DPC talks with Eric Manton (U.S.)

Valery Perry spoke with Eric Manton about the interesting work he has been doing to create a model he calls, “Adversarial Analysis,” which aims to make it easier to understand the current political dynamics in the US. He has mapped and contextualized key interest group blocks, their strategies for maintaining power and influence, their differences and fracture points, and more. As a part of his “4 +1” Analytical Framework, he dives into the interests and dynamics of four factions: Corporatist Oligarchs, Christian Nationalists/Heritage, the MAGA Faction of supporters that have adopted a MAGA cultural identity, and the Dystopian Tech Bros. These four groups have different interests in many ways, but the Venn diagram overlap has been successfully exploited by the Plus 1 – President Donald Trump.

Valery and Eric talk about how he developed the model, and how much of it was based on his decades of experience working in Southeast Europe, but also in the Czech Republic in the 90s where he studied and worked with people who had been key in that country’s dissident movement during the Cold War. This experience taught him that in situations of democratic disintegration and oligarchic consolidation, people – journalists, activists, advocates, and just concerned regular people – need to understand the interests, dynamics and potential fracture points of the key players who are undermining democratic checks and balances in order to both arrest the democratic decline and identify opportunities that can provide the foundation for rebuilding.

Check out the model and learn more at https://substack.com/@adversarialanalysis