subversion2

Newsletter #498 — October 15, 2026

This is the second, October 2026, update of a two-part 2024 newsletter series (Newsletters 245 and 246) focused on Ayaan Hirsi Ali's June 4, 2024 Free Press article, "We Have Been Subverted," and Andy Atwood's Medium article entitled "Is this Russia's 4-Step Long-Game to Destabilize the USA? The first newsletter in this updated set described Yuri Bezmenov's four steps of democratic subversion (which was the focus of all of the earlier articles). The steps are: demoralization, destabilization, crisis, and normalization. In the first newsletter we laid out the problem and discussed who is responsible for it. Here we discuss how this subversion happened, and more importantly, what can be done about it.

As we noted earlier, this subversion is not just something of concern to people with interests in international relations. It is also a process that is being used within America and other Western liberal democracies by unscrupulous actors to subvert democratic constraints and seize ever more power in an attempt to move their societies towards authoritarianism.

As we did earlier, we will italicize the material that is being added now, in October 2026, to differentiate it from material that came from 2024. The quotes used in the earlier article are also italicized, but it is pretty easy to tell the difference.

How Did This Happen?

How did this subversion happen? Hirsi Ali asked. Like Atwood, Duran and Lakoff, she used Bezmenov to explain: Demoralization targets three areas of society: its ideas, its structures, and its social institutions, including religion, education, media, and culture. The "old ways of thinking," she says, become discredited, and anyone who continues to believe in them is discredited as well.

Think of the cynicism and selective truth-telling young Americans encounter in most classrooms. "You know Jefferson owned slaves, right? You know Columbus killed millions?" Again, never mind that Jefferson set us on the path to emancipation, or that Columbus knew nothing about epidemiology. A little learning, as the saying goes, is a dangerous thing. ... The ultimate intended outcome is that the afflicted willingly embrace self-destructive behaviors and ideas. Thus, all moral constraints can be eschewed in the pursuit of “just” and “virtuous” causes.

The next step of demoralization is destroying the fundamental structure of a society, such as the rule of law and social relations. This is done by emphasizing the corrupt nature of the justice system (attacks on the U.S. Supreme Court anyone?), the police ("Defund the Police!), and our political and electoral systems ("stop the steal").

The third area of demoralization is what Bezmenov called "life." It includes core social institutions such as family, health, race, population, and labor. Families are being demoralized, she says, by promoting ideas that weaken bonds between family members, promoting "narcissistic individualism over family unity", driving division between the sexes and gender identities (and suggesting that there is no such thing as "women", but only "people with uteruses," and the "replacement of parental authority with the state." A broader review — one that would look at the status of our social relationships from other left and right leaning perspectives would likely agree with the broader diagnosis of widespread social alienation, though they would almost certainly frame the problem in different ways and offer differing explanations of its causes. Hirsi Ali goes on to note:

Subversion abuses the tolerance of an open culture, forcing the host society to accomplish its aims like a virus attaches to a host. ... Over time, as the subverters come to dominate an institution, they apply institutional pressure. Curbs on academic freedom, the curriculum, and alterations to the hiring process inevitably follow. Think of the novel instruments to enforce uniformity of thought among academics: DEI statements, now a requirement at universities across America.

Even in the cases where subversive activity is clearly illegal, such as with destruction and violence during the 2020 riots and at many anti-Israel protests today, crimes committed in service of some larger goal — like “decolonization” — are presented as righteous. ... When young people say “resistance is justified,” many—if not most—of them believe they are simply standing up for the downtrodden. But the deeper implications of that statement are about justifying the morally reprehensible. How else to explain that at our most prestigious college campuses, students can be found glorifying Hamas terrorists and openly praising North Korea?

Those with a more left-leaning political orientation would doubtless be able to identify instances in which the Trump administration and its allies on the right have resorted to similar tactics to bolster their position and weaken the position of their political opponents.

Hirsi Ali concludes this section by saying that we are well on our way to being "considerably demoralized." She suggests that elementary school teachers don't really want to racially stratify fourth graders, but they go along with the idea, given that the experts told then that will help "fix" racism. Likewise, most high school history teachers, she says, don't want to bring about an American version of the Bolshevik revolution, but many have been told to replace the focus on 1776 with something from the 1619 Project that defines America as fundamentally evil because of its original sin of slavery. Trump has tried, of course, to undo such leftist demands, but he has replaced that with his own list of demands that many people find equally onerous.

Hirsi Ali goes on to explain how the four phases of this subversion process fit together.

