Conspiracy theory of the day:
Whenever one of America’s imperial adventures becomes insufficiently profitable, the MIC leaks parts of the truth in order to provide justification for retreat.
Pentagon Papers, Afghanistan Papers, etc.
Why else would the normally empire-uber-alles Washington Post print them?
Fuck fuck fuck.
Interesting thread:
Also note that, in the context of the early Cold War, “anti-communist agent” was frequently synonymous with “extreme right terrorist formerly engaged in collaboration with the Nazis”.
Yup, that’s a solid point.
OTOH, while the Dem establishment have been behaving as if Trump has a massive mandate, in rhetoric they’ve been frequently (a) acting as if the existence of the electoral college was some shocking new development that was unknown before 2016, and (b) using Clinton’s popular vote “victory” as a means of gaslighting away the relentless incompetence of the Clinton campaign. Both of which are highly counterproductive.
Since we seem to be having a moment of 2016 nostalgia…
Further rambling…
A loss to someone who wasn’t the most despised major party candidate in American history.
As you refer to later in your post: the loss to Trump was bad because it should have never been possible. It took an absolute perfect storm of corruption and incompetence to hand Trump the victory, and even then it was a close-run thing.
The retroactive hagiography of Clinton and the frantic gaslighting of both the events of the 2016 campaign and American history in general have been deployed in order to defend the status quo and prevent the reform necessary to meaningfully resist fascism. As always:
All right, I can see that perspective. If a swift hare races a tortoise, even a total victory is small credit, but any loss at all is a dramatic failure. Of course, I doubt you’d really consider Clinton to be such a hare, which leads to a strange combination – an epic defeat at the hands of someone who can only be credited with a feeble victory.
But putting it that way I guess does throw relief on the problem, in that the Democrats have worked out both halves backward. Acting as if Trump had won a great victory, as was my point, and as if they did not really suffer any great defeat, as has been yours. I hope the storm of 2016 won’t be repeated, but so far it won’t be for their lack of trying.
You see many comments along these lines:
But my problem with this sort of sentiment is: no. Joe isn’t a Republican, he’s a Democrat. He’s a perfect representative of what the Democratic Party actually is.
The USA has two corrupt, plutocratic, imperialist, misogynistic and white supremacist parties. Defeating the GOP is only half of the battle.
As I’ve been saying since 2016: the establishment Dems are performing a note-for-note recital of the performance of the 1930’s Zentrum.