FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
NATI O NA L
When the Russians Moved Far Right
Congressman Don Beyer told me last week that his friend and fellow Virginian, U.S. Senator Mark Warner, has repeated numerous times in his company that the realities behind the alleged ties and collusion between Trump and the Russians are “far worse” than anyone not privy to classified information realizes. No wonder Warner has felt so frustrated in recent weeks as the congressional investigations into this matter have stalled. There are two stunning aspects to all this – absolutely stunning – that seem to be escaping most public discourse on the matter. First is the fact that Republicans are treating this whole thing like just another partisan standoff. To them, it is like a fight over taxes or some other area of policy making. But no, it is qualitatively FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS different! Do these people realize that they are covering up for an active operation by a hostile foreign power to disrupt and meddle with the sovereign U.S. government? If what they are doing cannot technically be called treason, it is just about as close to it as you can get. They are taking the same type of glib and disdainful attitude toward this matter as they did in trying to blunt Obamacare over the last eight years. But this isn’t about Obamacare! I shake my head when thinking about what the reputations of all these elected Republican sycophants will look like when the truth finally comes out and an entire major U.S. political party is implicated in the most brazen “invasion” of the U.S. and its democratic institutions in the nation’s history. Every day is a step closer to the facts of this coming to light, despite the relentless efforts of the Trump White House and its allies in Congress to stall, delay and torpedo them. This is shaping up to be far bigger than Watergate, the biggest threat to the sovereignty of the United States since the Civil War. Second, the other stunning aspect of all this is the way in which the Russians have deployed into the social fabric, as well as governmental institutions and elections, of the U.S. It surprises me that almost no one is commenting about how the Russian assets in the U.S. are all right wing racists and criminallytinged. Didn’t J. Edgar Hoover and Sen. Joe McCarthy go after the left wing as Soviet-connected Communists, and not the right? When did the Russians change their operational mode of infiltration, espionage and compromise of the U.S. system? It’s pretty amazing that they did shift, and one would think the subject would be a matter of keen interest. Alas, perhaps the Americans have become so distracted by all the false flags, football, and hockey and basketball playoffs and shallow TV sitcoms to even notice, much less care. This student of spy-counterspy covert ops matters, especially the cults that the KGB and the CIA once fought over in the 1960s and early 1970s, saw the sea-change in the Russian/Soviet mode of infiltration of the U.S. first arrive in the wake of the so-called “detente” that Richard Nixon instigated in the early 1970s. The era of “detente” led to an above-board massive influx of Soviet intelligence operatives into the U.S. in the guise of harmless immigrants. They situated in the Coney Island area of New York’s Long Island, which became known as “Little Odessa,” and the set up shop as a ruthless organized crime syndicate. They proceeded to roust out the residues of the old leftist-style proSoviet elements, and replace them with radical right wing cults, working hand-in-glove with Hoover in many cases. (The deluded Hoover saw this as a plus, since it meant weakening civil rights, anti-war and trade union movements that were the main thorns in the side of his corporate elite masters.) Through the 1970s, the KGB’s “paradigm shift,” with Hoover’s complicity, was completely overlooked by the normal watchdogs of our democracy. Some day a more informed look at key 1970s events that turned our culture over to the far right, including the “Reagan revolution,” may take place. An investigation could extend to the Jonestown massacre and the assassination of Harvey Milk.
Nicholas F. Benton
Nicholas Benton may be emailed at nfbenton@fcnp.com.
APRIL 27 – MAY 3, 2017 | PAGE 21
The Urgency of Ethnic Nationalism
A virulent nationalism, tinged with bigotry, is on the rise across much of the world. It helped elect Narendra Modi in India and sustains Vladimir Putin in Russia. It has vaulted Marine Le Pen to the final round of the French election. She is the underdog in the runoff, but it’s chilling to see that this weekend she seems to have won voters under age 34. In the United States, Donald Trump won the White House despite – and partly because of – his disdain for Mexicans, Muslims and African-Americans and his flirtation with anti-Semitic tropes. In the face of this NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE ethnic nationalism, citizens often face difficult choices. They have to decide how much of a priority to place on combating it. Should voters eschew their favorite candidate and vote for one with the best chance to defeat the nationalist? Should policy experts be willing to work in an administration that plays footsie with intolerance? Should a museum dedicated to fighting hate, like the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, host a hateful president? These choices often end up being more complicated than they first seem, and I don’t want to suggest otherwise. But a disturbing pattern is still emerging. Too many people – well-meaning people on both the left and right – have grown complacent about nationalist bigotry. They are erring on the side of putting other priorities first, and ethnic nationalism is benefiting. Let’s start on the political left. And, no, I’m not about to lapse into false equivalence. Ethnic nationalism is largely a force of the right. But the left needs to decide how to respond, and it hasn’t been effective enough so far. It has underestimated the threat and put smaller matters ahead of larger ones. After France’s first round of voting, the leftist candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon refused to endorse the last person who can prevent Le Pen from becoming president, Emmanuel Macron. A Le Pen presidency, to be clear, would likely tear Europe asunder, marginalize French citizens who hail from Africa and the Middle East and lead to a big expansion of security forces. It would be the biggest victory for Europe’s far right since World War II, by far. Yet Mélenchon still won’t back Macron — a centrist former banker who was until recently a member of the Socialist Party. It’s a classic case of political purism that may feel good, but can do grave damage.
David Leonhardt
Just look at the United States. Updated presidential vote totals show that Trump’s margins in Michigan, in Pennsylvania and in Wisconsin – which together would have swung the result – were smaller than the tally of Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. It’s impossible to know whether Stein’s campaign cost Hillary Clinton the election, yet it clearly hurt. In a very close race, parts of the American left aided Trump. I understand that this point enrages backers of Stein and Mélenchon. They have real differences of opinion with center-left candidates, and they want to win those debates. But the final round of an election that includes a viable white nationalist isn’t a time to hash out the future of progressive politics. It’s a time to defeat racism. A version of this dilemma also applies to the political center. Apolitical institutions have to decide whether they will treat ethno-centrists like Trump and Le Pen differently from other politicians. These institutions are right to resist becoming part of “the opposition,” because society needs nonpartisan institutions. But they also have to avoid compromising their mission. The Holocaust Museum has put itself in a tricky spot. It invited Trump to give a major speech Tuesday morning, much as previous presidents have done. Of course, previous presidents didn’t retweet neo-Nazi sympathizers, vilify Muslims or try to airbrush Jews out of the Holocaust. Maybe the museum’s leaders are confident Trump will use the speech as a turning point, which would be wonderful. But by conferring the museum’s prestige on Trump, those leaders have a new responsibility to call out future dog whistles from the administration. The Holocaust Museum has effectively invested in Trump. Finally, there is the political right. Most Republicans despise the notion that their ideology makes room for bigotry. Theirs is the party of Lincoln and of individual freedom, they say. Fair enough. But that history brings responsibilities. Today’s Republican Party has plainly made room for white nationalism, via Steve King, Steve Bannon, Jeff Sessions and Fox News, not to mention the president. If the Holocaust Museum is now invested in Trump, Republicans are really invested in him and his fellow nationalists. You don’t get to call yourself the party of Lincoln and stay silent when voting rights are abridged, hate crimes are met with silence and dark-skinned citizens are cast as un-American. I never expected to live through a time when bigotry would again be as ascendant. But we are living in that time, and it brings a new set of choices.