How to Restore Civil Society After the Elections

The north side of the White House in Washington on Sept. 20, 2012. (Karen Bleier/AFP via Getty Images)

Commentary

Even by historical standards, this year has been unusual. We didn’t have any tanks in the streets of U.S. cities like in 1967, but at times during May through August, the aggressive surge of Antifa and Black Lives Matter street violence rattled almost everyone and led some to ponder whether we were seeing the collapse of the United States.

This street radicalism is directly funded and enabled by Chinese funds and “advisory services” from the Communist Freedom Road/Liberation Road front groups and the two Chinese Progressive Association (CPA) hubs (San Francisco and Boston).

The command, control, and communication operations create a “buffer” of vague and undefined groups between the Chinese intelligence services and the actual street violence. This is classic intelligence community tradecraft.

Some seek courtroom-style evidence of Chinese enablers passing cash and direction to the purveyors of violence. As long as domestic law enforcement has been prioritized, such as Attorney General Barr and FBI Director Wray directed in speeches during the June–August period, this evidence may already exist.

For those of us currently on the other side of the veil, the cause and effect are intuitive. The worldwide CCP virus pandemic, which began in Wuhan, China, after what may have been a mistaken release from the state biological lab there, was unquestionably played after the release toward implementing the CCP’s long-term plan of taking over world leadership from the United States. It’s an attempt at a color revolution.

For the common citizen, there are actions that people can take to protect and educate themselves, their families, and their friends. It’s called “Insurrection & Violence Citizen’s Guide.” I strongly urge everyone to read and study this guide.

For the government, there are actions the president can take immediately after the election, regardless of outcome, to quell violence and protect the citizens of the United States. Civil unrest threatens the stability, good order, and constitutional rule of law in the United States, and all citizens of the United States are being negatively affected.

This comes in forms that include violence through coordinated street mobs, damage and loss to property and businesses, unequal protection under the law, loss of job or livelihood, and restriction of civil liberties by state and local leaders.

Although seemingly initiated by concerns over civil rights, the scope and scale of violence in the United States since May reflects a coordinated effort, often enabled by foreign money and personnel, to establish a pathway toward a violent takeover of the United States and an eclipsing of the U.S. Constitutional system through a color revolution.

Address the Unchecked Power of Social Media Firms

The unchecked concentration of power by social media companies such as Twitter, Facebook, and others represents a grave danger to civil liberties of the citizens of the United States as well as the everyday conduct of affairs for businesses and governments.

These companies have become active partisans enabling this violent social unrest. The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) chairman has discretionary power to recategorize these entities as providers of content, rather than transporters of content. Why hasn’t this been done already? Unknown.

Twitter, Facebook, and others should be deemed partisan enablers of civil disorder by the FCC chairman, and/or the president, leaving them no longer subject to protection under Section 230 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and therefore, vulnerable to immediate litigation by those who feel their content and traffic has been hidden, blocked, or manipulated.

Further, all coordination with foreign governments or groups with these social media companies that affect U.S. content or traffic should be disallowed. This re-designation should be done swiftly, without months and years of maneuvering through the public comment period traditionally followed, but not necessarily required by the 1946 Administrative Procedures Act (APA). The APA was meant to constrain, not grow government. However, the APA has essentially created the unelected fourth branch of government.

Take Action Against Foreign-Funded Street Violence

The violent civil unrest and disorder in the United States is being largely facilitated by Marxist, Maoist, and communist groups seeking the violent overthrow of the U.S. Constitutional system. Much of this is being enabled by foreign powers and shadowy international groups such as ones led by George Soros.

These parties and elements on the U.S. streets should be declared agents of foreign powers and domestic enemies that are seeking violent overthrow of the United States constitutional system. Groups that are involved include, but aren’t limited to, Antifa, Liberation Road, Freedom Road, some elements of Black Lives Matter, and other groups. Asset forfeiture and registration under the Foreign Agent Registration Act should be accelerated for all of these groups. Civil liberties should be respected, but actions should move with alacrity.

Ensure Resilience of Continuity of Executive Branch

The continuity of government, nuclear command and control, national leadership communications, and military, homeland security, and law enforcement capabilities must be brought to higher levels of readiness and assurance to ensure the resilience of constitutional government in the face of all enemies, foreign and domestic, who seek to undermine our incredible republic.

Authority should be given for 100,000 National Guard and Reserve forces to be brought onto six months of active duty to provide additional capacity and capability for national defense, homeland defense, and defense support to civilian authorities. This also provides a deterrence effect and the capability to discourage foreign powers from conducting overtly or covertly adventurous moves to resolve matters such as territorial boundaries, or disputes such as Taiwan.

Decisive Use of Existing Law and Process

The U.S. government has powerful laws already in the toolkit but has used them in a lethargic fashion. These statutes and principles should be used in an expedited fashion, on a broad scale, to reestablish civil society. The laws and processes include, but are not limited to:

1. The Foreign Agent Registration Act.
2. Full authority of the FCC to limit foreign involvement/ownership of U.S. broadcast media to include social media.
3. RICO (anti-racketeering) with regards to social media firms.
4. The Insurrection Act.
5. Asset seizure laws and procedures.
6. Full enforcement of equal protection under the law for all citizens by all governments: local, state, and federal.
7. Measures to encourage and, when necessary, penalize cities and local governments deemed as failing to provide equal protection under the law. (The presidential memo from Sept. 2 was a powerful step toward holding leaders of local government responsible for failing to provide equal protection under the law for all citizens.)
8. Declaration of a Lead Federal Official (LFO) to synchronize whole of government actions to restore civil society.

How Will America Look After Nov. 3?

The character and nature of America after the election remains to be seen. Some, including me, semi-humorously offer that the CCP virus will go away on Nov. 4, 2020. Some local and state leaders have plunged their cities and states into precarious, unsustainable economic and social statuses. It’s curious why they’ve done that, other than to dabble at the edges of totalitarianism and the thrill of societal control that it gives them.

However, regardless of the outcome of the election, there are decisive measures, easily invoked, that the president can use to immediately help stabilize society and begin the pathway back to civil order across all parts of the United States.

Col. (Ret.) John Mills is a national security professional with service in five eras: Cold War, Peace Dividend, War on Terror, World in Chaos, and now, Great Power Competition. He is the former director of cybersecurity policy, strategy, and international affairs at the Department of Defense. @ColonelRETJOHN

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.