Two warmongering oligarchic parties are shoving the Overton window of acceptable opinion as far in the direction of imperialism, militarism and tyranny as possible.
Liz Cheney taking the congressional oath of office in January 2017 with her father Dick Cheney at right. (Office of Representative Liz Cheney, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com.au
Listen to Tim Foley reading this article.
Dick “Darth Vader” Cheney, has officially endorsed Kamala Harris for president. His daughter, Liz Cheney, has also endorsed Harris.
“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” said the former vice president in a statement, adding, “As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.”
Cheney was a charter signatory to the notorious neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century, and as vice president played a leading role in the George W Bush administration’s soaring warmongering, militarism and authoritarianism, including most famously the invasion of Iraq.
He has the blood of millions of people on his hands, and he should be living out the rest of his miserable life in a cage.
His daughter Liz is an equally bloodthirsty warmonger who has spent her career pushing for mass military slaughter at every opportunity.
After the Israeli assault on Gaza began last year she went on CNN to declare that all deaths which occur in the onslaught are “the responsibility of Hamas,” that protests against Israel’s actions are “anti-Semitic” in nature, and that the U.S. should escalate against Iran and Ansar Allah of Yemen because of their oppositional posture toward Israel.
The Cheneys join a growing list of formerly Republican warmongers who are migrating to the Democratic Party in droves to support Harris. Last month hundreds of staffers who served under Republicans George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney signed a letter endorsing Harris, saying that “re-electing President Trump would be a disaster for our nation.”
Hundreds of staffers that served under President George W. Bush, Arizona Senator John McCain, and Utah Senator Mitt Romney jointly endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday, writing that another presidency under Donald Trump would be “untenable.”https://t.co/6GrbOV9BBs
— The New Republic (@newrepublic) August 26, 2024
“Abroad, democratic movements will be irreparably jeopardized as Trump and his acolyte JD Vance kowtow to dictators like Vladimir Putin while turning their backs on our allies,” the group writes, adding, “We can’t let that happen.”
It is here worth noting that contrary to the narratives circulated in both mainstream Democrat-aligned media and mainstream Republican-aligned media, Donald Trump actually spent his entire term ramping up aggressions against Russia and helped pave the way to the war in Ukraine.
July 7, 2017: Russian President Putin and Trump on sidelines of G20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany. (Kremlin)
He also promoted many longstanding warmongering agendas against official enemies of the U.S. empire such as Iran, Syria and Venezuela. But even Trump’s insane hawkishness is insufficient for these freaks.
In June of 2022, author Sarah Kendzior made the following predictions on the Gaslit Nation podcast:
“I’m gonna wrap this up with a warning, which is that there is a new plan for our already broken two-party system. The plan is to have two parties. One, a batshit crazy MAGA party led by Trump or DeSantis that will bulldoze your rights. And the second one will be a far-right ‘respectable’ party led by Liz Cheney that will also bulldoze your rights. They will call the Cheney party the Democrats and pretend that a creeping capitulation to a right-wing agenda is some kind of act of healing bipartisanship.
…
When I mentioned this possibility on Twitter, someone wrote to me, ‘Liz Cheney is not becoming a Democrat.’ And I replied, ‘I agree. The Democrats are becoming Cheneys.’”
A prediction: pic.twitter.com/up4Ge7yna7
— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) September 6, 2024
This is more or less what appears to have been happening, and it actually started several years ago. During the 2016 Trump campaign a bunch of neoconservative warmongers switched from defending George W. Bush as a saint and decrying Barack Obama as an Ayatollah lover, and began pivoting to endorse Hillary Clinton instead.
After Trump won, this coalition between Democrats and Bush-era neocons grew even stronger with the creation of new Democratic think tank projects led by Iraq-raping neocons like Bill Kristol.
neocons saying it’s their kind of convention is a massive red flag https://t.co/RomzfqS7V4
— Mac (@GoodPoliticGuy) August 23, 2024
So now we’re seeing two warmongering oligarchic parties shoving the Overton window of acceptable opinion as far in the direction of imperialism, militarism and tyranny as possible under the leadership of some of the very worst people alive.
By doing this they ensure that these matters are never on the ballot, and that elections are always about issues the powerful are completely indifferent toward like abortion and trans rights instead.
Progressives who want healthcare and a ceasefire in Gaza are being dismissed and ignored while alliances are being made with the world’s most blood-soaked imperialists. Things have been shoved so far to the right that this election is now a showdown between the Trump Party against the Cheney Party, and no matter who wins, the empire wins.
