Fantastically creepy example of Newt Gingrich being used for a connect the dots marketing campaign. Three separate instances that you’re supposed to gradually connect over time. The first one was a few weeks back when Newt started stumping that the Middle Eastern conflicts should be repackaged as World War 3 to make sure that the public plays how they want them to play…

Found also in a recent Newsweek magazine, a small blurb teasing about whether Newt is gonna run for Prez, which includes the quote: “What really matters is to recognize that the next 20 years is the biggest challenge is the biggest challenge we’ve had as a country since April 1861. We do not realize how hard it’s going to be.” Just in case the 1861 reference is lost on you:

April 12 - American Civil War begins at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.
April 27 - American Civil War: President Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus in the United States.

Now, Gingrich is going for the gold (although maybe I missed the other fragments of this campaign):

Third, you have what I think is a legitimate insurgency in Connecticut, which needs to be met head on and debated head on, which is people who say this is so hard, it is so frightening, it’s so painful, can’t we come home and hide? And I think if Lamont wins next Tuesday, it will be the beginning of extraordinarily important period in American politics, and in American history. For all of us to have this debate. How dangerous are the terrorists? How dangerous are the dictatorships? And what does America have to do in that kind of a dangerous world?

So, clearly Gingrich has an agenda here - one which is clothed in very violent imagery, which seems to include a worldwide conflict which plunges the nation into literal war against itself. And they are setting up their enemies and directing the conflict by preemptively goading people into greater and greater extremism. Very brilliant to accuse anti-war people of “insurgency” because for the anti-war crowd, they already feel sympathy for the insurgents in other lands. And it strengthens that emotional bond while also pointedly explaining what the government will do to them, by way of example of their comrades overseas. On the other hand, it’s such a powerful exaggeration, that being called insurgents also makes anti-war people angrier than ever, pushing them ever closer to the brink of actual violence.