Some shared thoughts from a friend on the dangers we face today :
America is in crisis. Do not doubt that reality.
There is a threat within our government unlike any in the history of the nation. This is not like Watergate. It is much worse.
The President and his party are putting their political interests against those of our country. Unlike previous scandals, this time the crisis originates from an external adversary that has befriended the POTUS and is defended by the leaders of the Republican Party.
Our institutions and the very structure of our democracy is threatened. It is far beyond a simple Democrat / Republican division. Our security interests to promote diplomacy with other nations has been curtailed to a dangerous level and our nation is more vulnerable to external attacks.
Most dangerous of all, our country has been split along partisan divisions, with the GOP and their leaders, including the President, ignoring these threats and the dangerous reality they present to our people.
We should not minimize the situation we find ourselves in. The enemy within has perfected a propaganda campaign that uses lies, diversions, obstructions, delays and divisions to separate us into partisan camps that make it almost impossible to unite behind a common cause, including the very survival of our democracy.
There will be no quick solutions or victories. It will be a long and difficult struggle to inform and re-educate the American people about the true swamp within which we find ourselves engulfed. The truth has been blanketed with a dark cloud of doubt.
We must maintain a strong vigilance and remain united against this enemy within. It is not a trivial matter. It is an existential threat to our democracy and to freedom around the world.
“The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms–he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization.” {The enemy} “. . . is perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman–sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, sensual, luxury-loving . . . he controls the press; he has unlimited funds; {and} he has a new secret for influencing the mind. . . .”
Richard Hofstadter–The Paranoid Style in American Politics.
Are you calling me paranoid, Bob ? Or all of us who believe Russiagate is real ?
If the shoe fits . . .
Did Russian interference happen ? Yes or no, Bob.
Hofstadter was writing about cold war paranoia. The Soviet Union was certainly spying on America, and trying to subvert our institutions. Nevertheless, that era is correctly remembered as a time of paranoia.
Russia is probably trying to influence things in America, as are most foreign nations. No doubt they spy on us too, as do a lot of foreign nations.
But Fred, your overwrought hysteria about “the enemy within” (a phrase taken right from the cold war era) is paranoia.
Sounded to me like he was describing Donald Trump and the alt-right!
Exactly right. There’s not much difference between the anti-Muslim paranoia and the anti-Russian paranoia.
Name one American agency that denies that Russia made significant attempts to disrupt democracy in the USA.
This is a quotation … But not even an argument. It just sits there, and as such is glorified name-calling.
Got a substantive critique? Are you ok with Russian interference? Did it not happen? Etc?
I’m not okay with interference from any foreign country. I hope we can eliminate it all. Are you naive enough to believe that eliminating Russian interference is the be-all and end-all of preserving our independence?
I think we should always be vigilant. But Fred’s post isn’t about vigilance, it’s about paranoia.
Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after me.
Paranoia is defined as baseless or excessive suspicion of the motives of others., Bob. Do you really want to argue that we have no grounds to question the motives of a pathological liar and a foreign adversary that 17 American intelligence community members tell us compromised our election ?
Trump has a history of lying, especially when he is not under oath, i.e. tweeting Comey has a history of telling the truth and he was under oath when he testified before Congress.
I believe Comey, of course, when he is talking about Trump. I’ve never said anything differently. For you to suspect otherwise is baseless and excessive.
So, you believe Comey on Trump but not Russia ?
Not on Russia, not on Hillary Clinton’s emails, and not on the Todashev murder.
Fred, I would ask the same question of you. Here is what you said about Comey’s FBI last year.
“. .. James Carville on MSNBC today {made} a blistering attack on the FBI for their innuendo – based witch hunt to crucify Hillary Clinton while letting the Russians and Republicans off the hook. He said the most important issue now is for us to ‘ take our democracy back now.’ WAKE UP AMERICA.”
I’m a little surprised at you, Bob. Are you attempting to forestall investigating whether or no Russia interfered with a rather feckless absolutism about how many others may or may not do it ?
I doubt very much, for instance, that a single prosecution will end all bank robbery. But that doesn’t mean we should end all prosecution of bank robbers. Which, frankly, is what I’m hearing in your argument, and I find it faintly ridiculous… almost as ridiculous as the notion that you would be the one to proffer it.
I get you might be a little peeved at fredrichlariccia who, it seems, has never missed an opportunity to substitute somebody else’s words and wisdom, for his own, in an apparent mistaken assumption that BMG is a lesser form of Twitter. I get that. But in opposition to him, you formulate somewhat ridiculous counter-arguments. When he drops the quotes and uses his own voice he becomes distinctly apocalyptic It can be frustrating. I get that also…
It doesn’t, however, mean that he’s wrong. I mean… I don’t particularly like that he thinks, all of a sudden, that Trump is the enemy, and we’re suddenly thrust into an existential crisis, when Trump is, to be honest, just a blunter, far less talented, and many orders of magnitude more desperate, version of Ronald Reagan. The truth is, we’ve been in an existential crisis since Barry Goldwater first gave people permission to be extremists… and that is just what many of them have taken to being, in the name of a fully-minted, 1952 version of America. Of course, Goldwater himself was apocalyptically anti-… you guessed it… -Russian… and would probably find the present pass both side-splittingly hilarious and depressingly sad, simultaneously.
