"Extremism" is the new communism. Against this extremism stands "Our Democracy," prepared and fortified.
Former British diplomat Mr. Alastaire Crooke:
Just as the hegemonic West arose out of the Cold War era shaped and invigorated through dialectic opposition to communism (in the Western mythology), so we see today, a (claimed) totalizing "extremism" (whether of MAGA mode; or of the external variety: Iran, Russia, etc.) posed in... a similar Hegelian dialectic opposition to the former capitalism versus communism; but in today's case, it is "extremism" in conflict with "Our Democracy"…
'Extremism'… plainly is being set up as the successor to the former Cold War antithesis communism.
We believe this Crooke fellow has hooked onto something. Perhaps not in fine detail, but in broad outline.
Did you decline vaccination? Did you ingest ivermectin? You friend are an extremist.
Did you cast your vote for Mr. Trump? You are an extremist.
Do you oppose military assistance to Ukraine? Once again you are an extremist.
You are undemocratic, fascistic, racist, sexist, gay-phobic, transsexual-phobic, immigrant-phobic, dictator-philic... and an altogether nasty fellow.
You are today's communist, today's bogeyman, today's mighty fee-fi-fo-fum.
The maximally vaccinated, the Trump-despiser, the Ukraine booster, this is the 100% American.
And one political party refers to "our democracy" so often it ought to take copyright on the term.
Yet whose democracy is it? What about the "vaccine hesitant"?
Does vaccine hesitancy find excuse in the actual science? A substantial body of medical literature indicates that it does.
The scale of vaccine-induced injury and mortality appears far from negligible.
Yet it makes no nevermind. You are an extremist if you begged off the shot.
Do Mr. Trump's various policy positions, say perhaps to cease mass illegal immigration strike bull's-eye with you?
You are an extremist.
Might you fear that military assistance to Ukraine may ultimately escalate to a nuclear sword fight with Russia?
You are the extremist not the fellow willing to risk the nuclear sword fight with Russia.
Now, we must allow for this possibility: You may be incorrect in each instance.
The vaccine may have benefitted you. Mr. Trump may pursue policies poor for America. Blackening Mr. Putin's eye may prove correct.
Yet does error equal extremism?
To the "extremism is communism" crowd among us... it evidently does. Mr. Crooke:
The West perceives itself as tacking to "the right side of History." "Winning narratives" essentially assert in secular format the inevitability of the Western eschatological Mission for global redemption and convergence. In this new narrative context, facts-on-the-ground become mere irritants, and not realities that must be taken into account.
Once again we believe there is justice here.
The West in general and the United States in particular are forever taking up crusades.
They are not religious crusades as they once were but moral crusades.
Its latest is a crusade against extremism, be it actual extremism or perceived extremism.
The new crusaders believe they may capture the secular Holy Land.
The new Jerusalem or perhaps the new Sodom and Gomorrah will fall within their grasp!
Again, Mr. Alastair Crooke:
[The new crusaders] may be imagining that a confrontation with extremism... will again, as it did in the post-Cold War era, yield an American rejuvenation. Which is to say that a conflict with Iran, Russia and China (in a different way) may come onto the agenda. The telltale signs are there (plus the West's need for a reset of its economy, which war regularly provides).
Central to good crusading is good storytelling. That is, propaganda is central to good crusading.
Good crusading must rely upon the late Lord Arthur Ponsonby's 10 rules of propaganda. They are these:
1. We don't want war, we are only defending ourselves.
2. The other guy is solely responsible for this war.
3. Our adversary's leader is evil and looks evil.
4. We are defending a noble purpose, not special interest.
5. The enemy is purposefully causing atrocities; we only commit mistakes.
6. The enemy is using unlawful weapons.
7. We have very little losses, the enemy is losing big.
8. Intellectuals and artists support our cause.
9. Our cause is sacred.
10. Those who doubt our propaganda are traitors.
Daily media coverage of the Ukraine war calls to mind three or more of these propaganda rules.
On some days six or seven. On others still, all 10.
Alas, there is often little substance in back of them. They break inevitably upon the hard rock of facts.
Yet the propagandist cannot let go. He must impose his mummeries by force if necessary, else he stand embarrassed before his fellows.
Concludes Mr. Crooke:
The West [has a] problem with "winning narratives": Their inherent flaw is that they are grounded in emotivism and eschew argumentation. Inevitably, they are simplistic. They are simply intended to fuel a "whole of society" common alignment. Which is to say that across MSM; business, federal agencies, NGOs and the security sector, all should adhere to opposing all "extremisms" threatening "our democracy."
We detailed these efforts by the "deep state" in yesterday's reckoning.
Upon the conclusion of Soviet rule, Russian political scientist Georgi Arbatov pitied not the Soviets but the Americans.
"We are going to do the worst thing we can do to you," he sneered.
Which was what precisely?
"We are going to take your enemy away from you."
He was correct. As we have written before:
A superpower requires an enemy as the policeman requires criminals... as the psychiatrist requires bedlamites... as the church requires sinners.
Absent an enemy it loses its direction. Its vigor. Its elan vital.
It is a plodding and aimless doofus.
The United States "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy," said Adams (John Quincy).
Of course the United States long ago took up the hunt.
It found monsters in Germany (twice), Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Iraq (twice) Afghanistan, Libya and Syria.
There is always another. And another.
Yet the new monster-slayer, the new crusader, need not jump an ocean to locate his monsters.
He says the United States "need not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy."
He locates them at home, and in their millions.
Thus he reaches for his sword.
"Long live Our Democracy," is the cry on his lips...
The Daily Reckoning