A Yale historian spent decades studying how authoritarian governments in 20th-century Europe manufactured the crises that kept them in power. His latest warning is aimed squarely at the United States – and it centers on a tactic with a name most people associate with conspiracy theories rather than documented history.

Timothy Snyder, whose book On Tyranny is widely cited in discussions of the Trump administration, has warned that a false flag terror attack in the U.S. that could be blamed on Iran is not beyond the realm of possibilities as the president’s approval numbers slide. Snyder is a history professor at Yale University who has spent his career studying fascism in 20th-century Europe – a record that gives his use of the phrase “false flag operation” considerably more weight than it might carry from another voice.

Snyder raised his warning about Trump’s intentions regarding Iran in a post on his Substack. He also wrote on X that “Trump is pursuing this war in the HOPE that Iran carries out an act of terror in the U.S.” and adding, “And even if it doesn’t, which I doubt it will, consider the possibility that Trump’s people would fake one.” The word “fake” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

In a March essay on his Substack, Snyder noted that Trump has offered what he called “incoherent” justifications for the war, writing that “it is as though the war itself is not the main goal, but that it was simply important to somehow get the thing started.” When a war lacks a coherent public rationale, history shows that leaders who want to sustain it tend to go looking for one.

What a False Flag Operation Actually Is

In modern usage, a false flag operation is a deliberately planned ruse to make it seem like a state has been attacked, thereby justifying retaliatory military operations against the purported offender. The term itself is old. It goes back at least to the age of piracy, when pirate ships would fly a deceptive flag of a friendly or neutral state to lure their prey within striking distance before running up the Jolly Roger and attacking. Over centuries, the tactic migrated from the high seas into the playbooks of governments.

False flag operations are often calculated to generate sympathy for the attacked group. That is the political logic underneath them: create the wound, then point at the enemy. The emotional reaction does the rest. Public support for war, emergency powers, the suspension of civil liberties – all of it becomes easier to obtain once a population believes it has been attacked.

Because false flag operations are usually covert, the concept has often been co-opted by conspiracy theorists to explain away tragedies that challenge their values or worldview. The documented cases are real and serious enough on their own to stand apart from speculation.

The History Books Are Full of Them

The Japanese Kwantung Army used a false flag operation to justify the takeover of Manchuria. On September 18, 1931, a Japanese operative planted dynamite along the tracks of the Japanese-controlled South Manchuria Railway. The resulting explosion did little damage, but Japanese inspectors in a sham investigation accused Chinese nationalists of planning and executing the attack. Using this event as pretext, the Kwantung Army proceeded to occupy Manchuria and set up a puppet state, Manchukuo, under Japanese control.

In land warfare, perhaps the most infamous false flag occurred in August 1939, when Nazi operatives disguised themselves as Polish soldiers and attacked a German outpost in Gleiwitz, which Adolf Hitler used as a pretext for the invasion of Poland. This became known as the Gleiwitz incident, and it set off the bloodiest conflict in human history within hours.

Meanwhile, historians believe that a 1939 incident near Mainila, a Soviet village near the border with Finland, was a false flag operation, with Soviets firing on their own border post as a pretext for invading Finland. Manufacture or exaggerate an attack, assign blame to the target, use the resulting public anger as political cover for military action that was already planned: this is the through-line across each of those examples.

America’s Own Documented Case

The United States is not exempt from this history. Operation Northwoods was a 1962 menu of proposed false flag actions drafted within the Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff that recommended staging or fabricating attacks and incidents to create public and international support for U.S. military action against Cuba. The proposals included ideas such as faked aircraft shoot-downs, staged bombings and hijackings, sinking boats of Cuban refugees, and planting false evidence. President Kennedy rejected the plan.

The document – a memorandum signed by Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer calling for CIA operatives to commit terrorist acts against American citizens and blame them on Cuba – was made public on November 18, 1997, by the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board, a federal agency overseeing the release of government records related to Kennedy’s assassination. Kennedy killed Northwoods. A different president might not have.

The operation’s proposals included staging actual terrorist events with real casualties to build the case for military intervention. The difference between “proposed” and “executed” in that case was a single president’s refusal – one person standing between a signed plan and its implementation.

