunity although some clearly would—is when solicitation and enticement devolve into violence. Orchestrated protests or rallies that get out of hand. Accosting Cabinet members and their spouses at restaurants and chasing them when they leave. Throwing blue paint. Making threatening phone calls. But it can get a lot worse, and almost certainly will. Fostering flash mob riots. Shooting Congressmen playing baseball. Sending pipe bombs to leading Democrats just before the mid-term elections. Killing innocent Jews in a Pittsburgh synagogue to prevent more Jewish immigrants, also just before mid-terms.”
Billings said, “Surely you’re not saying all those things were the results of Special Ops by one side or the other. Are you serious or just trying to bait me?”
Franks said, “I can tell you some were, and some were not but could have been. The stakes in presidential elections are huge, Mr. Billings. Do not underestimate what people are prepared to do.
“You were around when President Kennedy was assassinated. Remember what people wondered about Lee Harvey Oswald, and the Warren Commission never proved? Did Oswald really kill Kennedy on his own or was he a troubled soul someone cultivated and encouraged? Was it the Mob, Castro, the Russians or someone else? Or just Oswald?
“Look at where our politics have gone since Kennedy was killed in 1963. We’re more polarized than we’ve ever been. The popular media is overrun with stories and posts about the dangerous state of American politics. In 1963, the internet didn’t exist. Today, Social media can influence millions in a matter of minutes using micro-targeted ads and posts based more on fake news than facts.
“Although the Democrats and much of the press like to blame Trump for bringing fighting words to politics, the leaders of both parties happily inflame their bases every chance they get. State-sponsored lies are everywhere, from Putin to the Saudis to Trump. The traditional media are more partisan than they’ve ever been, making it even harder to decide what’s true. There’s a very thin line today between truth, lies and calculated or reckless exaggeration.
“My point is this: In today’s world, it’s becoming far easier to fire up extremists on both sides, and both sides are doing it. Much of it is conscious and pre-meditated. Most of the rest is simply irresponsible. Very little on either side is innocent.
“If politicians are willing to use hacked personal information to micro-target small groups with false and misleading information to encourage them to act on something, if they are willing to ruin the lives of innocent people who come to them seeking their assistance, all to achieve their political ends, the opportunity for enticement is there. If it works well, nobody gets hurt too badly except for the poor sucker who was enticed. If things get out of hand and some people get seriously injured or killed, oh well, it served its purpose and can be blamed on the other party.
“With or without enticement, mass shootings are going to provide opportunities for the Democrats. The FBI is increasingly worried about lone wolf actors, spurred on by white supremacist rhetoric on the web. It’s essentially domestic terrorism and it’s going to get worse. Gun control is like the immigration crisis, too many Democrats would rather weaponize it than work across the aisle to solve it. Did Obama tackle gun control when he had the House and the Senate? No. The NRA scares Democrats too.
“By the way, immigration is related to gun control and not because the illegals are violent. Trump gets blamed for inflaming or refusing to condemn the white supremacists. But the progressives’ demands for open borders fuel the supremacists’ fear of the ‘great replacement theory’, which has led to violence in the EU, Norway and New Zealand as well as here.
“The Democrats are much better at getting the press to blame whatever the right-wing extremists do on Trump and the Republicans than the Republicans are at getting the press to blame the Democrats for the leftwing extremists who attack Republicans. We could talk for some time about how much of this difference is because the Republicans are really more guilty here than the Democrats, which I don’t believe, how much is because most of the press really has it in for Trump and the Republicans, which is true, and how much is because we just do Special Ops and multi-front warfare a lot better than the Republicans, which I believe and like to tell donors like you.
“Which does bring me to one final note about Special Ops,” Franks added. “Just as we have double-crosses and double agents in the movies, those same things can happen in Special Operations in the political arena. Take a march on the southern border by thousands of immigrants from Guatemala. The Democrats could try to exploit that growing march to fire up their base and hope the Republicans overreact and do something stupid as they often do. But the Republicans could be behind the whole thing, facilitating the march to seize an opportunity to close the border and send in the military to fire up their own base, while still claiming the Democrats were behind the march in the first place. The truth today is what people want to believe it to be, based largely on their tribal affiliations. But don’t get me started about identity politics.”
Billings finally said, “Alright Mr. Franks, enough. I may want to follow up on some of that, but let’s cover two other topics before you go. First, I’d like to understand how you feel about collateral damage.”
Franks said, “I don’t go around trying to injure innocent people. But I also don’t spend a lot of time trying to prevent it once an operation is underway. A lot depends on who’s involved. For me, politicians, candidates and other public figures are all fair game for having their reputations destroyed. The same goes for people who put themselves in the political process by coming forward with allegations, writing blogs or OpEds or posting things on the internet.”
Billings said, “What about things like physical injury, sexual assault?”
Franks looked at Billings for a moment and said, “I’m not into killing widows and orphans or anyone else. If I were, I sure wouldn’t be talking about it with you. As I suggested earlier, Special Ops can sometimes get out of hand. Enticement is a delicate thing. You open Pandora’s Box and sometimes bad things can come out. You hope things play out without violence or physical harm, but sometimes you must take the risk to achieve the goals.
“And you sleep alright at night even when the risk goes awry?” Billings asked.
“I do,” said Franks. “When I was studying philosophy with the Jesuits back at Holy Cross, I became a fan of Jeremy Bentham, the founder of Utilitarianism. Bentham believed an action that results in the greatest pleasure for the utility of society is the best action. Under his morality, you strive for the greatest happiness for the greatest number. National elections have a big impact on the happiness of a lot of people. Intentional or unintentional collateral damage to a few unlucky souls does not. Good to remember.”
Billings said, “What about staffing and subcontractors, Mr. Franks? You can’t manage the whole theater of war by yourself. Do you have access to the people you need, and can you trust them to execute and be discrete in the process?”
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