In our previous report on Never Trump State Department official George Kent, Revolver News drew attention to the ominous similarities between the strategies and tactics the United States government employs in so-called “Color Revolutions” and the coordinated efforts of government bureaucrats, NGOs, and the media to oust President Trump.
This follow-up report will focus specifically on how the “contested election scenario” we are hearing so much about plays into the Color Revolution framework — indeed, sowing doubt about the democratic legitimacy of the target and coupling it with calls for massive “mostly peaceful” demonstrations comes straight out of the Color Revolution playbook. And this is precisely the messaging we’ve seen from by those same key players in media, government, and the Democrat Party machine, most prominently from a shadowy George Soros-linked group known as the Transition Integrity Project — more about them soon.
First, a quick note on Color Revolutions. A “Color Revolution” in this context refers to a specific type of coordinated attack that the United States government has been known to deploy against foreign regimes, particularly in Eastern Europe deemed to be “authoritarian” and hostile to American interests. Rather than using a direct military intervention to effect regime change as in Iraq, Color Revolutions attack a foreign regime by contesting its electoral legitimacy, organizing mass protests and acts of civil disobedience, and leveraging media contacts to ensure favorable coverage to their agenda in the Western press.
It would be disturbing enough to note a coordinated effort to use these exact same strategies and tactics domestically to undermine or overthrow President Trump. The ominous nature of what we see unfolding before us only truly hits home when one realizes that the people who specialize in these Color Revolution regime change operations overseas are, literally, the very same people attempting to overthrow Trump by using the very same playbook. Given that the most famous Color Revolution was the “Orange Revolution” in the Ukraine, and that Black Lives Matter is being used as a key component of the domestic Color Revolution against Trump, we can encapsulate our thesis at Revolver with the simple remark that “Black is the New Orange.”
Transition Integrity Project:
So what is the Transition Integrity Project, and what does it have to do with the Color Revolution against Trump? Here is how friendly media outlets represent the Transition Integrity Project and its agenda:
A bipartisan group of about 80 political operatives and academics has been involved in discussions about what could happen if President Donald Trump were to lose the November election and then contest the results, potentially refusing to leave the White House.
The Boston Globe first reported on Sunday that the group of Democrats and Republicans (all of whom oppose the president) convened an online meeting to hash out scenarios as part of what has been called the Transition Integrity Project in June. [Newsweek]
Of course, what they do not say about this ostensibly “bipartisan” group is that its founder, Rosa Brooks, is a long-time close associate of George Soros and his Open Society Foundation. She served both as special counsel to the President at George Soros’ Open Society Foundation and as a Board Member of the Open Society Foundation.
In 2006-2007, Brooks was Special Counsel to the President at the Open Society Institute in New York. Brooks has also served as a consultant for Human Rights Watch… She currently serves on the advisory board of the Open Society Foundation’s US Programs, the advisory board of National Security Action and the board of the Harper’s Magazine Foundation. [Georgetown Law]
Media outlets such as the National Pulse have drawn attention Rosa Brooks’ Soros connections as well as some interesting connections to Democrat Presidential candidate Joe Biden. It is certainly suspicious that the head of a group claiming to be bipartisan, which runs war games that reinforce the dangerous new talking point that President Trump won’t concede the election, just happens to be linked to George Soros and Joe Biden. To top it all off, Never Trump Russiagate fanatics Bill Kristol and David Frum participated in the study as well. In fact, the entire project appears to be a collaboration between establishment Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans. Shockingly, when anti-Trump Republicans pretended to be him in a simulation, they had him do a bunch of illegal and unconstitutional acts! Wow, what an incredibly revealing simulation!
On the one hand it is tempting to look at this as just another case of Democrat operatives falsely representing themselves as bi-partisan and getting away with it due to a compliant media. There is of course some truth to this, but in a deeper sense this interpretation misses the plot completely. The domestic Color Revolution framework hints at something far more dangerous and sinister. George Soros and his Open Society Foundation have played key roles in the Color Revolutions in Eastern Europe, including the famous Orange Revolution and Euromaidan Revolution in the Ukraine, in which mass demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience were organized in order to overthrow the target regime of Russia-aligned Yanukovich. Setting aside the question of whether the overthrow of Yanukovich was justified or in American interests, what is crucial here is the similarity not only in method but even in vocabulary. Mass demonstrations are part of the Color Revolution playbook, especially when they can incite crackdowns that can then be used as further pretext to escalate demonstrations against the target regime. Notice the vocabulary George Soros’ Open Society Foundation used to describe the Euromaidan protests:
In late November 2013, Ukrainians took to the streets in peaceful protest after then-president Viktor Yanukovych chose not to sign an agreement that would have integrated the country more closely with the European Union….
The International Renaissance Foundation part of the Open Society family of foundations, has supported civil society in Ukraine since 1990. For 25 years, the International Renaissance Foundation has worked with civil society organizations defending human rights and justice, tackling corruption, supporting Ukrainian minorities including Tatars and Roma, pursuing health and education reform, and helping to facilitate Ukraine’s European integration.