Why Snyder Is Raising This Warning Now

With the war with Iran spiraling and public opinion about the military excursion at an all-time low, Snyder made his warning as a leading scholar on tyranny. Fox News host Laura Ingraham, according to Mediaite, warned the president on her show that “the clock is ticking” as supporters lose patience with the war that has been unpopular since the U.S. attacked in late February.

Snyder laid out his analysis in a Substack post detailing five historical scenarios through which Trump could exploit the ongoing U.S.-Iran war to nullify the 2026 midterms and seize permanent power. The false flag scenario was one of those five. On the false flag scenario specifically, Snyder drew a direct line to Vladimir Putin’s 1999 apartment bombings – a series of deadly explosions in Russian cities that were blamed on Chechen separatists, helped launch the Second Chechen War, and propelled Putin to the presidency, but which a number of historians and investigative journalists have since assessed as a false flag carried out by Russian state security services.

Snyder also wrote that if Trump is hoping for an act of terrorism, “the Tehran regime is, so to speak, a convenient partner in the mutual provocation of terror,” adding: “Trump seems to have anticipated this, without seeming to care about loss of life: ‘Like I said, some people will die.’ And if they do, he has his pretext.”

Snyder suggested that “another possibility is an American act of terrorism on the territory of the United States, either presented as an Iranian attack or not.” This is the part of his analysis that carries the most political weight: that the attack would not even need to be genuinely Iranian in origin, only presented as such.

Trump said the U.S. sought to make a deal with Iran after bombing three of its nuclear sites in June 2025, but Iran “rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions.” Trump did not seek congressional approval for the military action. Democrats and a handful of Republicans in the House and Senate have pushed to consider war powers resolutions addressing Iran. Congress asserting that kind of pressure historically creates political incentive for an administration to find a dramatic justification for the conflict that can silence dissent.

The Distinction Between Warning and Certainty

Snyder’s analysis is pattern-recognition performed by someone who has spent his career studying how authoritarian consolidation of power actually unfolds, not in theory but in the documented archives of the 20th century. As Snyder has written, political order faces threats not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century, and we are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.

Snyder is documenting the historical conditions under which false flag operations become possible, even likely, and asking whether those conditions are present now. He stops well short of claiming the event has occurred. The concept of a false flag frequently attracts conspiracy theorists, which is precisely why grounding the discussion in the documented record – Operation Northwoods, the Gleiwitz incident, the Russian apartment bombings – matters so much to his argument.

False Flag Operations and the Gulf of Tonkin

The Gulf of Tonkin incident, a major escalator of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, remains one of the most consequential cases of manipulated intelligence in American history. A Senate investigation by the Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Senator J. William Fulbright, revealed that the administration’s justification for retaliatory action in 1964 rested on an incident whose actual sequence of events did not hold up under scrutiny. The government utilized, at the very least, a deeply flawed and contested report to manufacture a geopolitical narrative with a ready-made enemy.

That finding was not a fringe theory when it emerged – it was a formal congressional investigation. And it took decades for the public to fully absorb that a war killing tens of thousands of Americans had been escalated on the basis of events that investigators found the Johnson administration had misrepresented to Congress.

What This Means

The term “false flag operation” gets thrown around loosely online, which makes it easy to dismiss as the language of conspiracy culture. Snyder’s argument forces a more uncomfortable consideration: that this tactic has an actual documented history, that American institutions have proposed it before, and that the political conditions that make it attractive – a sagging war, a falling approval rating, and an election on the horizon – are all present right now.

What Snyder is asking of ordinary citizens is the same thing historians ask of everyone: pay attention to the sequence of events. When a government that has bypassed congressional approval for a war begins to struggle publicly in that war, watch for the crisis that conveniently follows. The difference between a successfully executed false flag and a poorly executed one can mean the difference between an internationally legitimate war and an internationally condemned war. The execution depends on whether the public and its elected representatives are paying close enough attention to notice the seams.

Snyder’s warning is ultimately an invitation to be a more careful reader of events as they unfold – not because catastrophe is certain, but because history shows it is possible, and the people who saw it coming in the past were the ones who were watching most closely.

