If any evidence existed to be found that Donald Trump had illegally colluded with the Russian government to rig the 2016 presidential election, that evidence would have been picked up by the sprawling surveillance networks of the US and its allies and leaked to the Washington Post before Obama left office.
Russiagate is like a mirage. From a distance it looks like a solid, tangible thing, but when you actually move in to examine it critically you find nothing but gaping plot holes, insinuation, innuendo, conflicting narratives, bizarre mental contortions to avoid acknowledging contradictory information, a few arrests for corruption and process crimes, and a lot of hot air. The whole thing has been held together by nothing but the confident-sounding assertions of pundits and politicians and sheer, mindless repetition. And, as we approach the two year mark since this president's election, we have not seen one iota of movement toward removing him from office. The whole thing's a lie, and the smart movers and shakers behind it are aware that it is a lie.
And yet they keep beating on it. Day after day after day after day it's been Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia. Instead of attacking this president for his many, many real problems in a way that will do actual damage, they attack this fake blow-up doll standing next to him in a way that never goes anywhere and never will, like a pro wrestler theatrically stomping on the canvass next to his downed foe.
What's up with that?
As you doubtless already know by now, the New York Times has made the wildly controversial decision to publish an anonymous op-ed reportedly authored by "a senior official in the Trump administration." The op-ed's author claims to be part of a secret coalition of patriots who dislike Trump and are "working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations." These "worst inclinations" according to the author include trying to make peace with Moscow and Pyongyang, being rude to longtime US allies, saying mean things about the media, being "anti-trade", and being "erratic". The possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment is briefly mentioned but dismissed. The final paragraphs are spent gushing about John McCain for no apparent reason.
I strongly encourage you to read the piece in its entirety, because for all the talk and drama it's generating, it doesn't actually make any sense. While you are reading it, I encourage you to keep the following question in mind: what could anyone possibly gain by authoring this and giving it to the New York Times?
Seriously, what could be gained? The op-ed says essentially nothing, other than to tell readers to relax and trust in anonymous administration insiders who are working against the bad guys on behalf of the people (which is interestingly the exact same message of the right-wing 8chan conspiracy phenomenon QAnon, just with the white hats and black hats reversed). Why would any senior official risk everything to publish something so utterly pointless? Why risk getting fired (or risk losing all political currency in the party if NYTAnon is Mike Pence, as has been theorized) just to communicate something to the public that doesn't change or accomplish anything? Why publicly announce your undercover conspiracy to undermine the president in a major news outlet at all?
What are the results of this viral op-ed everyone's talking about? So far it's a bunch of Democratic partisans making a lot of excited whooping noises, and Trump loyalists feeling completely vindicated in the belief that all of their conspiracy theories have been proven correct. Many rank-and-file Trump haters are feeling a little more relaxed and complacent knowing that there are a bunch of McCain-loving "adults in the room" taking care of everything, and many rank-and-file Trump supporters are more convinced than ever that Donald Trump is a brave populist hero leading a covert 4-D chess insurgency against the Deep State. In other words, everyone's been herded into their respective partisan stables and trusting the narratives that they are being fed there.
And, well, I just think that's odd.
Did you know that Donald Trump is in the WWE Hall of Fame? He was inducted in 2013, and he's been enthusiastically involved in pro wrestling for many years, both as a fan and as a performer. He's made more of a study on how to draw a crowd in to the theatrics of a choreographed fight scene than anyone this side of the McMahon family (a member of whom happens to be part of the Trump administration currently).
You don't have to get into any deep conspiratorial rabbit hole to consider the possibility that all this drama and conflict is staged from top to bottom. Commentators on all sides routinely crack jokes about how the mainstream media pretends to attack Trump but secretly loves him because he brings them amazing ratings. Anyone with their eyes even part way open already knows that America's two mainstream parties feign intense hatred for one another while working together to pace their respective bases into accepting more and more neoliberal exploitation at home and more and more neoconservative bloodshed abroad. They spit and snarl and shake their fists at each other, then cuddle up and share candy when it's time for a public gathering. Why should this administration be any different?
I believe that a senior Trump administration official probably did write that anonymous op-ed. I do not believe that they were moved to write it out of compassion for the poor Americans who are feeling emotionally stressed about the president. I believe it was written and published for the same reason many other things are written and published in mainstream media: because we are all being played.
The more I study US politics, the less useful I find it to think of it in political terms. The two-headed one party system exists to give Americans the illusion of choice while advancing the agendas of the plutocratic class which owns and operates both parties, yes, but even more importantly it's a mechanism of narrative control. If you can separate the masses into two groups based on extremely broad ideological characteristics, you can then funnel streamlined "us vs them" narratives into each of the two stables, with the white hats and black hats reversed in each case. Now you've got Republicans cheering for the president and Democrats cheering for the CIA, for the FBI, and now for a platoon of covert John McCains alleged to be operating on the inside of Trump's own administration. Everyone's cheering for one aspect of the US power establishment or another.
Whom does this dynamic serve? Not you.
If you belonged to a ruling class, obviously your goal would be to ensure your subjects' continued support for you. In a corporatist oligarchy, the rulers are secret and the subjects don't know they're ruled, and power is held in place with manipulation and with money. As such a ruler your goal would be to find a way to manipulate the masses into supporting your agendas, and, since people are different, you'd need to use different narratives to manipulate them. You'd have to divide them, tell them different stories, turn them against each other, play them off one another, suck them in to the tales you are spinning with the theater of enmity and heroism.
