The Real Fake News

We’ve been led to believe that the reason America is so fucked-up is because there are so many crazy Americans nowadays. I pretty much agree with that, but what drove us crazy? Is it violent TV, movies and video games? No, there’s always been that kind of entertainment, in peaceful cultures and violent ones. Is it the growth of crazy Right-wing media like FOX News and many online outlets? Maybe, but what motivates people to consume that content and, more important, believe it?

One reason is Fake News, and not the kind that the MSM (Mainstream Media) like to howl about nowadays. The biggest Fake News story of this century so far isn’t “The Big Lie” that Trump actually won the 2020 election (although that is a big lie). It’s Iraq’s WMD’s. That story killed over a million people in Iraq. The Big Lie has only killed a few people so far.

If you take the MSM’s word for it, you may believe that Jan. 6 was the first time we’ve had an attempted coup in the US. The truth is that the 2000 presidential election was decided by a successful coup, but that one was carried out by the Supreme Court, so it doesn’t count. Also, the MSM’s paymasters were happy to endorse the anti-democratic anointing of George W. Bush, hence the absence of outrage in the press.

The MSM are constantly lying to us, about the nobility of our wars and the extent of their death tolls, about the virtues of Capitalism and those who command the heights of the economy. But those lies are considered acceptable, civil discourse. They justify the American Empire and Capitalism. Therefore, they are true, according to the Gatekeepers.

But, increasingly, fewer and fewer Americans are enjoying the bounty of American Empire and Capitalism. As a result, the official pronouncements of the MSM are ringing hollow to more and more people. It was fine for the CIA to go around overthrowing foreign governments in the mid-20^th Century. Americans were too well-taken-care-of to question those coups. Now that Americans are struggling, we’re more likely to doubt the nobility of their operations.

This decades-long drumbeat of deception has eroded faith in the press, government and other mainstream institutions. What we decide to believe instead of the Official Version depends on what’s available. Right-wing beliefs have a lot of money backing them up. The Elite tend to be Right-wing, so they support the spread of those ideas. The ideas also support the system that enriches the Elite, so the cycle functions as a positive feedback loop.

The thing about positive feedback loops is that, eventually, they break down, and that’s what we’re seeing right now. The only alternatives to the mainstream narrative that have found purchase in our political system are bat-shit crazy Right-wing conspiracy theories like QAnon. They may not directly threaten the Establishment, but they betray a growing ignorance and incompetence that threaten to bring down the Empire (and maybe even Capitalism with it).

It seems like the only Americans left who are ready and willing to maintain the Empire are either cynical grifters (a la Donald Trump) or fucking nutjobs (like his followers). The Democrats fall into a third category: Liberals who benefit from the System but whose ability to justify it is getting weaker by the day. (I’ll address that in the next essay.) This is not an auspicious sign for continued global hegemony. It’s more like a harbinger of doom.

The Powers That Be are left with a difficult choice: either hand the reins to the grifters and their minions, or let an anti-imperialist coalition take over. It’s basically the same choice the German elite faced in the early 1930’s, and an imperial elite will always pick the Right-wingers, no matter how evil and/or insane they may be. Our job is to make sure the choice is not left up to them.