’ve been saying Russiagate is bullshit from the beginning, and I’ve been called a Trump shill, a Kremlin propagandist, a Nazi and a troll every day for saying so by credulous mass media-consuming dupes who drank the Kool Aid. And I’ve only taken a fraction of the flack more high profile Russiagate skeptics like Glenn Greenwald and Michael Tracey have been getting for expressing doubt in the Gospel According to Maddow. The insane, maniacal McCarthyite feeding frenzy that these people were plunged into by nonstop mass media propaganda drowned out the important voices who tried to argue that public energy was being sucked into Russia hysteria and used to manufacture support for dangerous cold war escalations with a nuclear superpower.
Just think what we could have done with that energy over the last two years. Think how much public support could have been poured into the sweeping progressive reforms called for by the Sanders movement, for example, instead of constant demands for more sanctions and nuclear posturing against Russia. Think how much more attention could have been drawn to Trump’s actual horrific policies like his facilitation of Saudi butchery in Yemen or his regime change agendas in Iran and Venezuela, his support for ecocide and military expansionism and the barbarism of Jair Bolsonaro and Benjamin Netanyahu. Think how much more energy could have gone into beating back the Republicans in the midterms, reclaiming far more House seats and taking the Senate as well, gathering momentum for a presidential candidacy that truly threatens Trump instead of 9,000 primary candidates who will probably be selected by superdelegates after the first ballot when there’s too many of them to establish a clear majority under the new rules.
...Caitlin Johnstone