We have also come to a place where it is difficult for anyone to dissent for fear of incurring the wrath of the adherents — witting or not — of subversion. So people go along, keep their heads down, and try not to make a fuss.
The second stage of subversion is destabilization. This happens after a society is badly demoralized, suffering from domestic turmoil across all sectors. Democratic politics take on the character of a vicious struggle for power. Factionalism takes hold. Economic relations degrade and collapse, obliterating the basis for bargaining. The social fabric frays, leading to mob rule. Society turns inward, leading to fear, isolationism, and the decline of the nation-state itself, leading to crisis.
It is important to understand that, at this stage, the process of subversion is largely self-propelled. What once required active involvement on the part of a subverter has now taken root and grows organically. Then, society ruptures all at once in a rolling series of crises as the full extent of the cancer manifests.
Finally, says Bezmenov, a subverted society enters the normalization stage, which is when the subversive regime takes over, installing its ideology as the law of the land. By then, the enemy has totally conquered the target society—without ever firing a shot.

Today, more than two years after this was written, it's hard to find evidence that things have changed for the better. President Trump has successfully violated a large number of long-standing political norms and radically altered the direction of major public sector institutions. While his supporters and opponents continue to argue bitterly over their wisdom and appropriateness of these changes, it's clear that the Trump Presidency we'll go down in history as a major system break — a break that is taking our society in new and dangerous directions.

We, in the United States, are certainly beginning to see the results of this destabilization. Disinformation (and the flood of conflicting information) has made it practically impossible to know who or what to believe, and extreme views on both the left and the right are being promulgated in the media, politics, culture, and the educational system. Politics has certainly become a vicious struggle for power, allowing both sides to advocate and justify all sorts of formerly abhorrent and sometimes illegal, sometimes violent, means to make sure their side prevails.

We wrote in 2024 that "the left is banning "improper" speech; while teaching that America and Americans (particularly whites, and particularly within that group white men) should be ashamed of themselves. Both the left and the right are banning "improper" books (the right banning books about slavery and LGBTQ people; the left is banning books, such as To Kill a Mockingbird and Dr. Suess, that they see as racist. The left is campaigning for ultra-far right candidates in the hopes of making it easier to beat them. The right is trying to limit access to voting and is intimidating election workers. Both sides are doing all that they can to tip the electoral playing field in favorable ways.

Now in 2026, the left may be moving away from what Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently referred to as "Woke 1," which she said was "crazy," but when I asked Claude (AI) what the difference between Woke 1 and Woke 2 was, it answered that Woke 1.0 was "centered heavily on identity, race, gender, language and cultural institutions — BLM, pronouns and terminology, diversity initiatives, “defund/abolish the police,” calling out microaggressions, and sometimes aggressive forms of cancel culture. Critics on both the right and parts of the left came to view some of this as moralistic, censorious, overly focused on symbolic questions, or disconnected from ordinary voters."

It described Woke 2.0 as a "a newer progressive politics that is generally less preoccupied with policing language and individual identity and more focused on material/economic issues — housing costs, wages, health care, inequality, corporate power, affordability and similar bread-and-butter concerns. Zohran Mamdani’s style of campaigning (now being copied by several successful members of the Democratic Socialists of America) is often cited as an example. Some writers also associate Woke 2.0 with a much stronger emphasis on Palestinian rights and opposition to Israel's conduct in Gaza." Looking at the number of highly destructive and deadly conflicts waging in the world right now, the continued emphasis on Israel (while still supporting Hamas, Iran, and Gaza) is striking — and strong evidence of the subversion Hirsi Ali was talking about.

Again going back to 2024, we wrote that polls show between 20 and 25% of respondents agree that "violence might be necessary to get America back on track." In the same NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll taken in April, 2024, over 30% of Democrats and 50% of Republicans said that they "desired a leader who “breaks some of the rules to get the nation back on track." So factionalism has certainly taken hold.

However, Rachel Kleinfeld pointed out that those numbers came from poorly-designed surveys, and better-designed surveys that ask about specific acts find that only about 2 to 4 percent support violence against political opponents, and the most rigorous 2026 data show that support is declining across the political spectrum. Nevertheless, even 2-4% of people in the U.S. is a lot of people — a lot more than the number that stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2023. So it is still a number to be worried about, although the notion that support is declining is good news.

Economic relations (we wrote in 2024) have not yet been downgraded to the point where the basis for bargaining is destroyed, although there are plenty of people speaking out against capitalism, and campaigning for a different economic models—democratic socialism, for instance, in 2026.) Corporate profits are seen as unethical, even though, in their absence, there is no incentive to produce all the miraculous goods and services we have become so addicted to and utterly dependent on. (Some corporate profits and CEO salaries are obscene, we agree, but that doesn't mean all profit or the capitalistic system itself is bad.)

Bottom line, our social fabric is certainly fraying, though we haven't yet gotten to the point of mob rule or the decline collapse of the nation-state itself. Still there are lots of thoughtful people who worry that things could easily deteriorate into large-scale civil unrest or some sort of gray zone civil war.

