Psychological Innoculation and Astroturfing: Preparing for exploitation of U.S. secession movements

“Psychological innoculation” as a strategy against disinformation and misinformation is an important tactic to potentially add to the growing list of “ways to fight back.” Please keep in mind that the study I'm including in the references was funded by Google, but the first author (typically the individual that is responsible for the majority of study design, data collection, and writing the publication) is a Psy.D. at King’s College London. The concept itself seems to have a pretty strong basis in psychological research, and I would be willing to do a deeper dive on the topic in another post if anyone is interested. “Inoculation theory follows a medical immunization analogy and posits that it is possible to build psychological resistance against unwanted persuasion attempts, much like medical inoculations build physiological resistance against pathogens. Psychological inoculation treatments contain two core components (15): (i) a forewarning that induces a perceived threat of an impending attack on one’s attitudes and (ii) exposure to a weakened (micro)dose of misinformation that contains a preemptive refutation (or prebunk) of the anticipated misleading arguments or persuasion techniques.” Given that psychological and emotional manipulation via algorithm content is an issue that will only be getting worse with time, we need to be ready to spot narrative shifts early and try to warn others about them before they start to spread heavily to targeted audiences. This post will attempt to provide a psychological innoculation against a narrative that is itself actually not unreasonable, but I strongly believe is being hijacked by bad actors. The idea of secession by individual states is not a new concept, and there have been good arguments made for these movements for decades. While many have legitimate reasons and beliefs behind their movements, we also have to keep in mind that astroturfing techniques are everywhere right now. Given the huge number of posts I've seen kind of testing the waters with this suggestion recently, and the fact that many Americans are understandably concerned with where the country is headed, I feel there are some strong historical similarities between the U.S. and other countries that more people should be made aware of and keep in mind. This post is not an argument against the idea of secession itself, but moreso a plea to take into consideration the timing of movements that grow from this moment. Timing and global consequences are especially important to keep this in mind as the U.S. is being subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) pushed towards division and a civil war. Alexei Navalny, Putin's political enemy who was unfairly imprisoned and died in a Siberian prison, (many believe he was murdered given previous attempts in his life), discusses an eerily similar playbook in his memoir, and recounts how the Soviet Union was dissolved in the early 90s with oligarchs quickly seizing control of the newly decentralized governments. I highly recommend reading Navalny’s memoir for many reasons, but most importantly because I feel it has acted as a sort of “psychological innoculation” for me, and it should ring alarm bells for most Americans due to how familiar the authoritarian moves made in Russia against citizens feel compared to what we are experiencing in the United States in 2025. I hope it will also inspire you to keep fighting even when it may feel like there is no end in sight. I'll try my best to briefly summarize his recollection of these events but I encourage anyone interested to read his memoir. Divisions among citizens in the Soviet Union were at all time highs by the early 90s, especially generational divisions. Many of the older generations were being targeted with political messaging calling for a return to “the good old days,” and revolts against western values and influences that were being blamed for all of the country's problems. Even though the good old days were themselves full of some pretty awful historical times, the “greatness” that older generations were likely holding on to was most likely a reflection of comforting personal nostalgia. Many had experienced a sort of cultural shock, as the country they had always known began to change around them at a rate quicker than they could recall it ever changing for previous generations. However, as western influences became more and more apparent, younger generations were experiencing the opposite frustration. It seemed like the progress that was being made was happening too slowly. Generational divisions, ethnic separatism, and internal stagnation led to high tensions among citizens and a general distrust and frustration with most politicians. Sounding just the teeny tiniest bit familiar so far, right? The Soviet Union was made up of 15 individual republics which were homelands to several different ethnicities. By the early 90s, several republics began to leave the Union. As centralized power began to fade, political crisis occured and three of the founding republics, Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine simply declared that the Soviet Union no longer existed. More republics soon joined them in declaring it had ceased to exist. Gorbachev, the sitting president at the time, resigned, and the next day what was left of the Soviet parliament voted to dissolve the Union. The end. Except, obviously that was not the end, and now we are increasingly becoming involved in a conflict because Ukraine is currently defending itself against Russian invasion. Ukraine’s neighbor, Poland, is arming its own borders