I do not ordinarily post long clips of Groundswell messaging machine Dan Bongino on Fox and Friends, but his appearance this morning has been seized upon by Russian trolls in order to trend dangerous, dark, false themes.

Bongino and his troll pals are going to get someone killed with this kind of rhetoric.

In this seven-minute appearance, Bongino claims the following:

1. Trump was spied on, but not in a legal way because the black guy, Barack Obama, "circumvented the law to spy on Trump." BUT WAIT. YOU CANNOT SPY ON AMERICAN CITIZENS so the black guy did a BAD THING and not only that, he did it with FOREIGNERS.
2. ALSO, The whole FBI investigation was based on the Steele memo. Of course, people who read things understand that this was not at all the case, that the FBI opened their investigation because they had intelligence indicating that Carter Page may have been acting as an agent of the Russian government. But this is Fox News aka Earth A, so they get their own reality.
3. AND ALSO, Hillary Clinton owns the DNC and the DNC paid for the dossier so OMG that evil witch is the reason Robert Mueller has an ongoing investigation. I thought this was a precious moment: 'Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS goes over there hired by the DNC and Hillary Clinton which we found out is the same thing because she bought out the DNC so it's $10 million Christopher Steele gets." WTAF, Dan? Even for you and your pals like Ginni Thomas, this is really a bit heavy on the propaganda and lies.
4. AND ALSO, the FBI bit the bait without a scintilla of verification. Here's where we know Dan Bongino is a bullshitter without a clue, because this is not how the FBI rolls.
5. AND ALSO, Democrats are "putting their party over the constitution," because they know the source information for THEIR memo is classified information. Got that? Devin Nunes made up a bunch of ideas in a memo without actually reviewing the underlying information. Fever dreams of embattled Congressmen for the most part. The underlying information is classified. They are now going to release that memo, again, based on classified information, and then slap Democrats around for rebutting it with classified information.
6. BUT ALSO, Dems are lying: Bongino puts his former career out on the line, as if it matters in the least. "I wouldn't say this if I didn't believe it the Democrats are lying about the contents of this memo," he sneered. "The contents are absolutely devastating and will shred the Obama administration." He is saying this about a memo HE HAS NOT SEEN.
7. AND ALSO, it's all a conspiracy. Bongino asked, "Don't you find it convenient that Christopher Wray, the FBI director read the memo over the weekend and Andrew McCabe steps down?" Oooh you guys! It's all a grand conspiracy for McCabe to retire like he'd been planning for months after taking a load of abuse from the so-called "president." But it's really true because "We heard from Sara Carter. She said that her sources said it sounded like some agents were asked by McCabe to change their 302s which is obstruction of justice." In other words, the conspiracy is that McCabe asked FBI agents to alter their reports -- A LOT OF AGENTS -- to make Trump look bad.
8. THEREFORE, It's collusion! Which is not a crime! But it is collusion! Democrats are colluding!
9. ALSO THEREFORE, the FBI must be purged. This is the part where we get into some seriously fascistic behavior which must be stopped by the courts or the voters. The idea of purging law enforcement agencies along partisan lines is wrong and again, fascistic. Paul Ryan is also trumpeting this meme, because this is how the Fox Effect works. It starts on blogs, heads to social media, is amplified and blown up, then gets to Fox News where people like Paul Ryan legitimize it.

Bongino's talking points here are the product of a carefully formed effort to shape the narrative ahead of the facts, and it's not solely an American effort. That mention of Sara Carter in the next-to-last paragraph? She published her claims in a blog post, which is the top link tweeted out by Russian trolls today, right alongside the TruePundit link to her fever dreams.

With all of the frothing on Fox News, right wing web sites, Russian social media troll accounts and the frogosphere, someone is going to get hurt. Rep. Adam Schiff is already receiving death threats.

Shame on Dan Bongino for leveraging his short stint in the Secret Service ten years or so ago into a death match showdown over invented scandals. It's shameful and in the end, might just spell the end of this era of democracy in America.