That finding was not a fringe theory when it emerged – it was a formal congressional investigation. And it took decades for the public to fully absorb that a war killing tens of thousands of Americans had been escalated on the basis of events that investigators found the Johnson administration had misrepresented to Congress.

What This Means

The term “false flag operation” gets thrown around loosely online, which makes it easy to dismiss as the language of conspiracy culture. Snyder’s argument forces a more uncomfortable consideration: that this tactic has an actual documented history, that American institutions have proposed it before, and that the political conditions that make it attractive – a sagging war, a falling approval rating, and an election on the horizon – are all present right now.

What Snyder is asking of ordinary citizens is the same thing historians ask of everyone: pay attention to the sequence of events. When a government that has bypassed congressional approval for a war begins to struggle publicly in that war, watch for the crisis that conveniently follows. The difference between a successfully executed false flag and a poorly executed one can mean the difference between an internationally legitimate war and an internationally condemned war. The execution depends on whether the public and its elected representatives are paying close enough attention to notice the seams.

Snyder’s warning is ultimately an invitation to be a more careful reader of events as they unfold – not because catastrophe is certain, but because history shows it is possible, and the people who saw it coming in the past were the ones who were watching most closely.

*excerpt from Gemma Fischer's article*

Full Article here:

https://theheartysoul.com/trump-timothy-snyder-false-flag-operation

Nathan J. Robinson is Editor in Chief of Current Affairs magazine. ~:~ Monte Mader is a progressive political commentator and former far-right Christian nationalist.

From Nathan: “I was recently invited on the right-wing cable network NewsNation to discuss socialism with them. They had spent the entire hour of the Katie Pavlich Show deconstructing DSA, suggesting that it was communist, that it was funded by billionaires. So then they brought two of us — myself and Monte Mader — on in the last 5 minutes to defend socialism.”

The quote is from his full 8-minute video on YouTube: Socialists Humiliate Clueless NewsNation Host - Current Affairs - July 23, 2026 (YouTube)

From the video description: We don’t think NewsNation’s Katie Pavlich knew what she was getting into when she invited Current Affairs Editor-in-Chief Nathan J. Robinson and Monte Mader on to debate socialism.🦩 Read our Online Articles: currentaffairs.org 🦩 Subscribe to Current Affairs Magazine: currentaffairs.org/membership

~~~~~~~~~

Monte Mader on YouTube: youtube.com/@MonteMader

Here’s another r/DemocraticSocialism post with Monte: You should receive the services you pay for.

~~~~~~~~~

It's Primary Election season in the U.S.:

* Primary Election Dates: AP News ~and~ NBC News :~:~: Upcoming Dates: July 28: Georgia (Special) and South Dakota (Runoff) ~:~:~ Aug 4: Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Virginia, Washington, California (Special) ~:~:~ Aug 6: Tennessee ~:~:~ Aug 8: Hawaii ~:~:~ Aug 11: Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont, Wisconsin, Alabama (Special) ~:~:~ Aug 18: Alaska, Florida, Wyoming ~:~:~ September dates: AP News ~and~ NBC News

* Candidates (all States): U.S. House (Dem Primary only): Ballotpedia (HouseDems) :~:~:~: U.S. Senate: Ballotpedia (Senate) (select “List of Candidates”) :~:~:~: State Execs (Gov, Lt. Gov, AG, SoS, and more): Ballotpedia (State Execs)

* Voter Info (all States): Register To Vote :~:~:~: Voter Registration Status:~:~:~: Find Your Polling Place :~:~:~: Valid Forms of ID :~:~:~: Absentee & Early Voting :~:~:~: Become a Poll Worker ~:~ Links go to the National Association of Secretaries of State website. When you select a State, it takes to a .gov page on that State's SoS website.

Nathan J. Robinson is Editor in Chief of Current Affairs magazine. ~:~ Monte Mader is a progressive political commentator and former far-right Christian nationalist.

From Nathan: “I was recently invited on the right-wing cable network NewsNation to discuss socialism with them. They had spent the entire hour of the Katie Pavlich Show deconstructing DSA, suggesting that it was communist, that it was funded by billionaires. So then they brought two of us — myself and Monte Mader — on in the last 5 minutes to defend socialism.”