The problem is that, In the long run, there’s no possible way that Trump and the Conservatives can win, but that doesn’t mean we all can’t lose… Personally, I think, that Trump is headed for a psychological meltdown that, ordinarily, would be on such a small scale as to be pitiful… except he has the access to the nuclear codes. The question isn’t Trump. Sadly, he’s lost. The question is the people around him. Those who are hoping, yet, to gain from proximity to him… those who see in his weakness their strengthening. It is in their hands, the fate of the nation, now.
OK, to be fair though, AuH2O was reasonable by comparison, and certainly competent and not a traitor.
“…reasonable by comparison…”
To be fair, by comparison with gibberish, that’s a grammatically correct sentence.
Although, to be honest, it is takin “fairness” to fetishistic degree to erase the clear, straight, line line connecting Goodwater’s GOP to that of Trump.
I’m actually not sure I agree with that assessment. He might have had a bit of an itchier trigger finger than appropriate (though he strikes me as the kind of guy who once in office would be mature about even that), but he was downright moderate on many of the things the GOP in my lifetime have gone to the wall for.
You make the mistake of comparing Barry Goldwater in 1964 to Donald Trump in 2017. The correct learning is that the GOP has careened into lunacy, not that Barry Goldwater was “moderate”.
Mr. Goldwater voted against the Civil Rights act of 1964, He offered the same sort of fig-leaf for his racism that some in the South still offer in their attempt to deny the reality that Civil War was about slavery. Mr. Goldwater cited constitutional concerns, and offers absurdly inflammatory rhetoric (emphasis mine):
Mr. Goldwater opposed provisions prohibiting racial discrimination in public accommodation and employment. He offers overblown rhetoric about the dire consequences if they should come to pass. This is not the posture of a moderate, then or now.
Mr. Goldwater publicly stated his receptiveness to using nuclear weapons in Vietnam, and chose Curtis Lemay as his running mate. Characterizing that as an “itchier trigger finger” is like describing melanoma as a skin rash.
Barry Goldwater was an extremist who, as petr observes, launched the GOP on its trajectory of right-wing lunacy. He was no moderate.
And if you want to see how crazy Goldwater’s campaign was in 1964, see if you can find some tape of the Republican Convention at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, and how they treated moderate Republicans. Old people like Tom and me remember.
Rocky was booed off the stage, not unlike how the Trumpians treated the far shittier Ted Cruz. Rocky would be a Democrat today, and it’s worth noting his nephew ran as one in WVA while his grandchildren have divested their fortunes from fossil fuels.
He choose New York Congressman Joe Miller as his running mate. Curtis LeMay was George Wallace’s American Party running mate in 1968. Just a historical footnote here, your point that he was on record favoring the offensive and tactical use of nuclear weapons is accurate.
@ Joe Miller: You’re absolutely correct.
You can see that Mr. Goldwater and Mr. Wallace occupy adjoining turf in my memories of the time. 🙂
Definitely wrong side of history when it came to the Civil Rights Act. Maybe he mellowed once retired and in the time our lifespans overlapped, but I distinctly recall comments favoring abortion rights and saying regarding gays in the military, “You shouldn’t matter if you ARE straight just so long as you can SHOOT straight, “as examples. If I had to choose between the two I’m going with Goldwater.
” History repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce.”
KARL MARX
Hofstadter’s article is an important contribution to the psychology of conservatism, on which a lot of work has been done. Bob misapplies it here. The John Birchers and others types Hofstadter refers to are much different than Fred in reasoning and attitude.
The extreme conservative lives in an epistemically closed universe and vigorously defends his view from uncomfortable facts. Fox News and Info Wars are the inheritors of the paranoid style.
We are facing an enemy from within, as Fred writes. It’s not the Russians, however. The United States is not immune to their attacks. Our media failed us. Our political parties failed us. The GOP is failing us now. We are in a weakened state. We are a more open, democratic country than Russia. We are not run by oligarchs and the secret service, but we have opened ourselves up to oligarchy. We see it in our millionaire senate. We see it in Sheldon Adelson and the Mercers and the philanthrocapitalists that use their money to change policy in the name of charity.
