Posts Tagged ‘promoting democracy’


August 7th, 2018

Listening to the radio while doing my morning exercises, I just heard an apologist for Trump describe his reimposition of sanctions on Iran as part of a reasonably coherent strategy to achieve regime change there by the means of economic pressure.  He went on to characterize this as a program to promote democracy.  To me, it was astonishing that nobody immediately called bullshit on this.  Yes, I am incurably naive and such things do astonish me.  But then again, this was NPR, where it is an article of journalistic faith never to challenge a right wing bullshitter.   How it promotes democracy to attempt, by use of our economic force majeure, to immiserate the people of a foreign, sovereign nation in the hopes that they will rise up and overthrow their government, was not explained.  Nor was it explained why it is considered reasonable to expect that such people, driven by poverty and oppression to destroy forcibly the existing governmental institutions of their country, would replace what they had jettisoned with something more Jeffersonian.  The man promoting this arrogant idiocy, in  almost complete albeit probably willful ignorance of history (Libya? France?  Russia?  China? Germany? etc.), spoke with great confidence, fluency, and truthiness.  Judging by recent polls showing GOP support for der Gropenfuhrer holding firm, not to mention his continuing enthusiastic reception by the Republican faithful at campaign rallies, there is no shortage of American Barnaby Rudges who can be fooled by this kind of thing.  It is a salutary reminder that even if the President were to choke on a pretzel, he is only the gross tip of a sizeable iceberg.