The International Renaissance Foundation played an important role supporting civil society during the Euromaidan protests. The foundation ensured that legal aid was made available throughout the crisis to civic activists, protesters, and journalists; supplied victims of violence with medical care; enabled civil society solidarity and organization; supported channels like Hromadske TV in independent, live reporting about events on the Maidan; and documented cases of torture, beatings, and police and courts abuse. [Open Society Foundation]
This description of the Euromaidan Color Revolution by Brookings Institute scholar Steven Pifer is worth noting:
February 21 marks the sixth anniversary of the end of Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution. Three months of largely peaceful protests concluded in a spasm of deadly violence. President Victor Yanukovych fled Kyiv and later Ukraine, prompting the Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) to appoint acting leaders pending early elections.[Brookings Institute]
Prior to his post at Brookings, Steven Pifer was of course an Ambassador to Ukraine under President Obama. And, of course, he was actively involved in promoting the failed Ukraine-themed impeachment attempt against President Trump.
It’s important to look at the context of what was happening between the U.S. and Ukraine on July 25, Pifer told McFaul. For one thing, Trump had put nearly $400 million in military aid for Ukraine on hold before the call took place. In addition, the two countries were in the midst of planning a meeting between the two leaders at the Oval Office at the time.
“Those are big things for Zelensky, particularly at the beginning of his term in office,” said Pifer, who is a William J. Perry fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation. “If he can show that he delivers on the assistance and also on the photo op with the American president — that looks really good at home. And it’s also a good message to send to the Russians: ‘I’ve got a relationship with the Americans.’”
Pifer’s interlocutor here, McFaul, just happens to have been the Senior Ambassador to Russia under Obama during the period of the Maidan protests. McFaul is yet another Color Revolution specialist who played an active role promoting the impeachment of President Trump. In fact, after Revolver’s story exposing State Department official George Kent, McFaul took to Twitter to denounce the term “color revolution” in favor of the more palatable “democratic breakthrough.”
Autocrats have demonized the phrase, “color revolutions.” (& revolution generally has a negative connotation for many.) Instead, I use the term “democratic breakthroughs.”
— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) August 23, 2020
McFaul’s Color Revolution bona fides are so substantial he literally wrote the book on it. He is one of two editors of a series of essays “Revolution in Orange” about the Orange Color Revolution in Ukraine.
The dramatic series of protests and political events that unfolded in Ukraine in the fall of 2004—the “Orange Revolution”—were seminal both for Ukrainian history and the history of democratization. Pro-Western presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned with dioxin, an industrial pollutant that left him weakened and horribly disfigured. When this assassination attempt failed, the Kremlin-backed ruling party resorted to voter intimidation and massive electoral fraud to win the runoff election. Supporters of Yushchenko responded with a series of strikes, sit-ins, and marches throughout Ukraine. Thanks in large part to this peaceful revolution, the election results were annulled. [Amazon]
Does this plot sound familiar?
Of course this Color Revolution book received a nice blurb by none other than George Soros himself.
Keen observers of the recent transition, Aslund and his coauthors write with authority about the challenges and opportunities Ukraine faces today. Drawing on broad experience in the region, they examine the situation through a comparative lens. This book should be read carefully by students and policy makers alike.”
—George Soros, Chairman, Open Society Institute
We can start to get a sense that a curiously high percentage of key Trump opposition figures, especially those involved with the impeachment of the President, have or have had some kind of professional role overseeing Color Revolutions in Eastern Europe. The people most viciously and effectively targeting Trump today are regime change professionals of the Color Revolution variety, whose preferred playbook involves a combination of attacking the legitimacy and electoral integrity of their target, mobilizing mass demonstrations of “mostly peaceful protesters,” and using any effort to crack down on said protests to further escalate the offensive against the target regime.
Here is a passage from one of the key books on Color Revolutions, literally called “The Playbook.” The reader may find some of the highlighted passages relevant to the domestic situation unfolding before our eyes.
The author of this book, conveniently titled “The Democracy Playbook” just happens to have also participated in the Transition Integrity Project.
Now that we are armed with the Color Revolution framework, and the specific role that electoral plays in that model, we are in a strong position to evaluate the true agenda behind the Transition Integrity Project’s “War Game” scenario suggesting that Trump won’t concede the election. The title of Rosa Brooks’s Washington Post piece is suggestive, prompting us to wonder whether it is a prediction or a threat: “What’s the Worst that Could Happen: The Election Will Likely Spark Violence and a Constitutional Crisis:”
A landslide for Joe Biden resulted in a relatively orderly transfer of power. Every other scenario we looked at involved street-level violence and political crisis.
Translation: vote for Biden, or else.
Soon, Attorney General William P. Barr opens an investigation into unsubstantiated allegations of massive vote-by-mail fraud and ties between Democratic officials and antifa. In Michigan and Wisconsin, where Biden has won the official vote and Democratic governors have certified slates of pro-Biden electors, the Trump campaign persuades Republican-controlled legislatures to send rival pro-Trump slates to Congress for the electoral college vote.
