The Signal War Plans Debacle

Yesterday at around noon during one of my several Bluesky feed refreshes, I happened across this post by Jamelle Bouie where, responding to an article by The Atlantic, he said "holy shit". The article, titled The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans, detailed, in a very matter-of-fact manner, a sequence of events that should go down in history as one of the dumbest national security blunders in American history. The article lays it out in plenty of detail, but in summary, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeff Goldberg (who I initially confused with Jeff Goldblum), was invited to a Signal chat by Mike Waltz, the National Security Advisor for Donald Trump. Initially thinking it was a joke, Jeff accepted the invitation and, displaying his journalistic intuition, didn't make a peep while on the chat as he waited for things to play out. What he witnessed, and thankfully screenshotted, was a collection of the U.S.'s top national security officials (we're talking the CIA director, the Secretary of Defence, the DNI, the Secretary of State, the Vice President, whoever the hell Stephen Miller is supposed to be in this regime, among others) chatting with each other "strategizing" bombing the Houthis in Yemen like a bunch of frat bros planning their next fundraiser. There is plenty to say about the content of what they discussed and how they discussed it, a lot of which has already been said by other much more qualified commentators, but what I first want to say is how utterly gobsmacked I was when I first read this. My first reaction was literally a jawdrop, and then I laughed out loud. Any bad PR that the Trump regime can get right now is a plus in my book, but this... This is beyond what I could hope for. I knew most of these guys (and gals) were kind of dumb. And it's not like I think I'm some genius, but when I watched Sean Duffy's confirmation hearing with the Senate earlier in January, and then I watched literally anything with Pete Hegseth in it, I realized "wow, these people are all really dumb". And I suppose this is exactly what you would expect from them given enough time.

Aside from the stupidity behind this all, there were a few things that struck me. One of them is the commendable professionalism employed by Jeff Goldberg. I know very little about the merits of The Atlantic as a publisher, but Goldberg had the instinct to not just accept the invitation and stay quiet while letting everything play out, but also to then wait a couple of weeks to make any public statements about this via the article. Not only that, but he purposefully left out contents of the Signal conversation that would expose the identity of an active CIA intelligence officer. Goldberg is patriot, acting in such a way that you'd expect the top security officials in your nation to act at a minimum. And yet, even that is too much to ask of them when they leak the social security numbers of living people who worked on the JFK assassination case, among the countless other offenses committed by this joke of an administration so far. Unfortunately, I expect that Trump will try to punish Goldberg, especially after Jeff hopefully releases more screenshots of the conversations.

Another thing that struck me is how brainwashed the conservative MAGA populace is. We all already know this, of course. But every time Trump or one of his cronies does something worse than before, I wonder "what will it take for these people to flip?" Pete Hegseth later in the day yesterday responded to the article when prompted by reporters by denying the whole Signal conversation even happened. This is despite the fact that the White House had already confirmed the veracity of the conversation. But the lie and denial here isn't the worst part. The fact that this conversation is even happening on Signal, a clear attempt to skirt FOIA requirements, involving SO MANY high ranking officials (basically the entire cabinet having to do with national security), is yet another indicator of this entire regime's incompetence, stupidity, and danger. And yet conservative MAGA-ites will at most see this as an isolated incident. I routinely check the r/Conservatives subreddit (though I will not do them any favors by linking them here) to measure just how delusional the MAGA base is at any current moment, and I was surprised to see that as of mid-day March 25, 2025, they are making lukewarm calls for the resignation of Mike Waltz and Pete Hegseth. An emergency hearing took place today which I have not watched, but I will soon, and I am curious to see how the narrative changes as a result. Nevertheless, my vibes on conservatives is a tug-of-war between empathy and scorn. Scorn because of all the damage they have done to our government, to other Americans, to disadvantaged people, and to the state of our political discourse. But I do empathize with them because the truth is, most of these people genuinely believe that what they believe is what's best for the country. And I do really believe that. It is no secret just how influential social media is and has been for the last two decades on the way we think and what we think, and all of the largest media platforms have done their part in manipulating the discourse on a social and political level. Call it the algorithm, or maybe you think the elites are actively toying with the status quo; I think it's probably both. Conservatives have suffered the most from this manipulation. They have been captured by the right-wing bubble and are being stuffed with reinforcing misinformation. Even when they are fed the truth, it is spun in such a way that paints the other side as the enemy, when in reality the other side is full of people who want the best for themselves and their neighbors, just like them. So it's hard not to feel for them a little bit because they haven't been able to play the game of humanity with the same controls that you and I play it with. It's just so fucking angering that we all have to suffer because of it.