Selective Outrage

As I mentioned in my last post, I was overcome by depression on Election Night. But my despair lifted after a few days. Then I began to wonder: Why had it been so easy for me to recover from my politically-induced anxiety? I hadn’t made a reasoned argument against fearing for the future of the Republic. Was I simply enjoying my privilege as a member of one of America’s most secure demographics: white, middle-class males?

I had to do some self-analysis and political analysis. I’m not someone who can just feel good and leave it at that. I have to know if I should feel good and, if so, why. (Maybe it’s a Catholic thing.)

It took a while to remember that, to me, all our presidents have been mass murderers (mainly through war or “humanitarian intervention,” but also by way of domestic policies that coddle the rich and throw everyone else under the bus). I forgot because I’ve had to repress my belief that America is an empire to maintain my middle-class lifestyle. The spiritual dissonance of believing that the U.S. is basically a huge Machine of Death, while being a cog in that machine (i.e., working in the corporate world), was too much to bear.

When seen in this light, having a sexual predator in the White House isn’t a big deal. From my perspective (and the perspective of most of the world), every president has a mountain of corpses to his credit. Trump’s sexual harassment and (alleged) assaults are like a bit of rubbish sprinkled on top of his (small, but growing) corpse-mountain. It’s not a good look, but, ultimately, the difference is cosmetic.

I think the main reason for Liberals’ distress is the fact that they’ve bought into the personalization of politics. In recent decades, the Mainstream Media (or “MSM”) have taught us to believe that political candidates should primarily be judged by their personalities rather than their policies. This technique is meant to distract us from real political issues. It’s also an effective way for the MSM to tar-and-feather candidates the Establishment doesn’t like and flatter those they do.

And, boy, do they hate Trump. I doubt any politician in American history has been vilified by the press as thoroughly as he. Granted, he deserves it. He seems to be a despicable human being. But a politician’s personal morality has no bearing on their public policies. Trump can’t wipe out an Afghan wedding party with a vulgar tweet or deny millions of people health insurance by raping a woman. Only government policies can do that.

Considering the many reprehensible people who’ve served in public office throughout American history and escaped serious media scrutiny, it seems unlikely that Trump would’ve attracted this barrage of condemnation if he hadn’t threatened the Establishment through his policy positions. The truth is he actually has taken some meaningfully subversive stands, although you wouldn’t know it from the media coverage.

He repeatedly bashed the decision to invade Iraq. He even criticized Dubya for letting 9/11 happen on his watch, a perfectly reasonable critique that no one in Washington has dared to broach. These positions are so repugnant to the Mainstream that he was booed by the studio audience in televised Republican debates for advancing them. Most important of all, his opposition to “free trade” agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and NAFTA was one of the few consistent stances in his campaign.

These are ideas that threaten the Establishment’s hold on power, because they undermine the geopolitical and economic foundations of the American Empire, and they’re popular. Therefore, the MSM must ignore them and focus on his truly wacky beliefs. His 2012 presidential campaign was built on his membership in the “birther” community, a right-wing cadre of conspiracy theorists who question the validity of Obama’s U.S. citizenship. This and other absurd convictions provide plenty of fodder for mainstream mockery.

The MSM has also latched onto the Russian interference story with a death-grip. Despite a continuing paucity of evidence, each new revelation is treated as the final nail in the coffin of the Trump Administration. They would much rather blame Trump’s election on the Russkies than on the glaring unpopularity of Hillary’s record and platform. (The claim that the 2016 Democratic platform was “the most progressive platform in American history” surely set FDR’s and LBJ’s corpses spinning, never mind McGovern.) Hillary is the living embodiment of the Washington Consensus, and her loss represented a stunning rejection of their agenda.

The MSM are clearly trying to drive Trump from office. This is a noble effort on its face, but their standards for what constitutes “unpresidential” behavior seem shallow and self-serving. They want to paint Trump as a vulgar puppet in a Russian plot, thereby preserving the status quo and providing propaganda support for the continuing US/NATO military buildup along Russia’s western border.

Trump should be toppled, but the best reasons to do so are for his intensifying the policies established by his predecessors and cherished by the Establishment: killing people overseas and oppressing the most vulnerable at home. Of course, removing Trump on that basis would weaken the Powers That Be, and the MSM won’t do that. After all, if they helped overturn the status quo, who would sign their paychecks?