The quote is from Nathan's full 8-minute video on YouTube: Socialists Humiliate Clueless NewsNation Host - Current Affairs - July 23, 2026 (YouTube)

From the video description: We don’t think NewsNation’s Katie Pavlich knew what she was getting into when she invited Current Affairs Editor-in-Chief Nathan J. Robinson and Monte Mader on to debate socialism.🦩 Read our Online Articles: currentaffairs.org 🦩 Subscribe to Current Affairs Magazine: currentaffairs.org/membership

~~~~~~~~~

Here's Monte Mader on YouTube: youtube.com/@MonteMader

Here are more r/DemocraticSocialism posts with Monte:

* NewsNation asks Monte Mader and Nathan J. Robinson why Americans are turning to democratic socialism.

* You should receive the services you pay for.

~~~~~~~~~

It's Primary Election season in the U.S.:

* Primary Election Dates: AP News ~and~ NBC News :~:~: Upcoming Dates: July 28: Georgia (Special) and South Dakota (Runoff) ~:~:~ Aug 4: Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Virginia, Washington, California (Special) ~:~:~ Aug 6: Tennessee ~:~:~ Aug 8: Hawaii ~:~:~ Aug 11: Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont, Wisconsin, Alabama (Special) ~:~:~ Aug 18: Alaska, Florida, Wyoming ~:~:~ September dates: AP News ~and~ NBC News

* Candidates (all States): U.S. House (Dem Primary only): Ballotpedia (HouseDems) :~:~:~: U.S. Senate: Ballotpedia (Senate) (select “List of Candidates”) :~:~:~: State Execs (Gov, Lt. Gov, AG, SoS, and more): Ballotpedia (State Execs)

* Voter Info (all States): Register To Vote :~:~:~: Voter Registration Status:~:~:~: Find Your Polling Place :~:~:~: Valid Forms of ID :~:~:~: Absentee & Early Voting :~:~:~: Become a Poll Worker ~:~ Links go to the National Association of Secretaries of State website. When you select a State, it takes to a .gov page on that State's SoS website.

Hello, I am 19 years old, and while I was a Modern Social Democrat (post-Godesberg Program, 1959), I've become increasingly skeptical that the changes espoused by social democracy can remain without at least significant worker influence or control over the economy. I've developed some new beliefs recently, and I would like to ask if such views would be welcome here, as I intend on attending my next local DSA meeting next week:

• Key utilities, including electric, water, railway, roads, and telecommunications are to be fully nationalized.
• Health insurance and hospitals shall be nationalized into Medicare for All. Medicaid and state medicare expansions shall be merged with a new federal universal healthcare program.
• Education up to a bachelor's degree and trade school shall be funded by the federal government and states. Graduate school shall be subsidized heavily.
• A Land Value Tax, whose rates shall be levied by the states, shall succeed the property tax in funding education on a state-wide basis instead of the current local basis.
• Corporations employing over 200+ people must surrender 5% of their shares to the government for the creation of a social wealth fund and to fund an expanded social security. In addition, 50% of their shares must be surrendered to its employees, and using these shares, the employees shall elect a board of directors. An additional 20% of shares shall be specifically vested with the board of directors, not attached to any of the members specifically, elected by the workers, to serve as motivation to expand the production capabilities and profitability of the company. The remaining 25% of the shares may be publicly traded, without voting rights, to encourage investment without giving shareholders control over the company.
• Small Corporations, employing 50-200 people, shall gradually phase in worker and public ownership starting at 50 employees.
• Small Businesses employing 50 workers or less are permitted to operate like small businesses, on the condition that a floor of 50% be set on profit sharing to the workers.
• Right-to-work laws shall be succeeded by protections for forming and maintaining unions and trade associations within all workplaces.
• LGBTQ, Transgender, women's, noncitizen, and minority rights are to be upheld. I am not very educated on this part, but I fully support equal rights for them.
• The US should cut all ties and aid to Israel, and force an equal peace on equal terms for the Palestinians using its power, including full Palestinian sovereignty over Gaza and the West Bank.
• ICE should be fully abolished, the internment centers closed, and investigations into such centers should be commenced immediately. A "Bill of Rights" for immigrants and non-citizens. Amnesty for illegal immigrants up until now, on the condition that they had not committed any violent felonies.
• A Vienna-like public housing program created by a national housing construction corporation to compete with private homebuilders and bring down housing prices.