As a result of the New York Times op-ed, if this administration engages in yet another of its many, many establishment capitulations (let's say by attacking the Syrian government again), Trump's supporters won't see it as his fault; it will be blamed on the deep state insiders in his administration who have been working to thwart his agendas of peace and harmony. Meanwhile those who see Trump as a heel won't experience any cognitive dissonance if any of the establishment agendas they support are carried out, because they can give the credit to the secret hero squad in the White House.
Would a billionaire WWE Hall of Famer and United States President understand the theater of staged conflict for the advancement of plutocratic interests, and willingly participate in it? I'm going to say probably.
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Trump stages drama and tries to control the narrative so he can get his work done behind the scenes. The MSM really isn't paying attention to anything substantial that he is doing. They are just responding to the inconsequential bones that Trump keeps throwing them. It is better that they aren't interfering in policy.
Russia collusion is a total hoax. Trump is a red-blooded American. You may be too young to know what that means. We used to be very Patriotic and we used to believe in ourselves.
Did you miss the following statement in the article in the NY Times which reveals Trump's true achievements which you may feel are his real work behind the scenes?
"There are bright spots... effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more."
Put another way: effectively letting industry foul the air, water, and ground, let bosses run wild to crush workers, destroy unions... historic robbery by the very rich of everyone else...putting billions more $ into supporting a murderous American empire dedicated to surveilling and controlling every nation and person on the planet...
That much this article is a public service in revealing the attitude of "good" restrained self-righteous Republicans as opposed to wild cards such as Trump. It is like a rapist excusing himself and claiming superiority to those rapists who murder their victims.
I despise Trump, and it is good his worst impulses are being contained, but this NYT opinion piece shows the great evils the whole Trump administration and the Republicans in Congress and the right-wing justices on the Supreme "Court," are trying to carry out. If anything we should use this article to be more determined than ever to take away the power of Trump, Republicans, and whenever possible, their corporate Democratic accomplices.
I like how if you read the opt-ed, the author's concerns seem to be Trump's lack of ability to continue US foreign policy and keep the establishment happy.
Greenwald's assessment that Americans are rooting against their own democracy by supporting a "resistance" movement by unelected State officials is spot on:
Perhaps things are becoming so great that the media can no longer deny how great they are so they need to come up with an alternative explaination for all the greatness we have been seeing achieved, I wrote a reply to the op ed earlier today
this seems like classic misdirection, but from what?
From whom is exactly spot on. I say that because I've been saying it for months, Trump knows how to captivate a audience. I don't even think he's running the show, he's the distraction while Pence and the rest of the party work the agenda. Like Ryan said of how he ran the campaign, it was genius. Personally I don't care how he operates to achieve turning things around in this country, things just needed to be turned, like they say you fight fire with fire.
I think most Americans feel the same way.
I guess we will find out in Nov.
Well that is the narrative anyhow, that this election is actually a referendum on Trump and not actually people voting in their local elections for the candidates who are running. Unless of course the democrats lose then they will drop that narrative like it never even happened.
True.
Interesting perspective. I always just assumed the Russia stuff was true and they were just taking forever. They really are milking it aren't they?
Everyone just assumes Trump is a bumbling buffoon at every turn and we fail to acknowledge just how much experience he has being on TV. He takes that perception and leans into it for even more advantage.
Crazy stuff.
I'm not entirely convinced the collusion question is a mirage. There's a lot of noise from each camp and in the face of a remarkably hushed investigative effort. Considering how Trump micromanaged his own campaign, I find it highly unlikely that he didn't know or wasn't aware of any meetings with Russian officials, appropriate or not. For me, the question will mostly likely become whether the collusion was premeditated or covered up.
As for this mess of an OpEd… it's disgusting. The author wrote nothing substantial and as you suspect - it's purpose from authorship to publication is designed for nothing more than to tantalize and entrench. The NYT should be ashamed of themselves.
Interesting discussion and perspective. Think you touched on the one thing we know for sure, if the writer actually is a serior white house official; the article was a tactical move of some kind, and concern of the official when writing was not 'the people'.
Well done, thank you! I been thinking about this question since I woke up with a hangover after celebrating Killary's loss. Is Trump in on it or a complete tool? However, the Putin meddling thing struck me as absurd from the get go. And while I think you may be right that Trump is reading from a script, I'm a well trained and seasoned theatre actor and I say nobody's that good. They just wind him up and let him go knowing that there is absolutely no chance that he could out fox them. I say he's a complete idiot who doesn't even know he's being played.
Nice piece, Caitlin, I like how you get on roll every now and then, not only do you do a good job but you have people rolling in stitches.
The M$M is in it for profit and propaganda. They are an arm of the corruption in politics, because they tow the line and maintain the status quo by manipulating the data to correspond with whatever garners them the most ratings and thus, higher ad revenue. That's all it is---ad revenue, making money off the diluted and endless analysis that makes up the "News" today. It's not "News" it's one bit of news that is discussed, mentioned and cut up, edited and manipulated ad nauseum through out each news day/cycle.
"Network" has manifested itself and we have no Howard Beale to get the masses motivated. When 6 corporations own the M$M, we don't get news, we get endless analysis with a corpofascist bent to it.
"(which is interestingly the exact same message of the right-wing 8chan conspiracy phenomenon QAnon, just with the white hats and black hats reversed)"
That struck me, too. A comparision of that op-ed with the QAnon phenomena lends yet more credence to the proposition that these are both psy ops.