On the fantasy worlds of Democrats trying to free Palestine from the river to the sea and Republicans trying to turn the White House into a puppet regime of Moscow, writes Caitlin Johnstone.
Harris v. Trump. (Greg Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons/ Collage – Cathy Vogan)
By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com.au
One of the dumbest things about U.S. politics today is the way both parties constantly attack each other for holding foreign policy positions they don’t actually hold in order to create the illusion that they have meaningful disagreements on foreign policy.
Donald Trump has been campaigning on the cartoonishly ridiculous claim that Biden and Harris have been unsupportive to Israel even as they continue to unconditionally support its genocide in Gaza, which is a perfect mirror of the way Democrats spent years falsely claiming that Trump is a secret agent of the Kremlin even as he ramped up cold war aggressions against Russia.
They need to campaign on these completely fictional disagreements regarding the enemies and allies of the U.S. government, because they do not actually have real disagreements regarding the enemies and allies of the U.S. government.
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley)
During a speech in Florida on Friday, Trump claimed his new opponent Kamala Harris “stabbed Israel in the back” by skipping Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocide apologia speech before Congress the other day. He contrasted her with himself, saying that he has “done more for Israel by far, than any other president” with measures like recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the illegally occupied Golan Heights.
“She doesn’t like Jewish people. She doesn’t like Israel,” Trump said of Harris, who (A) is married to a Jewish man, (B) has an established track record of groveling before the Israel lobby, and (C) released an obnoxious statement denouncing anti-genocide demonstrators who protested Netanyahu’s speech as anti-semitic terrorist supporters.
This is a continuation of the way Trump and Republicans have been absurdly claiming that Joe Biden has “abandoned Israel,” despite this president having delivered tens of thousands of bombs and thousands of missiles to Israel since Oct. 7 while bombing Yemen, Iraq and Syria to suppress foreign retaliations for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and providing Israel with limitless diplomatic and PR cover this entire time.
The self-described Zionist Biden couldn’t be more supportive of Israel and its agendas unless he was actually physically in Gaza personally shooting medical workers with a sniper rifle.
When Netanyahu met with Biden this past Thursday he told him, “From a proud Israeli Zionist to a proud Irish American Zionist, I want to thank you for fifty years of public service and fifty years of support for the state of Israel.”
Ahead of Netanyahu’s meetings with both Biden and Harris, a senior administration official told the press that there was “no daylight between the president and vice president” on their position on Israel.
There is no way to square this with Trump’s rhetoric about Biden and Harris being evil anti-semitic Israel haters. But that’s not going to stop Republicans from making these claims anyway.
This is much the same as the way Democrats and their allied media spent years shrieking that Trump was secretly working for Vladimir Putin, when the strongest evidence against this claim was always that Trump is an insanely hawkish cold warrior who spent his entire term actively working against the interests of Moscow by initiating the arming of Ukraine, shredding nuclear treaties, implementing wave after wave of sanctions against Russia, bombing and occupying Syria, undermining Russian energy interests and more.
It was a narrative that was completely divorced from reality, held in place by nothing but rote repetition and authoritative-sounding assertions. Which is why nobody who was actually paying attention to Trump’s real material actions was surprised when Mueller failed to indict a single American for conspiring with Russia at the conclusion of his investigation in 2019.
In reality both Democrats and Republicans are more or less in lockstep on supporting Israel and subverting Russia, and on every other major foreign policy issue in Washington.
But you can’t run a political campaign on “Vote for me, I’m exactly the same as my opponent,” so they need to invent these fantasy worlds wherein Democrats are trying to free Palestine from the river to the sea and Republicans are trying to turn the White House into a puppet regime of Moscow.
If both parties stopped pretending to be different from each other regarding the way the U.S. empire is run, Americans would begin to notice that they’ve fallen victim to a scam designed to trick them into thinking they have some control over how their government moves and behaves on the world stage.
Like the jewelers who all work for the same employer to create the illusion of competition in John Steinbeck’s The Pearl, Republicans and Democrats put on a fake performance of opposition to keep the locals from noticing that the real power in their country is completely unaccountable to their votes.
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.
I understand all of the discussions against what the Democrats are doing and the danger of what they are doing . Do not understand why you do very little coverage of Trump and GOP. It is largely critiques of the Democrats. Why is that?
This very article you are commenting on is critical of Trump. The vast majority of the mainstream media is flooded with anti-Trump reporting. They’ve got that covered while largely giving a pass to the Democrats, giving independent media a vacuum to fill.
“In reality both Democrats and Republicans are more or less in lockstep on supporting Israel and subverting Russia, and on every other major foreign policy issue in Washington.”
(That is slowing changing in the GOP as the entire ignored Ukraine story comes into view. Some Western Powers, led by President Biden, have made the colossal error of actively backing one side in an internal Ukraine conflict between pro- and anti-Russian factions. They actively supported the violent coup-overthrow of a democratically elected, friendly to Russia, President, Viktor Yanukovych, in February 2014 and then posed as friendly-to-democracy partisans when the provoked Russians eventually answered with invasion. As Yanukovych faced coup violence, “The White House said Joe Biden, the vice-president, spoke to Viktor Yanukovych on Thursday by telephone and warned him that the US was preparing to sanction officials responsible for the violence”, see hxxps://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/20/ukraine-dead-protesters-police. Post coup, the anti-Russia coup repressed the pro-Russian group, see Time magazine, hxxps://time.com/6144109/russia-ukraine-vladimir-putin-viktor-medvedchuk/.