Harris at a campaign rally in Glendale, Arizona, in August. (Gage Skidmore, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)
A lot of fuss will probably be made about election-rigging after the results are announced in November, with the loser declaring that the results are the result of Russian interference or Deep State vote tampering depending on who that loser happens to be. But remember this: the worst election rigging is happening right out in the open, to ensure that oligarchs and empire managers are happy with either outcome.
Caitlin Johnstone’s work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following her on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, YouTube, or throwing some money into her tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy her books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff she publishes is to subscribe to the mailing list at her website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything she publishes. For more info on who she is, where she stands and what she’s trying to do with her platform, click here. All works are co-authored with her American husband Tim Foley.
This article is from CaitlinJohnstone.com.au and re-published with permission.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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Cheney (s), the Bushs, and other RINOs are the establishment neoconservatives and neoliberals, and the democrats adhere to almost all they say and stand for which is mainly a New World Order USA global hegemony. And anything like Trump that says awful things like MAGA and/or questions this ideology is to be loathed and truncated.
ome-gawd, what does Harris owe Hilary? It will probably be paid in full and in blood before the new year commences.
Cheney’s reasons were that Trump “used lies and violence to keep himself in power.” In recent history, when has the R party ever really objected to that? And Trump “can never be trusted with power again.” There’s the tell.
Cheney is sure a Harris admin. will keep his neocon acolytes running the Dept. of State. The Ivy D elite is quite dependable and very capable of making the rational decisions ensuring empire by means of endless wars. Whereas Trump and his cadres are unpredictable, therefore untrustworthy to the neocons.
The dual aspect U.S. uniparty is firmly in the hands of a bellicose elite. That this serves the basic econopathy (hungry ghosts of terminal capitalism) and no bid war profiteers is a happy coincidence. Bet they’ll accelerate the rate of trickle up to strip what’s left of human and natural resources here and throughout the world. They’re planning on escaping the smoldering ruins by leaving for megayachts and private island refugia. Or Mars, named for the Roman god of war, obviously their deity.
Bush is the reason Trump was the last hope for someone other than Jeb Bush but the real deal maker for new culture war prophet was a del to hold up an Supreme Court nomination and it didn’t matter who the republican candidate was. That religious disorder got full advantage from it plus Reagan era party bonanza. The big world war came from GWB and our military Dept of Preemptive War is the Best Defense. (with a Pearl Harbor like event)
All crap and BS. Rhetorical posturing. Let us not forget who brought in so many neocons, ie. Zionists into our government. That the Cheney’s are all in for Kamala Harris is a huge red flag, Dick Cheney, who had directed George Bush’s campaign, named himself vice-president and introduced two dozens neoconservatives (ie Zionists) in foreign policy key positions before the 9/11 attacks. Whatever you do, don’t vote for Blue. They are sell outs and traitors to our country.
Admission: Life circumstances make Voting registration complicated…
That said, this (formerly) everytime elderly voter simply can’t be bothered…
“Throughout history there has been only one thing that ruling interests have ever wanted -and that is everything: all the choice lands, forests, game, herds, harvests, mineral deposits, and precious metals of the earth; all the wealth, riches, and profitable returns; all the productive facilities, gainful inventiveness, and technologies; all the control positions of the state and other major institutions; all public supports and subsidies, privileges and immunities; all the protections of the law with none of its constraints; all the services, comforts, luxuries, and advantages of civil society with none of the taxes and costs. Every ruling class has wanted only this: all the rewards and none of the burdens. The operational code is: we have a lot; we can get more; we want it all.”
-Michael Parenti
Rollback (h**ps://thirdworldtraveler.com/Parenti/Fascism_Pinstriped_DT.html)
On the back of our 1$ bill. Above the “Eye of Providence” which represents God, atop what should be an inverted pyramid at this point. It says “Annuit coeptis” or “He favors”, and below it says “Novus ordo seclorum” or “[The] New [World] order of the ages”
I don’t cry for America. I cry for the rest of the world. Since the end of world war 2 the American Governments have dominated and
controlled the world, usually by force, killing millions, for its material and strategic benefit. Biden provoked Russia into invading Ukraine; and when just a month after the war started Ukrainian and Russian negotiators came to an agreement to end the war, both
Boris Johnson and US Secretary of Defense Austin came to Kiev and told Zelensky not to proceed with the peace plan. Austin said
that “both the US and NATO are now committed to using the war to weaken Russia.” The weapons sent don’t end the war; just result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers, and thousands of Ukrainian civilians.
The US government is complicit in the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza, and increasingly in the West Bank. And now it
is targeting China, insanely jealous of it,
All morals disappear in the partisan culture war, and self interest prevails over the need to build a party that puts primary emphasis on peace justice and eco sanity and that manages to raise a broadly appealing choice and carefully limited set of goals. There is no coherent 3rd political force and attempts for such are actively suppressed by media and the 2 parties, so there is no serious contender with the 2 headed god of war.
