What the Media Gets Dangerously Wrong About the Trump-Putin Narrative
Ever since the election of Donald Trump as the next U.S. president at the beginning of November, the mainstream media has gone into overdrive, relentlessly pushing the Trump-Putin narrative as proof that the Republican billionaire is about to hand over America to the Russians. As SNL suggested last night, it’s the whole “Manchurian Candidate” scenario — only in this case, it’s the “Siberian Candidate” scenario involving lots of oil:
But let’s step back from a moment.
Let’s assume for a moment that Russia really did try to influence the U.S. election. Let’s assume that Vladimir Putin really did have a “personal beef” with Hillary Clinton, as she claims. Let’s assume that Russia knows so much about our political system that they can precision-target specific email accounts and hand them over at will to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks on a weekly basis.
Even if you’re willing to suspend belief and buy into that story, there’s one big thing that the mainstream media gets wrong about the Trump-Putin narrative: Russia is not America’s biggest enemy. And hasn’t been, for about the past 25 years, ever since the fall of the Soviet Union. That’s something Obama nailed back in 2012, when he mocked Mitt Romney: “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back”:
However, right now, you have two widely different groups — the old Cold War neocons reliving the 1980s and the disappointed liberal supporters of Hillary Clinton — both looking for a geopolitical villain to justify their actions. In some bizarre marriage of political convenience, they are converging together on their Trump-Putin narrative. From their perspective, Putin is the ultimate cartoon villain.
When in doubt, blame it on the Russians.
But take a look at what’s happening around the world, in democracies like Japan, France and the UK. Russia is suddenly cozying up to all of these nations at a time when the U.S. is losing ground with them. Look at Putin traveling to Japan and shaking hands with Japanese prime minister Abe just two days ago:
Look at the French voting for a pro-Russian candidate, Francois Fillon, in the center-right primaries at the end of November:
And, most importantly, look at the British voting for Brexit, despite alarmist cries that Russia was somehow subverting the referendum. (Again, when in doubt, just blame the Russians) Interestingly, the Brits also accused the Russians of “hacking” the Brexit vote:
Are we to assume that Russia has “Manchurian Candidates” all over the globe right now — in America, Britain, Japan and France?
Because, yes, this same story is happening all over the world right now, it’s not a uniquely American phenomenon where some political leaders like Donald Trump are starting to reverse their long-held opinions about partnering with the Russians. Look at China, Turkey, Iran or even, yes, Israel. Nations are making deals with the Russians, recognizing them as a new power source in the world.
What’s happening more broadly is a massive shift in the security architecture of the world, from a bipolar to a multipolar security structure. In short, the idea of a massive geopolitical clash between Russia and the U.S., as it was in the Soviet era, is dangerously misguided. What’s happening now is the emergence of alternative poles of power, where more than just two nations are dominant. At the very least, it’s possible to discuss a power triangle of the U.S.-Russia-China.
The means, unfortunately, the U.S. is no longer the world’s superpower hegemon, able to do whatever it likes, wherever it likes, all under the guise of “promoting democracy.”
But you won’t hear about this shifting global security structure on CNN. And you won’t even read about it in the Washington Post (which has gone dangerously off-the-rails with its Russophobia). And you certainly won’t see it on Saturday Night Live, which seems to be embracing this Trump-Putin narrative a little bit too aggressively, even going so far as to pull Melania Trump into all of this. (Leave her alone!)
What’s going to happen, though, is that we’re going to have a self-fulfilling prophecy, in which our fears of Russia are going to force the U.S. administration to do something about it, and that “something” is probably going to go well beyond other steps the U.S. has taken to punish the Russians — slapping punitive sanctions on them, banning them from the Summer Olympics, and taking them to task in the United Nations.
What happens then is anyone’s guess. But it’s a safe bet that the people laughing now at the SNL skit about Trump and Putin aren’t going to be laughing then.