Translation: despite severe problems with mail in voting, any effort by the Justice Department to ensure the integrity of a mass mail-in system will be interpreted in advance as part of an authoritarian coup on the part of Trump. In other words, if Trump takes any reasonable measures to prevent the Color Revolution coup against him, he will automatically be acting in an authoritarian manner justifying said Color Revolution against him. Funny how that works, isn’t it?
In every exercise, both teams sought to mobilize their supporters to take to the streets. Team Biden repeatedly called for peaceful protests, while Team Trump encouraged provocateurs to incite violence, then used the resulting chaos to justify sending federalized Guard units or active-duty military personnel into American cities to “restore order,”
Translation: No matter how violent these “peaceful protests” become, any effort by Trump to establish authority will be used to confirm the pre-determined conclusion that he is an authoritarian and that extraordinary measures must be taken to remove him from office.
Social media platforms can commit to protecting the democratic process, by rapidly removing or correcting false statements spread by foreign or domestic disinformation campaigns and by ensuring that their platforms aren’t used to incite or plan violence.
Translation: Social media must be fully censored leading up to the election. Facebook is already doing its part, for instance, by aggressively censoring any mention of Kyle Rittenhouse that suggests he acted in self-defense (he did).
When people unite to demand democracy and the rule of law, even repressive regimes can be stopped in their tracks.
Trump’s is a “repressive regime” and therefore extraordinary measures usually reserved for repressive regimes overseas–namely, color revolutions–are justified to prevent him from taking office. Note that this sentiment was echoed explicitly in a similar “roundtable” discussion on the election done by the New York Times a little over a week ago. One of the contributors, Jamelle Bouie, spelled it out quite explicitly:
I think the Democratic party and its affiliated institutions and organizations need to be prepping basically a defense of ballot counting, sort of a nationwide effort to stop that tampering. I think there needs to be plans for protests and demonstrations. This is going to sound very hyperbolic, but I think that we have to think of the task of getting Trump out as less of a traditional democratic transition and more of something akin to pushing an authoritarian regime out. [NYT]
One does not “vote out” an authoritarian regime, or they are not authoritarian. Dictatorships are only overthrown, and Bouie’s statement is an explicit call to do exactly that. The actually-peaceful process of voting must be supplemented–or supplanted–with “mostly peaceful protests” if the result isn’t correct. Which leads us to the next passage from Rosa Brooks:
Mass mobilization is no guarantee that our democracy will survive — but if things go as badly as our exercises suggest they might, a sustained, nonviolent protest movement may be America’s best and final hope.
Translation: Just in case Biden isn’t able to win fair and square, they have introduced a mail-in voting system that dramatically increases the likelihood of some type of contested election scenario. If that occurs, the outcome of the election will no longer be in the realm of democratic choice, where perhaps the forces against Trump have a disadvantage. Instead, the election becomes an issue of sustained mass mobilization of demonstrators capitalizing on every opportunity for escalation, a full court press by media demonizing every effort by Trump to restore order as authoritarian, and a transmission of the electoral process to court battles which disadvantage Trump.
There is of course one scenario, a very dark one, that remains unexplored. If the Color Revolution against Trump frames him as an authoritarian unwilling to leave office, the only alternative is to remove him by force. Both Al Gore and Joe Biden have already taken the extremely irresponsible and dangerous step of floating a military role in removing Trump should their Color Revolution not turn out the way they plan.
If Trump lost the election but refused to accept the results, Gore said he believes the military would intervene. He noted that under the parameters of the Constitution, Trump’s last day in office is Jan. 20, 2021. [Fox News]
So they are setting things up in such a way as to almost ensure that a clear winner will not exist on Election Day, and framing any refusal of President Trump to concede as grounds for military removal. This final stage of the Color Revolution is something that Rosa Brooks of the Transition Integrity Project has entertained for quite some time. The following excerpt is from a piece Rosa Brooks wrote shortly after the 2016 election, suggesting a fourth way to remove Trump from office before 2020
The fourth possibility is one that until recently I would have said was unthinkable in the United States of America: a military coup, or at least a refusal by military leaders to obey certain orders. [Foreign Policy]
And this is how the Color Revolution operation against Trump and by extension against all of his supporters evidently concludes—with the possibility of a military coup.
After 2016, a critical mass of ruling class factions in the national security apparatus, state bureaucracies, Big Tech, and media decided that they would never allow the American people to meddle in their own elections again. And as a result of this contempt for the will of the people, our country is closer to an existential crisis than it has been at any period since the Civil War.
In an age of mandated masks there is one metaphorical mask that is slipping—that is the mask of pretty illusions that covered up the true nature of the American power structure with phrases like “liberal democracy.” As this mask slips and we confront both the face and the fist of evil, we must do everything in our power to prevent the complete transformation of this country into the brutal, soulless tyrannies our would be overlords imagine for us and our posterity.
Story cited here.