Unlike Dunam and Lakoff who blame Russia and the Republican party for this subversion, Hirsi Ali points her finger at three other actors: American Marxists, radical Islamists, and the Chinese Community Party. Vladimir Putin, she says, is also waging his own subversion campaign, though he isn't cooperating with the other three who are, she says, actually working together.

What unites these enemies? On the surface, they have little in common. We all know what happens to “Queers for Palestine” in the Palestinian territories. Or Muslims in China. We all know what CCP mandarins think of Black Lives Matter activists. Or rather, what they would think, if they deigned to do so.

But they have wisely chosen the same common enemy: the West. [As has Russia as well, of course.]

Ali concludes her essay by observing

Orwell said that “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” Everyone with eyes to see is now scrambling to do just that.

What is at stake in our ability to see plainly? Everything. What is at stake is nothing less than the preservation of our way of life.

Now is the time for all of us blind seekers to come together. To restore what we have lost will be the work of our lifetimes. Can there be a more important project?

What Can We Do to Reverse the Damage and Prevent More?

Unfortunately, Hirsi Ali doesn't say anything about what we can do to restore what we have lost. Atwood, however, does. He suggests six things we can do.

First, enlarge your perspective by paying attention to the water you are swimming in. [This phrase comes from his opening explanation about who he is: "I have been a systems thinker for 50 years — a big picture guy. Think of me as a fish that has a deep interest in the water we are swimming in."]

Second, share this info and your wonderments with friends and family. Engage in deep dialogue around their perspectives, and yours.

Third, your response will depend upon the water in which you swim. What is your worldview? Pre-modern, Modern, Post-Modern, or Integral? [Atwood promised to write more about this distinction in future articles, but as that is beyond the scope of this post, suffice it to say that one should try to recognize ones own values and beliefs and then stand up for them, while also being willing to modify those beliefs in response to persuasive criticism.]

Fourth, wonder, or do some research, about what WE have done, and are doing to destabilize other nations. Remember Newton’s Third Law of Motion: that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. [We would add "wonder or do some research about what WE have done, and are doing to destabilize the other political party, and hence our own nation, right at home in the U.S.A.]

Fifth, will the post-election period be our time of destabilization as predicted, no matter who wins? We all should do all we can to make sure that doesn't happen. That would start with accepting the results of the election (following appropriate judicial review), no matter what they are and whether we are happy.

Sixth, remember the price that has been paid by patriots here in the U.S.A. to protect democracy. Read some history. Watch Band of Brothers on Netflix. Do not ever forget the revolutionary principles advanced in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
And remember Benjamin Franklin’s response to this question upon the signing of the United States Constitution: “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” “A republic, if you can keep it.”

While Trump's power may be significantly diminished following the upcoming election, there is nothing resembling a consensus about what should come next. While we can hope for the emergence of a charismatic 2028 Presidential candidate who is capable of articulating a credible vision for bringing our society back together, the pressures of hyper-polarization work against those who would try. It is up to us to act as courageous citizens, to chart a path forward that works to reverse the subversion that has already taken hold and reassert a new and improved set of democratic liberal values that will preserve the best of what we had and improve upon those aspects of our democracy that fell short. Just because things weren't perfect in the past; because not everyone could thrive, doesn't mean we should give up on what is humanity's most promising strategy for protecting itself from the dystopias of authoritarianism, tyranny, and war. Churchill was right: "Democracy is the worst form of government — except for all the others." So let's fix it instead of going with the others.

Please Contribute Your Ideas To This Discussion!

In order to prevent bots, spammers, and other malicious content, we are asking contributors to send their contributions to us directly. If your idea is short, with simple formatting, you can put it directly in the contact box. However, the contact form does not allow attachments. So if you are contributing a longer article, with formatting beyond simple paragraphs, just send us a note using the contact box, and we'll respond via an email to which you can reply with your attachment. This is a bit of a hassle, we know, but it has kept our site (and our inbox) clean. And if you are wondering, we do publish essays that disagree with or are critical of us. We want a robust exchange of views.

About the MBI Newsletters

Once a week or so, we, the BI Directors, share some thoughts, along with new posts from the Hyper-polarization Blog and and useful links from other sources. We used to put this all together in one newsletter which went out once or twice a week. We are now experimenting with breaking the Newsletter up into several shorter newsletters. Each Newsletter will be posted on BI, and sent out by email through Substack to subscribers. You can sign up to receive your copy here and find the latest newsletter here or on our BI Newsletter page, which also provides access to all the past newsletters, going back to 2017.

NOTE! If you signed up for this Newsletter and don't see it in your inbox, it might be going to one of your other emails folder (such as promotions, social, or spam). Check there or search for beyondintractability@substack.com and if you still can't find it, first go to our Substack help page, and if that doesn't help, please contact us.

If you like what you read here, please ....

Subscribe to the Newsletter