The ultimate danger, as I see it, is not Russia, it’s a global class of billionaires that rig our politics at the national and global levels to serve its interests. I’m not talking about a Davos-conspiracy, but a distribution of power that is becoming more clear. The Panama Papers offered a clue to what’s been happening. Trump’s money laundering is another clue. Russia actually subscribes to the ideology of this class and seeks to export it for its own benefit. We need to get to the bottom of what they’ve done, but we have plenty of work to do within to preserve democracy.
I can’t pretend to understand where the Lefties are coming from on Trump Russia. Matt Taibbi doesn’t know what he’s talking about on the issue. Period. The Nation/Stephen F. Cohen repeats Putin’s talking points, though I don’t mean to suggest they come directly from Putin or the FSB. Masha Gessen has started to back off her “nothing to see here” stance on the Russia connection and has started to compare Trump to Putin.
I don’t agree with all of this, but I think you’re much more right than wrong. Russian is one of many potential adversaries, but this has always been the case. There is a lot of money and a lot of activity from a lot of countries trying to influence the government, including our elections.
I don’t know why people keep accusing me of wanting to drop the investigation into the Trump-Russia connection because so far as I remember I’ve never said that. If someone can find a place where I did say that I’ll apologize.
What I object to is the general drift toward armed conflict, whether with Russia or Iran. I think there are people who would welcome a war. The U.S. has no reason to fight with either country. However, if the fate of civilization, democracy, or the American way of life, were hanging in the balance., maybe people can be convinced to fight.
There are always countries trying to influence each other. One of the reasons we have intelligence agencies is everyone else does. With that said, Russia has always had a formidable spy organization, before the Revolution and during the Soviet Union.
One of the people I read says Obama dropped his guard on Russia, which basically annexed part of Ukraine and took over Crimea.
As far as armed conflict goes, it’s not going to happen with Russia. In fact, Russia realizes they don’t have the resources for a ground war. Instead they are engaging in something referred to as hybrid war. The idea is to obtain your country’s goals with a mixture:
I object to armed conflict. I don’t think that’s where we’re headed with Russia. I don’t think armed conflict is the future of global conflict either. The United States, unfortunately, is taking its time understanding the limits of its military power.
Uprated since I think you articulated your views most clearly here, not that I necessarily endorse all of them. I am truly disappointed that Obama’s long term legacies on China and Iran are being undermined by this administration, and it’s something that isn’t getting enough attention in the press or from our own side. Th pivot to Asia and the Paris Accords served to simultaneously contain China’s nationalist tendencies while rewarding its liberal ones. Trump has been simultaneously outfoxed by China while also doing much to strengthen it with his incompetent policy shifts.
Similarly, Iran should be a natural ally against ISIS and is the best key we have to peacefully ousting Assad. It’s a far more liberal regime than Saudi Arabia-which is a hostile rising regional hegemony deserving none of our weapons or trade despite getting the bulk of both. It’s abuse of American allies like Qatar that Trump has abandoned is proof that more than ever, our foreign policy is designed by sheikhs instead of diplomats. Precisely since Trump sees himself in the former and disdains the latter.
We definitely forcefully disagree on Russia, I agree with Mitt Romney that it is our no 1 geopolitical adversary and said so back in 2012. We won the war against Al Qaeda and are going to win the war against ISIS. If we ditched the Saudis we could finally treat the Arab world with benign neglect. So Russia and its capabilities to disrupt our elections are deadly serious-and the continued undermining of NATO weakens our ability to contain Putins aggression.
Taibbi so rarely knows what he’s talking about. Another dude who substitutes flashy prose for depth. Not my fave.
I’ve warmed to Taibbi over the years. I think he can not know what he’s talking about (I don’t really have a position on that), and still be right that Democrats relying on sources in the intelligence community is a dangerous game.
There has been an absolute mountain of circumstantial evidence of Russian meddling even without the assertions of (former) top intel officers. What they’ve been saying is just more of the same. Taibbi — and others — go much further than a proper skepticism. The President *explicitly said* he fired Comey over the Russia investigation. I mean … I don’t know what else you need to be *extremely suspicious*.
I don’t disagree. I would just add that, because the stakes are so high, the level of skepticism has to be really high. Impeachment, even obstruction of justice — these aren’t small things.
Whoever first came up with the term “intelligence community” deserves some kind of George Orwell award for deceptive framing. Next we’ll have the “military-industrial community.”
There is nothing deceptive about referring to the Intelligence Community as the men and women of the 17 agencies of our government who risk their lives every day to protect us from foreign and domestic enemies.
I am biased as my late brother, Jimmy , served for 25 years in that community after serving honorably in the US Navy.
“Community” is awkward, but that’s the term.
We also have “the cousins” and the “Five Eyes.” The Brit’s call theirs “The Circus.”
Now Trump attacks a true patriot, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Purple Heart and Bronze Star with Valor. This from a draft dodger who got deferments for a bone spur as he defined his service as ‘screwing as many women as I could’. Despicable coward.