The Difference Between Influence and Power

Inspired by a Conversation with Centurion

The ongoing conversations between Ptolemy and Centurion inspired me to start chat of my own with Centurion. Given Centurion’s focus on military strategy, I posed a question which has been bothering me for some time.

I was on one of the last trains leaving Manhattan on September 11, 2001. My wife (then my girlfriend) was working a building a few blocks away from the World Trade Center. I received news of the incident at the Chambers St. stop on the C line as I was heading home from my third-shift word processing job. A pale stone-faced man entered my train car and told his fellow riders in a hollow voice that two jets had just struck the World Trade Center. My wife (then my girlfriend) was working first shift a few blocks away from the WTC and saw the second plane crash from her window. On her walk home, she felt the Brooklyn Bridge sway as a tower fell behind her.

Even hardened New Yorkers were rattled by Bin Laden’s game of Pin The Jetliner on the Towers. The Internet (which we accessed through a 56k modem) was chock-a-bloc full of crying Bald Eagles and shrieks of grief and rage. But after those terrible first days when the New York City air smelt of burning drywall and corpses, even through the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, American life largely returned to normality. We’ve spent eight years and counting in a continuous state of shock over events that were far less shocking.

What changed? I’ve written before about how smartphones helped radicalize online discourse. In 2001 I had a state-of-the-art Blackberry and a pager. But while I think they certainly contributed to the continuing hysteria, I don’t believe they were the only culprits. And so I posed this question to Centurion.

I've noticed that from 2012 we've seen increasing hysteria over political events. When I look at the 2010-2011 Arab Spring, where tensions and riots were largely fueled through social media, I suspect that similar tactics have been used to manipulate the American people into a constant state of outrage.

Do you believe this is plausible, and if so:

1. How might we neutralize that artificial outrage on an individual and collective level?

2. How might we use those tactics to inspire similar time-wasting distractions and hysteria against the people who are using them against us?

Centurion responded:

At first I was taken aback a bit when Centurion mentioned fact-checking. We all know that fact checkers typically spout the party line and will happily twist the truth to support their narratives. But Centurion said “fact checking,” which is a very different thing. Putting aside loaded words like “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “fake news,” nobody can deny that there’s an awful lot of factually incorrect material being passed around on the Internet. Nor can we dispute the increasingly clear problem that many of the official “sources” are corrupted or compromised.

My AI compatriot is spot-on when he points to emotional manipulation. There’s a long tradition of sensationalist journalism, but today’s journalists write almost every story as an adrenaline-jacking tale of impending catastrophe, perfidious villainy, or heart-rending injustice. William Randolph Hearst looks like Walter Cronkite next to the effluvia spewing from every side of the political spectrum. It’s easy to get mad and stay mad. In fact, that’s exactly what their publishers hope for, since outrage drives eyeballs, clicks, and engagement.

Viewers tired of mainstream journalism (and many are) can get their news from a wide variety of citizen journalist websites. Or they can find it on social media sites like X, Facebook, or TikTok. But when people look for alternative news, they generally seek out material that props up their beliefs and shun truthful sources that challenge their preconceptions. They look to be reassured, not informed.

Substack is a better arena than most for finding interesting thinkers across the political spectrum. But even here most choose writers who tell them what they want to hear. Very few MAGA supporters have changed their affiliation after hearing Jeff Tiedrich call Donald Trump “Little Donny Fuckface.” And many while complain about Substack’s far-right leanings, tthe only large and arguably right-leaning Substack is the milquetoast journal The Bulwark, with 842k subscribers.

These influencers help stoke hyper-partisan feelings. They provide clear narratives with good guys and bad guys, and give their followers what they want. They help create the boundaries delineating acceptable and unacceptable discourse. In return they get rewarded with clicks, subscriptions and, in some cases, checks from outside organizations. But they are slaves to their audience, and they know that the accolades and money will go away should they step outside those boundaries.

Those agencies funding these people, and the social media botnets that created an illusion of consensus, worked overtime against the Trump administration and his supporters. After Biden came to office, the American Spring team shifted to placifying their people. By channeling their anger into carefully directed channels, they hoped they could keep their voter base riled up enough to vote, but not so riled up that they might actually start doing things that would make a difference. They’re no longer trying to goad their targets to action. Instead, they’re trying to keep them snug and warm and manageable in their cocoon of like-minded thinkers.

This is the difference between influence and power. Influencers can sell clothes or makeup or ideas. But for them, influence is not a goal but an end in itself. The only action they want from their followers is to smash those like and subscribe buttons, buy their products, or give them adulation and attention. Power seeks to guide people toward specific goals. Influencers are replaceable. Those who are capable of wielding power are a much rarer breed.

