Learning From the Mistakes of Other Political Groups
A look at some of the most ridiculous failures in political activism
Last week we talked about infiltration; its mechanisms and process, and how to recognize it. Now we’ll see it in practice by breaking down past infiltrations and seeing what they missed.
The Border Infiltration
In late 2016, Shane Bauer published a story in Mother Jones magazine titled, “I Went Undercover With a Border Militia. Here’s What I Saw.” The story itself was both engaging and horrifying; while well-written, it underlined everything we’ve been discussing here on The Shepard Scale. It’s a textbook example of what not to do if you’re involved in political activism—regardless of the political leanings of your group.
Bauer was quite open about how exactly he got started, and while he wasn’t a professional infiltrator per se (although he had also done an investigative piece on private prison guards), he didn’t really have to be. Unfortunately, his targets made it way too easy.
Becoming a militia member began with opening a new Facebook account. I used my real name, but the only personal information I divulged on my profile was that I was married and that I had held jobs as a welder and a prison guard for the Corrections Corporation of America. A “Don’t Tread on Me” flag was my avatar. I found and “liked” militia pages: Three Percenter Nation, Patriotic Warriors, Arizona State Militia. Then Facebook generated endless suggestions of other militia pages, and I “liked” those too.
He went on to post the kind of material that someone in his target group would want to see, and he went on a liking spree, following and liking related pages as well.
Sending out “dozens of friend requests” to members of the various groups, Bauer said that while some people were a bit wary, many just accepted him without question. Long story short, he ended up on the border, in full kit, in a joint operation with several militia-style groups, with a body cam.
We aren’t even a quarter of the way into this infiltration, and already we can pick out a laundry list of failures.
Coordinating operations on social media
An open recruiting model that literally accepted anyone
Engaging in actions with a high risk for infiltration, but having nothing in the way of prevention or mitigation
Allowing new members to go from zero to full, critical access immediately
You should really go read the whole story; it’s entertaining in a train-wreck kind of way. Had these groups been doing anything remotely correctly, he never would have been able to pull off what he did.
Remember—when studying group failures and successes, it doesn’t matter what you think of the parties involved. You’re looking at process, not identifying with a belief system.
The Malheur Occupation
This operation also took place in 2016, and there is literally nothing that was done right, from its planning to its execution to the people allowed to be involved.
There were, at one count, 15 infiltrators present in the group, including within the highest levels of leadership. They provided over 120 reports to law enforcement.
The operation was open to anyone who wanted to show up, and as a result it attracted a wide swath of people that no sane group would ever want in an operation of any kind, including felons, ne’er-do-wells, and a host of unsavory characters. This offered infiltrators a wide-open invitation, whether their goals were law enforcement based or simply nefarious motives on a personal level.
The objective was murky, jingoistic, and did not even remotely further the cause of the organizers. While they claimed it was in response to the arrest of ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond, the Hammonds themselves didn’t want anything to do with the plan and didn’t even know about it beforehand, leading to a major loss of credibility.
There was no plan for what to do if there were arrests or other negative interactions with law enforcement. This gave the infiltrators a wide arena to work in, steering the operation toward a negative outcome.
Conduct during the operation was a free-for-all; live streams were done by non-leadership members, social media posts were constant by everyone imaginable, the narrative was wildly uncontrolled, and the members even asked for donations of items like tobacco and vanilla creamer.
After the operation was over, the videos and photos coming out of the area showed a disgusting, filthy environment. The group had trashed the facility and even dug latrine trenches outside.
All of this meant that the operation not only didn’t help public perception of the overall cause, it actively decreased public support of anything even related to questions of federal overreach and public lands. When your entire effort is distilled to an insulting set of hashtags, you’re doing it wrong.
Perhaps the most unnecessary and infuriating part of the whole thing was that a key member of their operation was killed—all because of absolute idiocy at every level. Again, regardless of one’s feelings or position on the cause or belief system involved, when parsing out the processes, the entire thing was an unmitigated failure.
Failures on the Left
The right isn’t the only side failing at things. The left has some notable clusters as well. Occupy Wall Street, CHAZ/CHOP, and other groups have tried to carry out operations only to have them fail in spectacular and even horrific ways. Even though their belief system is diametrically opposed to the groups who fail on the right, the processes and failures follow the same predictable pattern.
Vague, slogan based goals without real plans or processes attached
Led by people with no concept of how to actually lead
Inability or unwillingness to plan for potential problems
Refusal to course correct when needed
Allowing vision or emotion to override logic
Allowing poor behavior by those representing the movement
Making the group a ‘free-for-all,’ open to any idiot or bad actor
Inability to stop or prevent violence
The iconic photos from these operations don’t show a positive image. Getty Images has a repository of over 9,200 photos from OWS, for instance, but for many people in the general public, the ones most remembered depict large amounts of filth, trash, violence, and a protestor defecating on a police car.
For the CHAZ/CHOP operation, while efforts were made to paint the whole thing as an experiment in love, cooperation, and inclusiveness, there were also shootings, fires, assaults, and general lawlessness. That’s all immortalized in photos too.
Not exactly how you want your efforts remembered.
Putting It All Together
It’s not popular to point out failures. People become emotionally invested in their own efforts, or in the leaders they’re putting their faith in. A common objection is, “well at least they DID something!” It’s easy to lash out at someone pointing out where it went wrong, or dismiss them as uncommitted—or worse, as trying to derail you. Doing that lets you keep your pride while blaming others…but it also ensures continued failure.
The question is this: is it still ‘doing something’ if your result is decidedly negative? Is it still something to look up to if the net result harmed your cause instead of helping it? Do you want to see your cause succeed? The whole point of political activism is to further a cause. Being able to objectively look at even your own efforts with a critical eye for what was done poorly is one of the most important ways to get better at doing it.
Groups across the entire spectrum fail. Their operations go poorly. Their key people are sometimes arrested or killed. While people on either side of the fence tend to blame the other side’s failures on their ideology (“that group’s beliefs are stupid and unworkable and wrong, and that’s why they failed”), if you really want to understand why activism operations fail, you need to go deeper. The core of what creates those failures are the people involved—their personalities, actions, choices, and processes.
Choose better people, take smarter actions, have more logical processes, and make better choices. That’s how you succeed in your operations. In the next issue, we’ll start talking about exactly how you do that. Subscribe for free now!
Kit Perez is a counterintelligence and deception analyst, and the co-author of Basics of Resistance: The Practical Freedomista. She is currently working on her second book, which will focus on group activism efforts.