Who Paints the Target?
Modern power doesn’t disappear you unless disappearing you will teach someone else a lesson. And it doesn’t spotlight you unless turning you into a target advances the narrative.
Most people think that being a target in today’s media-political war zone means you said something wrong, voted for the wrong guy, or broke some sacred new taboo. But that's not quite it.
You aren't painted because you're dangerous.
You're painted because you're useful.
Painting the Target
In military terms, to "paint" a target means to shine a laser on it—not to destroy it directly, but to make it destroyable. The target becomes visible to every weapon system in the theater. Drones, jets, missiles, algorithms—all of it.
But someone on the ground has to do that first. Somebody—usually a long-range reconnaissance team—sneaks in, scopes the battlefield, and places that little red dot where the kill will count most.
That's how media power works too.
Redditors and Twitter mobs? They're just Hellfire missiles.
Podcasts and talk radio? Napalm and white phosphorus.
Legacy media? Bunker busters.
But the real question is: who painted the target?
Because until that moment, it wasn’t even a target. It was just another human, in a sea of others, tolerated, ignored, maybe even celebrated.
Until they weren’t.
Being Useful, Then Being Cast
Donald Trump wasn’t always the villain. He was once America’s favorite punchline, a recurring SNL guest star, a reality TV icon, a symbol of vulgar New York excess and gaudy ambition.
Then the script changed.
He ran.
He won.
He wasn't supposed to.
And suddenly, every light in the sky turned inward. He wasn't just a controversial figure. He was the enemy. Painted, lit, narratively primed. Now he wasn't a businessman. He was fascism incarnate. He was a red dot. A drone strike waiting to happen. A character added to the global morality play.
Spotlight vs. Darkness
You don’t need to paint someone to neutralize them. Lots of people get disappeared in the dark. Painting is different. It’s performative. It’s about the audience.
Painting makes someone a lesson. A plot point. A warning.
Julian Assange: Ignored until he embarrassed the wrong people. Then painted. His life? A cautionary tale.
Edward Snowden: A faceless contractor until he threatened the intelligence narrative. Now he lives as both symbol and warning.
Jeffrey Epstein: Operated in the shadows for decades—then, one day, he got lit up like Broadway. Why then? And why not before?
Because that’s when it mattered for the story.
Fascism Isn’t a Feeling
Fascism isn't a vibe. It isn't defined by how mean the President tweets or how many flags are on the stage.
If anything, it's an operating system. And America has been running it, beta to live, longer than most.
The difference between America and Germany wasn’t ideology. It was foreign policy. Germany invaded its neighbors. America invades minds. Culture. Infrastructure. Sometimes countries.
And unlike Germany, America learned to make fascism cute. Wearable. Exportable. Ad-friendly.
Who Gets to Paint?
Painting isn’t democratic.
It's hierarchical, discretionary, and deeply connected to who controls the narrative platforms. The media. The intelligence community. NGOs. Activist networks. Foundations. Stanford. Harvard. The NGO-to-State-Department pipeline. The podcast circuit. The ad-buying class. Narrative crafters. Cultural curators. Vanguard puppy breeders.
Power doesn’t just destroy its enemies. It casts them.
And if you think Trump is the first, you're not paying attention.
Obama was never painted.
Biden is a ghost ship captained by underlings.
Bush, for all Naomi Wolf's howling, barely caught a beam.
Only Trump got the full Dagwood Sandwich of narrative warfare—layer after layer of story, sin, and symbolic resonance, each slice slathered with moral panic and elite rage.
He got painted, hard.
Because he disrupted the flow. Because he came back for season two. Because he learned from season one.
So Who's Next?
You are.
If you're useful. If you're symbolic. If your destruction will teach the right lesson.
Because painting isn't about guilt. It isn't about justice. It's about optics.
It’s about the script.
And whether or not you're in this week's episode.
Appendix: Counterpoint, Fact-Check, Bullshit Filter
Is Trump Actually a Fascist?
Maybe. He uses the aesthetics. The rhetoric. The enemies lists. But so did Obama. So does Biden. So did Bush. So does everyone who sits in the chair.
Fascism, if it exists here, isn’t unique to Trump. It’s structural.
Isn’t This Just Conspiracy Nonsense?
Not really. Narrative shaping is real. Political optics are choreographed. And power, especially in democracies, needs symbols to function.
Spotlighting someone isn’t a conspiracy. It’s communication strategy.
What About Umberto Eco’s 14 Signs of Ur-Fascism?
Check enough boxes and every country looks a little fascist. Including ours. Especially ours.
But again—fascism isn’t a costume. It’s a system. A feedback loop between elite fear and mass obedience.
What About the Whistleblowers?
They're tolerated until they're painted. Once painted, they're no longer individuals. They become narrative payloads. Like Snowden. Like Assange. Like Reality Winner.
And when they're no longer useful? They vanish again.
Or die trying.
Glossary
Paint the Target: To designate a person for destruction by turning them into a symbol.
Whistleblower: A person who tells a truth that hurts the wrong people.
Narrative Warfare: The battle to define public meaning through symbols, stories, and media.
Dagwood Sandwich: An overwhelming stack of layered narrative elements used to crush a subject through sheer mass of story.
Goldsteining: Turning someone into an object of ritual hate.
Radical Chic: Aesthetic rebellion adopted by elites as performance.
Spotlighting: The act of making someone hyper-visible as part of a political morality play.
Weaponized Optics: Using visibility as a tool of coercion, cancellation, or destruction.
Once you're painted, you're not just a threat.
You're a story point. A lesson. A warning.
And every system in the theater sees the dot on your chest.
Showtime.
tl;dr
The provided text, an opinion piece titled "Who Paints the Target?", argues that in modern "narrative warfare," individuals or concepts are deliberately "painted" or designated as targets by influential figures and organizations, much like military targets are selected before a missile strike. The author contends that the actual "missile"—be it a social media mob, an exposé, or a cable news segment—is merely the reaction, not the initial decision. This process transforms people from public figures into villains based on "utility" rather than morality, highlighting examples like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Julian Assange, whose public images shifted dramatically. The article suggests that "weaponized narrative" employs various "munitions" to destroy credibility and argues that this targeting isn't a conspiracy but a coordinated, administrative, and editorial process driven by "consensus" and "tastemakers," ultimately leaving individuals vulnerable to being "painted" at any moment.
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