Whichever one wins I will call it Caligula emperor of America.
A vote for Jill Stein will at least be a power vote. A vote for Dem or Rep is a throw away. The feeling from making a choice that means something is priceless. We, the people, need to learn more about power.
Thank you, Arlene! I’ll voting for Jill Stein again for the third time. Duopoly zealots in the DemoRAT and Repulsive parties tell me “it is a wasted vote because Stein can’t win” just like they told me in 2000 & 2004 that a vote for Ralph Nader, whom I voted for, was a vote for George W. Bush. I said, no, I didn’t vote for Bush Jr., but Ralph Nader!” It’s the narrow mindset which keeps the masses locked in the two-party system who still don’t seem to understand how the duopoly works to keep ALTERNATIVE party candidates out of debates and in some places, off the ballot.
It seems that the American people have forgotten that they ever had power of any sort. Which makes it easy for them because they can claim they didn’t know what was going on and that even if they did they had no power. They don’t even realize they have consumer power which leads me to the excellent comment that as good as 1984 was, even Orwell could not imagine that people would stand in line and spend their own money for devices meant to surveil them.
This phenomenon is deeply troubling but not new.
I think that in one of his books, Noam Chomsky said that Richard Perle had been re-assured by the actions of President Obama. If correct, not so re-assuring for the rest of us.
The only logical choice for president is Jill Stein – PERIOD.
True, but US politics is based on illusions, distractions, emotional manipulation, entertainment and religious-like zealotry, logic does not apply. US elections are about spending billions to convince people to believe that undermining their own interests is beneficial. Freedom is slavery and all that. If I recall, Chris Hedges called the US a suicide-death cult.
I see many very intelligent, informed people lose sanity and want to “vote” for the D or R brand of dystopia and genocide.
Johnstone is off the mark, on one point: “no matter who wins, the empire wins”.
Without systemic change, from the bottom up, it is now painfully obvious that the rot in the leadership barrel has spread, without exception!
It has contaminated them all, and contains only rotten apples.
The ‘die’ is cast!
Like all empire’s before it, the trajectory of the U.S. Empire’s international downfall is almost certain, unless there is a dramatic change in its character.
Reading only America’s more recent history, since the close of WWII, how likely is that to happen?
We have two astronauts stuck in space. 50 years ago that would have been a daily headline. The US is openly committing genocide. What else can I say?
Regarding Trump ramping up aggression against Russia, he didn’t have much choice after years of being accused of being a Manchurian candidate who was controlled by Putin. Any time he made even the slightest move towards normalization of relations with Russia, the media and political class went bonkers. They went absolutely ballistic when Trump had the audacity to sit down with Putin at Helinski. He was accused of treason and threatened with impeachment for merely talking to another head of state. The press in particular was livid because they weren’t allowed in the room to monitor the talks and make sure Trump wasn’t receiving secret orders from his master. The ‘Russiagate’ hoax backed him into a corner and forced him into a more bellicose position than he wanted to be in.
Back in 2016, the Orange Idiot actually had the guts to tell Jeb Bush that 9/11 was a debacle. Sadly, the Orangeman now cannot mention “genocide Joe/Kamala’s” butchery in Palestine as the Republicans are equally bloodthirsty. In fact, the Trump Zionists are eager to finish the job in the Middle East.
Forget about the corrupt political duopoly. It’s all show biz, ask Taylor Swift.?
Kudos, Steve. You got it right.
Oligarchs in two parts on the Republican side!!!! Hahaha! Who besides Geo Soros is puppeteering the Democrats. Certainly no one who has our best interests in mind.
Thanks Steve for what you wrote! Brave to do that even here on consortium news
Trump is not credible in any area, and is fully in favor of genocide, just like the Democrats.Both parties are addicted to bribes from AIPAC. Trump’s legal problems are his own making. Yes Russia-gate was a Clinton hoax, just like the border crisis is a right wing hoax. It is not the cause of our failing economy. Real wages in the US stagnated in the 70s while war spending and debt climbs out of control under both parties. Stop it with the delusions.
Agreed, Steve. Trump also seriously worked for peace with North Korea. He physically entered North Korea- no president has done that.
I’m rather tired of these essays where “both candidates suck, let’s be hopeless”. It’s lazy analysis.
PS…. The comments here , for Caitlin and the site as a whole are thoughtful, highly critically engaged and smart, very.
They are two sides of the same coin. Americans are the loosers anyway!
Caitlin, if your name wasn’t on this article
( I look forward to your every article)
I would know it was you because your unique and personal writing style is filled with truth and irony in every word, every sentence. Nailed it yet again with directed, targeted precision.
