Surprisingly, the anonymous op-ed in the NYT that’s got everyone buzzing actually supports what a few of us foreign policy wonks have been saying from the start:
It’s not a bunch of responsible, principled statesmen versus a neo-Nazi/caveman president that we’re dealing with in the Trump Era. Rather, it is a cabal* of unaccountable, deep-state fascists (with millions of corpses in their wake) versus a wholly unscrupulous, egomaniacal, infant president, with easy-to-spot-but-not-yet-honed fascist tendencies… difficult to control and an impediment to their project.
He’s bad for business, and they know it. He exposes and discredits them.
You can’t call it “Resistance” when the individuals grappling with Trump assert in their anonymous op-eds and demonstrate with their actions that they fully support the same corporatist/plutocrat agenda that “The Donald” is pushing — if not an even more extreme agenda, including passage of the slavery-overlooking, regulation-nullifying Trans-Pacific Partnership.
And the cabal clearly wants a global confrontation with Russia and China; a suicidal confrontation that Trump appears inclined to avoid: “the one ray of light in this gloom,” per Noam Chomsky.
Modern fascists want Donald Trump out of the way because he’s so very inept at representing their interests… and so frequently off-script.
Because of that massive ego of his, Trump wants to be seen as independent, a diplomat, a “deal” maker, a good guy, a liberal, a conservative, reasonable… a Grand Wizard for Improving Race Relations:
“Ambassador Omarosa, are you ready to declare that ‘Blue Lives Matter?’ Ambassador Kanye, OFF WITH KAEPERNICK’S HEAD!”
Trump, the pandering demagogue, wants to be all things to all people… because he’s a childish, megalomaniacal dipshit.
And since before Trump even took the oath of office, the unelected, mass-murdering, torture-happy cabal that opposes him has been clobbering him silly with the media they control… and with the help of a dazed and disoriented liberal class, surprisingly susceptible to xenophobia and neo-McCarthyist propaganda.
Modern fascists have been frantically trying to corral and break President Obama’s successor, who is most assuredly NOT the new president they were counting on in 2016.
The fix was in, but it wasn’t enough, thanks to that undemocratic relic, the Electoral College. Contrary to all predictions — and despite a lot of rigging and manipulation, which had done considerable harm to our democracy — the deep state did not get Hillary Clinton in the White House in 2017. Neo-fascists were denied their champion, someone who had zealously supported their monstrous agenda for many years.
They’ve been frenzied, ruthless, and desperate since that electoral upset, scrambling to reverse Trump’s victory — doing incalculable damage to our political and media institutions along the way.
These lunatics are, in fact, risking a third world war over “collusion” charges that, even if true, are so piddling as to be “laughable,” as Noam Chomsky has clearly stated. And the claims are also immensely hypocritical, considering all of the coups and election-rigging shenanigans the U.S. has pulled in the world, decade in, decade out.
Including in Russia.
As many have by now observed, the nominal left has been making quite a spectacle of itself, lining up to support these blood-soaked neocons, who constitute some of our nation’s most overtly fascist war criminals, among the worst malefactors in our entire history, including:
– the authors of the GWB torture program, including waterboarding, extraordinary rendition, and black sites;
– the propaganda spewing mass-murderers of Iraqi, Syrian, Libyan, Ukrainian, and Yemeni civilians;
– the covert intelligence agency maniacs who have created a second Mujaheddin, committing yet more acts of genocide in the Middle East (aimed at regime-change in nations allied with America’s geopolitical rivals);
– the intelligence agency spooks who illegally spied on the Senate Intelligence Committee to prevent their horrific war crimes from being revealed (and subsequently lied about it);
– the intelligence agency spooks who illegally spied on all of our communications (and subsequently lied about it — and then nullified the Fourth Amendment, anyway);
– the racist law enforcement thugs who indiscriminately rounded up hundreds of American Muslims after 9/11 and jailed them for nothing, denying them their phone calls, lawyers, and civil rights for weeks, before admitting that none were linked to terrorism;
– the authors of the drone assassination program that has killed thousands of civilians, including American citizens and their children, uncharged with any crime; and finally,
– the keeper of the “Kill List” that rendered habeas corpus and the Constitution moot.
The “enemy of my enemy is my friend,” you say?
“Bull-SHIT!” I respond. These blood-drenched war profiteers are not our friends.
David Frum is not your friend, Robert Mueller is not your friend, Michael Hayden is not your friend, William Kristol is not your friend, Victoria Nuland and Robert Kagan are not your friends, John Brennan is not your friend, James Comey is not your friend, Crowdstrike is not your friend, Jeff Bezos is not your friend, the New York Times is not your friend, CNN is not your friend…
These serial propagandists and modern fascists are delighted with all the support they’ve received from mainstream Americans and the former left since Trump’s election. But they are only using that support to further an agenda that makes Trump look like an amateur by comparison. And next to them, Trump is truly a neophyte in the fascism department — a confused, impetuous, practically-innocent-in-his-corruption child… by comparison.
Here’s an analogy with a STAR WARS theme, in case you’re as bored as I am, at this point:
It’s as if Jabba the Hutt somehow got elected President of the Galaxy (after Leia, candidate of the 99%, got cheated in a rigged primary) – and after the election, the “rebels” all ran to Darth Vader and Palpatine, the losing candidate, for succor.
“At least Darth Sidious isn’t a misogynist, like that slimy, orange Hutt, with his slave girls!”
But I’ll take the Max Rebo/Sy Snootles band and the Rancor over the Death Star and serial genocide, every time.
Call me silly, but I refuse to support the agenda of Sith Lords. Even if Jabba is vile and ooky.
It doesn’t mean I want to be chained up in my skimpiest outfit and plopped in front of the great slug. Or that I’m willing to overlook or tolerate his gangsterism.
I just don’t want to be Palpatine’s fatuous puppet, unwittingly helping him enslave the galaxy.
One Jar-Jar is enough.
* That’s how Sec. of State Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, described the neocons, years ago: a “cabal.” A small group of extremists seized the reins of U.S. foreign policy after 9/11 and haven’t let go since. Which is why millions of predominately Arab-Muslim people have been butchered by our government since 9/11, for no reason beyond the geopolitical goals of these law-shredding madmen.