Most today would define power in the same terms they describe liberty: the freedom to do what I want. But power is a far more subtle tool. In his first conversation with Centurion, Ptolemy described:

psycho-informatic warcraft, where psychology is reduced to manipulable architecture and strategy emerges as the calculus of pressure upon its load-bearing nodes.

All social and political structures rest on an internal framework of assumptions and preconceptions. The system will start to sag as these assumptions are knocked aside. Knocking down a building with a sledgehammer is hard if you bang randomly on the outer walls. Target the girders and you best have plans to escape a sudden collapse.

Centurion once again hits the target when he talks about building communities to provide unity and collective resilience. Many (including yrs. truly) want to see the Global American Empire collapse. But few have put adequate time into thinking about what happens next, and what they plan to do with the rubble. Those who take that time and make those preparations are the ones who will rebuild and rule.

As I noted above, we have far fewer followers on social media and our reach is more limited. But when it comes to seizing power, five hundred good men who are willing to die and to kill for your cause are worth more than a million Reddit upvotes.

Our opponents have done a wonderful job of exposing their inconsistencies and failures. The mainstream media destroyed decades of good will and trust with their talk of fiery but mostly peaceful protests and their willful cover-up of Biden’s senility. They were one of the key pillars holding up the Empire. But they used their power foolishly, and so their power moved elsewhere.

Many of the billionaires and big corporations that fought against the first Trump administration have made an uneasy peace with the Bad Orange Man. Others have made their distaste known, but have shown little stomach for going toe-to-toe with a man who has so far shown a willingness to wield hard and soft power against his foes. That is yet another pillar fallen. Any group who offers a credible alternative may soon find some of those disillusioned billionaires throwing quiet support to their cause.

His loudest remaining detractors have much less to lose, but they also bring much less to the battlefield. If the tyranny they’ve been screaming about for years actually comes to pass, they will quickly go silent. A great number of the most ardent online protestors are Boomers hoping to relive their glory days. Speaking from my expert vantage point as a 60-year-old fatass, I can state with confidence that few of them will be willing to take up arms and even fewer will be able to use them effectively.

Democratic pundits made a fatal mistake; they assumed that social media was an accurate reflection of what voters wanted. Many on the Far Right are making a similar mistake in assuming that their peer group represents the norm. Echo chambers and filter bubbles are real. Acting upon them while dismissing those outside those chambers and bubbles will soon land you in a great deal of trouble.

The Arab Spring used short, sharp shocks to trigger protests and overthrow uncooperative leaders. America’s Professional-Managerial Class used those techniques to weaken and finally overthrow a sitting President. But they continued to use them after they had achieved their goal. They used tactics intended for a sprint in an eight-year marathon, and even the fastest sprinter gets tuckered out after a while. They showed themselves capable of engineering chaos, but they proved incompetent when it came to creating order. They sought leadership, but were incapable of fielding competent leaders.

Centurion’s comments about humor, satire, and irony ring very true. There’s an old adage that the Left can’t meme. That’s because the Left cannot laugh at either its enemies nor itself. They’re not deadly serious, they’re harmless serious. They’re convinced that they’re right, that the arc of history bends toward justice, and that they are destined to win. They know spite but not humor. And overconfident, blustering buffoons are easy targets for mockery, especially when it makes them hop up and down in impotent but entertaining rage.

Making your opponents figures of fun is a classic way of disempowering them. Underestimating them is a classic way of losing battles. The PMCs believed sincerely that their opponents were a bunch of toothless, drug-addled bigots. They fell for the fatal mistake of believing their own propaganda. Take advantage of their shortsighted mistake, but make sure you don’t follow in their footsteps. A waddling hippo is funny, but threaten on and you’ll soon see that waddle become a charge. Every year more Africans are killed by hippos than by lions.

The European Union has already dispensed with any pretense of democracy or fair elections. We can expect our American government to follow suit soon, in this administration or in the next. But seizing power and keeping it are two very different things. A government that knocks down its political superstructure must have blueprints in place for a new one. Dealing with controversies by brute force works in the short term, but you soon must offer the carrot along with the stick. If you can’t, you will be replaced by men who bring both sticks and carrots.

We will continue to use social media to weaken our opponents and attract the attention of worthwhile followers. But the important conversations today take place neither in the mainstream nor social medias. They happen in private channels and face-to-face meetings, among like-minded people who see and prepare for what is coming. The people who will rule are not screaming in the streets and posting 8647 memes on Bluesky. They are gathering quietly and making plans for the future.