They’re Still Messing With You by Using ‘Anonymous Sources’ to Drive Clickbait

By Brian Cates

In a new column a few days ago, I talked about guarding your mind against those who constantly manipulate you to stir you up, provoke you, or make you outraged or fearful.

Here’s a prime example: back in early April, media influencer Jack Posobiec did the “anonymous source” trick, and I watched the instant outrage take off. Steve Bannon and many in Conservative/MAGA-affiliated news media got plenty of commentary out of that.

I spent considerable time watching various media personalities STERNLY WARNING DONALD J. TRUMP that he had BETTER NOT DO THIS to himself and make incurable RINO **MARCO RUBIO** his Vice Presidential running mate.

Have you noticed every other week, a new outrageous rumor surfaces that Trump is supposedly **seriously considering** some anti-Trump/I-REALLY-REALLY-HATE-MAGA RINO for his running mate?

Thus far in the last six months, I’ve seen absolutely absurd and stupid scuttlebutt about Rubio, Tim Scott, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, and others being used to generate massive amounts of content for some media outlets.

Many of the top Conservative/MAGA/AF media personalities and influencers out there have a favorite narrative they LOVE to return to, and this latest stupid rumor about Rubio allows them to do that.

THEY GET TO SAVE THAT MORON TRUMP FROM HIMSELF. AGAIN.

Here’s how the narrative works:

Step 1: Float a rumor that Trump is about to do A Really Dumb Thing. [Like, say, pick Nikki Haley or Tim Scott or Marco Rubio for his running mate]

Step 2: Step into your cherished role of uber-cool and sophisticated know-it-all KEY TRUMP ADVISOR and spend major time on your show or in your columns STRONGLY WARNING Donald Trump NOT TO DO that Really Dumb Thing.

Step 3: Trump does not, in fact, do A Really Dumb Thing. A new rumor from the anonymous sources surfaces: Yes, Trump WAS seriously considering doing A Really Dumb Thing, but after all that helpful media PUSHBACK, Trump has now changed his mind and retreated, and is no longer thinking about doing A Really Dumb Thing.

Step 4: Spend days on your program or in your new columns, BRAGGING HOW YOU JUST SAVED TRUMP FROM HIMSELF YET AGAIN because you are JUST THAT AWESOME. Everyone should thank God that Trump listens to you!

Now, look, I like Jack. I’ve met him in person several times. He’s a great guy with an awesome family. But look—this whole anonymous source thing to drive outrage clickbait narratives—we should leave that to the Fake News. We don’t need to be doing that ourselves.

“Oh gee Brian, I thought you were talking about the Fake News. I trust Bannon. I trust Posobiec. I trust these MAGA influencers who often use anonymous sources to drive their narratives.”

Well, of course, you’re not watching Fake News because if you are still watching and getting your ‘news’ from the mainstream media at this stage of this information war, you’ve got more problems than I can help you with.

No, I wasn’t talking about the FAKE NEWS when I said guard your mind. You don’t watch Fake News anymore, right?

So, who do you think I was referring to?

We have a severe problem in our ranks, and I’ve been addressing it for some time now.

We’ve allowed the sketchy, shady, totally dishonest, and dumb Fake News tactic of quoting anonymous sources by our own MAGA/AF journalists and influencers.

And we REALLY NEED to stop letting them do this.

Fake News has used the fake ‘anonymous source’ to drive its propaganda narratives for decades.

Let me give you one of the best examples of how Fake News used a fake anonymous source to drive its fake narratives:

This fellow, Miles Taylor. Remember him? The Fake News spent over a year telling us all that the author of the ‘Anonymous’ book was an **extremely recognizable** and **very high-ranking person** inside the Trump administration.

They told us all we’d **recognize the name** when this person was revealed. For months people speculated about who ‘Anonymous’ could be, this person supposedly right at Trump’s elbow, betraying and undermining him by writing this bestselling book.

And then they were forced to admit that ‘Anonymous’ was Miles Taylor, Department of Homeland Security Chief Chad Wolf’s Chief of Staff. In other words, the guy who organized Wolf’s calendar got him to meetings on time and fetched the coffee.

Millions of Americans on being told ‘Anonymous’ was “Miles Taylor”:

What that case illustrated was the Fake News driving a narrative in the public consciousness for over a year based on hiding who their source actually was. Because they knew if the public had known it was Miles Taylor from the start, nobody would’ve given a shit.

It’s bad enough when Fake News drives its own fake narratives using often fake or embellished anonymous sources. There’s no reason we should be allowing people on our side to do it also.

Especially when I see social media influencers using this cool anonymous source trick to drive clickbait narratives that are absurd on their face.

Why can’t you take rumors spread by anonymous people who won’t go on the record seriously that Trump is thinking about making Rubio his VP pick?

For the exact same reason, you can’t take the rumor that Trump ever seriously considered Ron DeSantis as his running mate, either.

If a party’s Presidential candidate and Vice Presidential candidate are from the same state, there is a problem. If they win the election, one of them will have to change their residency, or they will forfeit their home state’s votes in the Electoral College.

When George W. Bush and Dick Cheney won the 2000 election, Cheney had to change his residency from Texas to Wyoming, which allowed Bush and Cheney to access Texas’s EC votes. Had Cheney not done that, we’d have ended up with President Al Gore.

Both DeSantis and Rubio are elected government officials in the state of Florida. Changing their state of residency before the Electoral College vote would be…problematic. And who thinks Trump is gonna give up his Florida residency to change it to New York or New Jersey when he’s being subjected to massive lawfare, and he caught an HONEST JUDGE down there in Palm Beach?

So, these rumors about DeSantis and Rubio are absurd on their face.

Now it’s apparently time for the “SAY NO TO RUBIO AS TRUMP’S VP!” victory laps to begin, as – to smart person’s surprise – Rubio was never even a ripple in the polls on this issue. It was a dead letter from the start. But all the usual suspects got content and air time out of talking or writing about “Rubio for VP” so I guess in their mind this is a ‘win’.

Yes, we were supposed to take it seriously when media personalities, in serious hushed tones, told us their key inside sources were telling them Trump was taking a long, hard look at handing his running mate slot to PEOPLE WHO RAN AGAINST HIM FOR THIS NOMINATION—you know, people like Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, and Tim Scott.

It’s not hard to figure out many of the names on Trump’s actual shortlist for the VP slot. None of them will be GOP establishment politicians. All of them will have been loyal and will not have swallowed their tongues over the past two years as Trump was savaged by unconstitutional lawfare. They certainly would not have run against him and tried to take the nomination from him.

1. General Michael Flynn
2. Ben Carson
3. Devin Nunes
4. Kash Patel
5. Tucker Carlson
6. Kristi Noem
7. Ric Grenell
8. Matt Gaetz
9. Kari Lake
10. Elise Stefanik

Look, guys… hear me out. There’s enough REAL STUFF OUT THERE GOING ON in the world, we don’t need to make our MAGA/AF programs full of anonymously sourced outrage clickbait CRAP. Where we hide who our source is to add weight to the narrative. It’s dishonest, and it leads to abuses.

We have got to start doing better than this.