Only one party is the party of the neocons.
Biden and Harris got us back into the forever wars that Trump avoided.
New wars in Ukraine, Israel and now the neocon’s focus has turned to China.
A vote for Harris is a vote for more wars, and more wasted money we don’t have that will keep on building our ruinous debt.
A Harris vote is a vote for national suicide.
Bravo, James. You’re right!
Right, James.
Right On, Virginia.
Thanks.
Pretty much sums it up. I live in a battleground state. The only reason why I’ll vote at all and vote dem is to stymie the repub white “Christian” nationalists I grew up with in the south. I hate the evangelicals a shade more than I hate Cheney.
So much hatred in your life that you have to make difficult choices about who to hate more, Cheney, Republicans or Christians.
Hiding behind an alias is therefore not at all surprising.
There are religious nutjobs on both sides.
On the right, you have the MAGA Christians. On the left you have the Islamists. Pick your poison.
The D.C. Republican foreign-policy establishment types migrated to the Biden camp in opposition to Trump in 2020, too. The looong list of endorsements was on the Biden-Harris campaign web site at the time.
A few interesting footnotes:
During the Bush era, the Democrats would regularly have everyone believe that the Office of the Veep, under Dick Cheney was the heart of all darkness. Dubya was a t-shirt that read “somewhere in Texas a village has lost its idiot.”,. Dick Cheney in the VP office was all that was evil in the 2000-2008 stolen election era. This included, IIRC, a national security advisor to the Veep named Vicky Nuland.
By 2008, the incompetence and insider dealing in the Republicans had come to a head, especially in the case of Hurricane Katrina. The Republican brand had crashed and burned. The Republicans nominated McCain and Palin mainly because nobody else wanted to be the sure loser of the election. Most importantly, the money had shifted to the Democrats.
In 2000 and 2004, the Bush/Cheney machine cranked out then impressive dollar amounts for reported fund-raising. In 2008, Obama/Biden was now topping these records by a large margin. Meanwhile, McCain took public financing from the IRS form checkoff boxes because he didn’t feel he could raise more money on his own. The only ‘major’ candidate since Clinton-Dole in ’96 to do so. In 2008, the previously Cheney/Bush money had shifted to the Democrats, and in a big way.
Hillary got the Sec of State job as a consolation prize and peace offering from Obama. Vicky Nuland got a job in Hillary’s state dept. First as spokesperson (with her charisma?), and then as Asst. Sec of State for Starting World War III.
Vladimir Putin is NOT a dictator. That’s all.
He’s a very popular leader who’s been elected with serious majorities on multiple occasions. He’s stupidly branded a dictator by Western media bc he gave the finger to Wall St and rightfully jailed most of the 1990s parasitical financial oligarchs.
He has to identified as Dictator/Autocrat or whatever because he stands in the way of our being the hegemon of the globe. That’s why being globalist, inclusive, and anti-nationalist is so important to the democrats and the RINOs.
In the American version of democracy, the elites get to decide who is the ‘proper’ winner of the election. The election of anyone without the Wall Street Certificate of Authenticity is obviously fraudulent. When the ‘wrong’ candidate gets the most votes, we award the people’s choice the title of Dictator. The media owned by Wall Street tells us this, so it must be true.
Interestingly, there are a lot of these Dictators about, because for some strange reason, local leaders who stand up to the Americans and oppose them tend to be extremely popular with their own people. Go figure. It’s as if people want to paint “Yankee Go Home” on the walls or something.
Meanwhile, in America, 70% of the people tell pollsters the country is going in the wrong direction, but under American democracy they are unable to change anything important. The American people don’t even get to select a single question for the single debate. It is now as traditional as Apple Pie that American leaders are unpopular with their own people.
True, and can’t be said often enough. Fortunately, Caitlin agrees.
Funny how real dictators the US imposes on foreign populations are called legitimate while those who were elected by their populations in legitimate elections but refuse to be controlled by Washington are always called dictators. You have to have the political sophistication of a gnat to believe this nonsense.
And, unfortunately, there are a lot of gnats buzzing around. One cheering thing going on is the huge number of commenters online celebrating the collapse of the USUKI empire.
Re. dictators.
In Ukraine, Zelensky’s term as elected president came to an end in May, as did those of many, if not all, members of their parliament.
There have been no attempts to meet the Ukraine constitutions stipulation that new elections should have taken place by 31 March at the latest.
Zelensky is now effectively a dictator, something the MSM seems not to have noticed – but then, he is a western-backed dictator, which I guess makes all the difference somehow.
Meanwhile, Russia, Iran and Venezuela have held democratic elections this year – all three of them have been described as fixed by politicians and the MSM.