with military in preparation for Ukraine’s defeat. You're probably aware that most of Europe believes that once Ukraine falls, Putin will continue his invasion, taking each country one by one until he finally controls all of Europe and Russia, in a dictatorship that Hitler could only dream of. All of our NATO allies are currently nervously scratching their heads trying to figure out what the fuck we’re doing in the U.S. and why do we suddenly seem to be so keen to help Russia force Ukraine to surrender? Given how dire the consequences could be if all U.S. military aid is removed and Ukraine is left with no means of defending itself, things can get really scary really quickly. Especially given Putin has always enjoyed ignoring rules and agreements he makes. Although we're not hearing as much reporting about it here in the U.S., the rest of the world is watching the U.S., Russia, and Ukraine very closely right now while.the U.S. is involved in brokering peace between Ukraine and Russia. News in the United States has done an abysmal job covering sudden changes to U.S. support for Ukraine and attempts by the Trump administration to shift the blame to Ukraine, with Trump himself implying the war was somehow Ukraine's fault. NATO article 5 requires all members to agree (including the US) they will defend other allies against an attack. Ukraine is seeking membership as an assurance that they will be protected if Russia ignores peace agreements, but NATO is scared granting them membership will trigger a war with Russia. However, if they are not given membership, and Ukraine is left defenseless, Russia will almost certainly take all of Ukraine. Any attempt by Russia to invade Poland will officially kick off World War III anyway, so it's kind of a catch 22. Given that we have also gained a leader that is known for ignoring agreements and who apparently believes Putin’s actions to be signs of strength, many believe Trump may attempt to ignore article 5 and refuse to become involved defending the rest of Europe from Russia. However, there is another scenario that would make Russia's invasion of Ukraine and eventually the rest of Europe very easy to accomplish. If we continue down the path we seem to be being pushed towards in the United States, and dissolve our own Union, we would also no longer be a part of NATO. This would free us from an obligation to defend allies against Russia, and potentially leave us in a situation similar to where Ukraine is sitting now. Wouldn't that be very convenient for somebody looking to take sweeping control of Europe? To summarize everything, please consider how similar what we are experiencing in 2025 in the U.S., is to what was experienced in early 90s Soviet Union just prior to it being dissolved. Keep this in mind as we continue to see more and more historical similarities rapidly occurring, and please be quick to remind people of this when they suggest that right now is the time for individual states to begin leaving the U.S. If you're reading this and thinking, maybe it would be better for the U.S. to just dissolve and at least avoid getting pulled into WWIII by article 5, I understand the reasoning, but have to remind you that would also leave us in a very vulnerable position similar to Ukraine. Can you really be considering all these similarities, and documented Russian disinformation that has led us to this point, and honestly believe that wouldn't be playing into Putin's hands when global domination and defeating the U.S. has always been the ultimate goal. Say states try to secede from the U.S. and this ultimately kicks off a second civil war. Russia could easily send troops to help aid Trump “defend” his country, and eventually claim new territories for Trump or even Russia. Not only would we be pulled into a civil war, we may end up being pulled into WWIII anyway, and forced to fight against our allies and alongside Russia and China. I want to reiterate that I know there are groups who have been pushing for secession for a long time. I just want people to be aware of the timing as we see arguments for new movements popping up in response to the ongoing coup. I reached out last week to a few libertarian groups online trying to warn about the growing number of local DOGE taskforces being created in states across the country, and the very anti-libertarian actions being taken so far in the name of small government. While some of these movements were already speaking out against DOGE at the federal level, and appear to be legitimate libertarians making the same reasonable argument which has long been made for secession, others seem to be using the same message in bad faith to simply divide the country even more. I know that while DOGE was presented as a way to hold government accountable, many libertarians have quickly smelled the bullshit and in no way support the poorly disguised power grab. My goal in posting this is not to change anyone's political beliefs, but to ask that we consider all possibilities and work together as Americans to preserve the constitution to protect the people and not a king. I understand the desire to be free from a tyrannical government, but given everything that is happening right now, historical similarities should be warning us we've seen this before. I believe the goal of many bad actors at this moment in time is to divide and conquer. If these people are handed complete control, what is left of the constitution will in no way resemble ideals of liberty for anyone except the oligarchs. References https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.abo6254 Alexei Navalny. (2024). Patriot: A Memoir. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.