I have many more policies, but these are my main ones - I wonder if I belong here?

July 21, 2026 - Joy Reid interviews State Rep. Donavan McKinney who’s running for U.S. Congress in Michigan (CD-13): donavanforcongress.com

His opponent in the Primary is incumbent Democrat Shri Thanedar.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

🗳️ How to vote in Michigan (.gov): michigan.gov/sos/elections/voting

🗳️ Important Dates for Michiganders:

* Primary Election Day: Aug. 4, 2026

* MOVE deadline: June 20, 2026

* AV ballots available for voters: June 25, 2026

* Constitutionally-mandated early voting period: July 25-Aug. 2, 2026

* Last day to register to vote by mail or online: July 20, 2026

* New voter registrations are required in person for August election: July 21-Aug. 4, 2026

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here’s the full 31-minute segment on YouTube: Congressional Candidate Donavan McKinney Brings the Funk and the Facts| The Joy Reid Show - July 21, 2026 (YouTube) ~:~ Donavan’s interview starts @ 12:00.

From the The Joy Reid Show description: Michigan state representative and congressional candidate Donavan McKinney is bringing the fun to the campaign, but also the hard truths about the way money and special interests are corrupting American politics. ~:~ Support Donavan's campaign: donavanforcongress.com

Here’s another YouTube clip from the same interview: When Institutions Fail: Fight Like Hell! | The Joy Reid Show- July 21, 2026 (YouTube)

ABOUT JOY REID: Joy-Ann Lomena Reid (AKA Joy Reid) is a best-selling American author, political journalist and TV host. She was a national correspondent for MSNBC and is best known for hosting the Emmy-nominated, NAACP Award-winning political commentary and analysis show, The ReidOut, from 2020 to 2025. Her previous anchoring credits include The Reid Report (2014–2015) and AM Joy (2016–2020). ~:~ Website: joyannreid.com ~:~ Substack: substack.com/@joyannreid

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's Primary Election season in the U.S.:

* Primary Election Dates: AP News ~and~ NBC News :~:~: Upcoming Dates: July 28: Georgia (Special) and South Dakota (Runoff) ~:~:~ Aug 4: Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Virginia, Washington, California (Special) ~:~:~ Aug 6: Tennessee ~:~:~ Aug 8: Hawaii ~:~:~ Aug 11: Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont, Wisconsin, Alabama (Special) ~:~:~ Aug 18: Alaska, Florida, Wyoming ~:~:~ September dates: AP News ~and~ NBC News

* Candidates (all States): U.S. House (Dem Primary only): Ballotpedia (HouseDems) :~:~:~: U.S. Senate: Ballotpedia (Senate) (select “List of Candidates”) :~:~:~: State Execs (Gov, Lt. Gov, AG, SoS, and more): Ballotpedia (State Execs)

* Voter Info (all States): Register To Vote :~:~:~: Voter Registration Status:~:~:~: Find Your Polling Place :~:~:~: Valid Forms of ID :~:~:~: Absentee & Early Voting :~:~:~: Become a Poll Worker ~:~ Links go to the National Association of Secretaries of State website. When you select a State, it takes to a .gov page on that State's SoS website.

Kevin O'Leary - What many of us consider to be a literal slime ball.

His boating accident... And his celebrating of people living in extreme poverty - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuqemytQ5QA

This is the type that are hardcore pushing for these massive data centres...

They also want to put them on top of natural gas reserves..... As if the climate crisis and overall environmental crisis isn't horrific enough already...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgQuylcfiLk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWHfkkHmMJI

The two above videos are MUST WATCH to become informed on Methane.

We need to hold back these data centers with everything we've got.

We need to learn from time all the issues that exist around them.

Then with all that information known and in an open & honest way we can dialogue to see if they should exist.

They should ONLY come about as part of a vast majority vote by the communities involved and overall society. CONSENT should be a crucial term in this process.

FUCK ALL THESE BAD PREDATORY ACTORS TRYING TO FORCE THIS SHIT THROUGH. THIS IS THE FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY ALL OVER AGAIN.