This tweet from John Robb does a good job of explaining just how Trump and Musk operate:
The online maneuver warfare that Trump and Elon employ attacks the psychology of the opposition.
They use rapid maneuvers, fast transients (rapid shifts to new maneuvers), novelty, and feints (head fakes, etc.) to disorient, disrupt, and overload the opponent.
Their…
— John Robb (@johnrobb) February 5, 2025
The online maneuver warfare that Trump and Elon employ attacks the psychology of the opposition.
They use rapid maneuvers, fast transients (rapid shifts to new maneuvers), novelty, and feints (head fakes, etc.) to disorient, disrupt, and overload the opponent.
Annexing Greenland, Canada and Panama are all, I think, head fakes and feints, as is rebuilding Gaza.
Their effectiveness is amplified because the establishment’s decision-making loops are far slower than theirs (John Boyd) due to how the red tribe operates in parallel (the dynamics of open source networks).
These maneuvers freeze the establishment in place (deer in the headlights effect), making it impossible for them to think or decide for as long as it continues — you can see this happening right now.
Maneuver warfare, of course, is another term for blitzkrieg, a doctrine of warfare in which you move too fast for the enemy to react. You’re capturing Objective 5 while the enemy is just starting to respond to your capture of Objective 3. If you’re operating inside your enemy’s OODA loop, you are effectively inducing the equivalent of a nervous breakdown.
This is what’s happening to Democrats right now.
Their response seems to be to cling more tightly to ritual invocations of the same social justice warrior polices (child mutilation in the name of radical transsexism, DEI, opening the border to illegal alien criminals, etc.) that made them so deeply unpopular with American voters.
(Hat tip: The Daily Scroll via Tablet.)
Tags: blitzkrieg, Budget, Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Donald Trump, Elon Musk, John Robb, Republicans
“Annexing Greenland, Canada and Panama are all, I think, head fakes and feints, as is rebuilding Gaza. ”
That’s what I thought, but apparently not. “Annexing” is a negotiating tactic to establish the battle space, but Greenland, Canada, Panama and Gaza are in play. Gaza is the only one that I knew was an issue before Trump mentioned it.
America will get some arrangement with Greenland, Trudeau is out in Canada and China is out of Panama. Trump’s move doesn’t seem like a feint, but an opening gambit.
The Gaza business is baffling. Trump changed the conversation, but no idea how that’s going to work out.
No interest in Canada and I don’t think most Canadians do either but I do think the incoming government may act to tighten up the concept of “rights”, which they don’t really have in Canada. The Charter of Rights is a legislative act which not only is full of loopholes but can be easily modified.
Greenland and Panama I would say are in play to the extent that both places will be strengthening ties with the US, which will reduce Chinese incursion.
Gaza, who knows, but Egypt already said they’d rebuild it and their attitude towards the Palestinians is pretty well explained by the huge wall they built on the Egypt-Gaza border.