Monday, March 13, 2017

Trump Invades Syria While Liberals Obsess Over Microwaves

The strongest condemnations of Trump's actions in the middles east are coming from the right. The trend from the election continues: the left doesn't really attack Trump where it matters. It's always either something entirely baseless (like the mythical Russian connection) or related to some social grievance that is minor in the context of the President of the USA also serving as the Emperor of the American Global Hegemony. We're seeing Trump - who promised sane foreign policy (as did Obama) - appearing to turn neocon very early on. The left is supposedly antiwar. And they will lambast Trump for any perceived flaw no matter how trivial. Yet they leave this alone?

I can imagine only two hypotheses:
  1. they want to attack Trump but don't want to also indict Obama for his neocon foreign policy
  2. the left doesn't control their own narrative; it is set for them by the same establishment elites that drive neocon foreign policy
The first claim almost seems plausible, but there is enough evidence to discredit it. The left has no problem slamming Trump for doing the same thing as Obama. They were highly enraged that Trump would seek to halt immigration from a foreign country, which Obama did twice; and they cried foul when Trump limited access of a network news org, when Obama did the same; and now they're condemning his firing of previously appointed federal judges, even though Obama did the same. There is no credibility to the suggestion that on just this one issue the left is concerned with maintaining logical consistency.

So unless someone can suggest another viable hypothesis, the only answer seems to be that the left doesn't establish their own narrative. That has been obvious to those of us on the outside. If it wasn't intuitively apparent, there has been evidence to support it in the Wikileaks, which showed the media actively engaged in collaboration to establish a political narrative. However, this is the first time I've been able to compose something of a logical proof on the matter, or at least to shift the burden of proof onto the left. The argument is this: if you can provide no other viable hypothesis to explain this peculiar behavior from the left, then mine must be the correct one. Lack of a better idea is not a formal proof, but from a pragmatic standpoint if one viable hypothesis is all we have, then that's what we have to go on.

The left doesn't set their own narrative. It is set for them. It has been the most amazing phenomenon for me in the past year to watch so many smart, reasonable, and moral people just lap it up. We know in theory how propaganda works, that it influences public opinion. But to see first-hand the people in your own life become nothing short of brainwashed is troubling at the least.

In this case, the left has abstained from attacking Trump over his Syrian actions for just the same reason they didn't attack Obama for his own warmongering: the media hasn't told them to. If they were free-thinking the conclusion should be obvious. If we are putting boots on the ground in a country against their will, it is an act of war. Since we are a western nation it requires some legal grounding. None has been provided for US actions under Trump in either Yemen or Syria. If you're a cantankerous Constitutionalist like me or Ron Paul, then you believe the required legal grounding actually means a congressional declaration of war. If you're a liberal then maybe you think a UN resolution is all that is needed, or for conservatives some presidential war powers granted by Congress. But there is no such backing for a military incursion into Syria. The only thing we can say positively for the moment is that actions under Trump have been made directly against terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda and ISIS, whereas Obama was utilizing them to further a larger geopolitical agenda and to destabilize undesirable regimes.

Donald Trump was not elected on foreign policy. But for many of us he was our Hail Mary. Our last resort to change the system from within. If he turns neocon like his predecessors, it will extinguish any hope that America's foreign policy might be changed through the normal political process. You would think that on at least this issue we would have the liberals as allies in a common cause. But that is not the case. If our enemy is the hegemonic establishment, the mainstream left are their obedient foot soldiers.

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