In coup prelude, the German and Polish (Radek Sikorski, husband of career-Russia-critic Anne Applebaum) Foreign Ministers were in Kyiv negotiating with the elected government, aiding the anti-Russia faction. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Lady Catherine Ashton, had already encouraged anti-Yanukovych demonstrators in the Maidan, as had the State Department’s Victoria Nuland (who gave them sandwiches). She later said she also gave sandwiches to Maidan police. See hxxps://en.topwar.ru/65067-viktoriya-nuland-ya-privozila-v-kiev-ne-pechene-a-sendvichi.html.
Zelensky is coup heir. Incidently, Crimea was arbitrarily attached to Ukraine by Khrushchev and then carried into independence by Ukraine.)
As odious as all these shenanigans (putting it mildly) are, I never cease to admire how these people always manage to come with new outrageous lies, stories…What an imagination! Try ‘imagining’ something useful to society…
The difference is not between Trump and Harris on Israel, the difference is that the Evangelical Republican base is going to give Trump carte blanche to slaughter the Palestinians, while real opposition to the genocide exists in the Democratic base. So what’s better, the Republican policy of Racism, or the Democrat policy of hypocrisy and graft?
Simon Tisdall often uses his column in the Observer to attack western governments for allegedly not doing enough to support the Ukraine. It is ridiculous really. I got so annoyed at one point with his warmongering that I came close to cancelling my subscription.
I decided not to, however, on the grounds that it would be better to know what it was saying. Hardly a ringing endorsement, is it?
That’s exactly why I watch MSM as a way of a comparative to independent journalism and media. And yes I do include RT. And in doing so it is so clear who is credible over time and who is not.
Simon Tisdall is an embarrassment to journalism. The fact that he is the Guardian’s foreign leader writer, foreign editor and US editor for the Guardian says it all about the Guardian, yet another mouthpiece for western hegemony.
And Bill Gates who funds them.
Throughout the West, whenever there is an election, it always appears to be a competition to see who hates and despises their country and its peoples more.
Where are the policies for fighting poverty, improving education and healthcare ? No money for the people, only more and more money for war and repression.
Just read “Kamala Harris & the Future of America” (You have to buy it at Gumroad, the Ministry of Truth already scrubbed it from Amazon and Lulu) by Caleb Maupin. Reading the book and listening to him recently, the only distinction he makes between Trump and Harris are their sponsors, the Rich and the Ultra-Rich.
The Rich, or Trump’s backers “..include fracking companies, long-standing competitors with the big four super major oil companies. They also include individuals tied to military contractors and weapons manufacturers like Betsy DeVos, his billionaire secretary of education. Bernie Marcus, the owner of Home Depot, strongly backs Trump, as does Nevada real-estate giant Sheldon [Miriam] Adelson.”
Harris being an extension of the Hillary Clinton State Department under Obama, her sponsors are “The biggest banks, the four super major oil companies, and the silicon valley tech giants all incarnate a powerful, globally oriented liberal faction that opposes him.”
Trump’s sponsors are the poor lowly JDAM makers and casino billionaires just trying to make their way in a lonely world.
Harris’s backers are the Social Engineering, Necromonger, Stewie Griffin take over the world types.
All globalists at the end of the day, but they have different interests, or ways of going about making their daily bread.
I could see Stewie taking a shot at Trump. After reading the book, it wouldn’t hurt to check Kamala for Water Tower ladder shmutz either.
You can also pay $10 at Caleb Maupin’s website for an e-book. Started it, very well written.
Thanks, Caitlin. Always straight to the heart of the matter!
The only encouragement I find in all this is that the manipulators appear to be becoming more stupid, hence easier to see through.
Perhaps this is a case of over-confidence and self-congratulation. Prime example: Trump who has elevated his ear injury to angel’s wings as a super patriot who will save the nation and took a bullet for democracy.
This piece made me think of the Reagan era and “perception management”:
“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false” (William Casey, C.I.A. director under Ronald Reagan).
The main task of educating and encouraging critical thinking, alertness, considering is now left to the alternative press, as with this piece. May you continue to burn with this passion to expose ignorance!
Be honest…if Biden or Harris escaped an assassination attempt by an inch , hitting their ear , would you be calling it “an ear injury”? I would hope you wouldn’t in either instance.
What is your point?
Caitlin sums it up nicely. Both intelligence-insulting, BigMoney candidates will tell lie after lie, but both will continue the Genocide of Palestine, proxy war against Russia, ramp-up political/economic and military provocations against China, and continue to increase the likelihood of nuclear war. Both will continue anti-labor policies, pro-oligarchy tax codes, subsidies and tax breaks for corporate parasites and oligarchs etc. etc – but few will mention that.
Meanwhile, health care is “off the table”; housing crisis is “off the table, environmental crises “off the table”, cracking down on rampant corruption in both the public and private sector is “off the table”, monopoly market abuse and flagrant price-gouging and extorting the public is “off the table”, cracking down on financial fraud, stock buyback fraud, tax cheats, etc is off the table.
The US gov is a genocidal kleptocratic oligarchy – there is no way to “vote” against the interests of the Washington Consensus
It is a simplification but of the two, Trump probably, perhaps will go softer on Russia and take a somewhat less hawkish line than the Harris clan. After all, she comes from the Nuland, Klain, Sullivan, Blinken team that orchestrated the current violent mess in Ukraine by constantly baiting Moscow.
Of course Trump was instrumental in passing the recent $61 billion Ukraine funding bill and Harris has presided over a genocide of the innocent Palestinian people in Gaza, so there’s that.
How did Trump help pass the recent $61 billion Ukraine funding bill?
Trump played a significant role in getting the Ukraine bill passed. Journalist Michael Tracey has done the best work on this aspect to the bill’s passage. Mike Johnson went down to Mar-a-Lago to get Trump’s approval for the Ukraine war funding.
Here’s an interview that explains it:
hxxps://scheerpost.com/2024/04/25/michael-tracey-america-first-or-ukraine-first/
Didn’t he help persuade Mike Johnson to push it through?