Shocker: US perfectly capable of insanity without any Russian influence!

Robert Bridge is an American writer and journalist. He is the author of 'Midnight in the American Empire,' How Corporations and Their Political Servants are Destroying the American Dream.

12 Aug, 2019 15:11

America, resembling a mental patient inside some government-run psychiatric ward, truly believes the Russian bogeyman is out to get it. What will it take to shake the superpower from its delirium?

The question must be finally asked – on the proverbial shrink’s couch if necessary – if America’s deep-seated Russophobia, which has been gnawing away at the nation’s brain since Soviet times, is symptomatic of some deeper psychological disorder. After all, a nation that is loaded to the eyeballs on antidepressants, armed to the teeth with military-grade weaponry and bursting at the seams with random violence could never be confused as a model sovereign state. So at the risk of sounding politically incorrect, has the United States of America finally cracked?

Insanity has been described, albeit a bit simplistically, as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Does that not sound remarkably similar to the situation in which Russia now finds itself with regards to the United States? A number of Americans, and not the least educated ones, insist on seeing the distant Motherland as the evil engineer behind every problem to befall their country.

When Black Lives Matters protesters, for example, took to the streets to condemn excessive police force, they were not motivated to action by their own volition, of course, but rather by the invisible hand of Russia; when Instagram carried advertisements for “LGBT-positive sex toys,” that was the dastardly doings of Russian hackers, attempting to “sow discord” from sea to shining sea; and when Hillary Clinton suffered defeat and humiliation against Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, it was not because she was the least popular candidate; nor was it because a majority of Americans were dreaming of a wall on the porous Mexican border. Of course not. The reason she lost was because Russia. Period. Full stop. End of story. 

Also on rt.com Here we go again: Rubio blames ‘Putin trolls’ for #ClintonBodyCount v #TrumpBodyCount Twitter war

Any person who doubts for a nanosecond the ‘Blame Russia’ narrative is hunted down by the thought police and consigned to the cuckoo’s nest of conspiracy theorists, which are now ranked as potential criminals according to a new FBI protocol. This begs the question as to what will happen to the mainstream media if it is found to be guilty of disseminating a dangerous conspiracy theory. You know, like Russiagate.

Even as the anti-Russia witch hunt was finally laid to rest by the two-year Mueller investigation, many Americans seem to slip further and further away from a safe space known as reality, imagining Russian fingerprints on everything where there are none. Even the perennial problem of American racism, which has been around since at least the days of the African slave trade, is believed to be the dream works of the Kremlin, according to none other than Kamala Harris, a Democratic contender for the highest office in the land.

According to Harris, “Russia exposed America’s Achilles heel” of racism as a way of getting Americans “going at each other.” Now, thanks to such interference in the country’s domestic affairs, the issue of race is a “national security issue,” the leading Democrat warned. 

According to such thick-headed arguments, many decades of US racial tensions – from the Civil Rights era, to the Rodney King riots, to the OJ Simpson murder trial, to the Black Lives Matters marches – are all of little actual consequence. The real problem is Russia flaming racial tensions on social media. It takes a very special kind of mind to believe such nonsense.

Russia, the one-size-fits-all scapegoat, can even be blamed for the apparent suicide of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein inside of a US federal prison. It is not difficult to imagine that Epstein – a wealthy financier who hosted members of the political elite at his private island in the Caribbean, where tales of sexcapades with underage girls are grabbing headlines – was wanted dead by numerous well-connected individuals. Yet apparently that obvious idea never entered the brain cavity of Joe Scarborough, talking head at MSNBC, who peddled a treacherous conspiracy theory shortly after the news of Epstein’s death broke.

A guy who had information that would have destroyed rich and powerful men’s lives ends up dead in his jail cell. How predictably… Russian,” he tweeted to an avalanche of scorn. Will the FBI be showing up at Scarborough’s home any time soon to ask him a few questions? Somehow I doubt it.

Also on rt.com Top MSNBC host links RUSSIA to convicted pedophile Epstein’s death

The non-stop anti-Russia campaign, however, which amounts to nothing less than vulgar racism, extends beyond the borders of politics and media into the world of entertainment.

Consider the curious case of David Crosby, from Crosby, Stills and Nash, which, by the way, is not a Washington think-tank devoted to Russia. Mr Crosby, 77, is an iconic singer-songwriter from the drug-infused 1960s counterculture movement. A two-time inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he enjoys well-deserved fame for his musical – as opposed to his political – achievements. So why on Earth is the mainstream media giving this entertainer a large stage to spew his ill-founded opinions on Russia?

Basically, the Russians take hold of any division in our society – racial prejudice, class war, fear of vaccines, any division that has two sides – and they work it,” Crosby warned in the Daily Beast. “They… say awful stuff about whites, and then they turn around and play white supremacist KKK crazies and say we should ship all blacks back to Africa. They do it with every issue they can. Their plan is to divide us and… render us helpless.

The article goes on in a similarly insane vein, repeating long-debunked cow bunk as to how Vladimir Putin had “kompromat” on Donald Trump in the form of a “pee tape,” which is why “Trump is so completely under the control of Russia,” and other such gibberish. 

Russians would respond to Crosby by asking why, with all this control they purportedly enjoy over the White House, does Trump continue to expand NATO up to Russia’s welcome mat, while continuing with an aggressive sanctions campaign against Russian companies?

Also on rt.com Boris Johnson is a Kremlin agent too, because he talks to ‘Russian oligarch’ who hates Putin. What?

If such unfounded comments prove anything, it is that the full-scale media assault against Russia has worked, and many people are convinced that the Kremlin is awake at night cooking up new schemes to divide Americans against themselves. 

My personal take on all this madness is that the liberals understand they have little chance of unseating Trump in 2020. Their candidates, as well as their platforms, inspire no confidence whatsoever. I would guess they fully comprehend their desperate political state and that is why they continue to push the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy theory, which ultimately makes them appear ridiculous. Never mind what it is doing to the bilateral relationship between the two nuclear-armed countries.

Indeed, if by some unpredictable fluke of political nature the Democrats do legitimately win in 2020 – and I emphasize the word ‘legitimately’ – I shudder to think what will transpire then between the US and Russia.

@Robert_Bridge

Like this story? Share it with a friend!