The appointment by the infantile psychotic in the White House of yet another infantile psychotic as his National Security Advisor may turn out to be one of the final nails in the American experiment, at least if Donald Trump has his way. Because what we have now is most assuredly not government of, by or for the people, but a government of what CNN’s President Jeff Zucker aptly described today as Republican “state-run TV,” a “pure propaganda machine” that does an “incredible disservice to the country.”
With the appointment of John Bolton to the position of National Security Advisor, an appointment which does not require Senate confirmation, we have explicitly entered the era of government by Fox News.
And this will end badly.
Brainwashed Fox News viewers may approve of someone like the cartoonish Bolton, since Fox News viewers generally view the news as entertainment, a pleasant means of taking out their aggressions and insecurities on Americans and others who they don’t have the capacity or patience to understand. Fox News viewers literally see the world in black and white, with nothing in between, because that’s what they’ve been taught by a network that exists solely to channel their anger as useful idiots for a tiny minority of ultra-wealthy Republican donors. But the Bolton appointment is not comedic, nor will it be “entertaining.” As explained in the New Republic, Bolton’s history of mindless, belligerent warmongering is well-established:
Bolton had been accused of manipulating intelligence during the lead-up to the Iraq War when he worked in George W. Bush’s State Department. Bolton later served for two years as the Bush administration’s ambassador to the United Nations. A neoconservative who believes the U.S. is being infiltrated by Islamists, Bolton can be expected to ratchet up tensions around the globe—and to create disturbances with allies and with members of both parties in Congress.
This person--who advocates a first strike against North Korea as well as war with Iran--owes his entire enduring existence to Fox News:
Bolton’s elevation illustrates the degree to which the president is influenced by the conservative infotainment sphere, most notably Fox News — where he has long been an on-air fixture. Bolton was, prior to this appointment, a marginal figure in Washington foreign policy circles since his departure from the Bush administration. But he got himself one of the top jobs in the country because of his savvy work in the world of conservative media and advocacy groups.
Fox News has become Trump’s reinforcing feedback loop, alternatively influencing, then praising his decisions. For a narcissist like Trump, this combination is irresistible. Just look how the propaganda org gushed when Trump appointed torturer Gina Haspel to the post of CIA director:
JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): They are going to have great leadership at State [Department], and I love this woman, I believe her name is Gina Haspel, who is now gonna lead the CIA. And, you know, people are saying that she was in charge of these black sites, where there was torture that was happening.
She was just following orders. She didn't design the interrogation program, she was doing what she was told to do, and she is going to be terrific.
Apparently Fox News would defend Adolf Eichmann if he was a Republican. Of course, we can expect even more praise for Bolton from Fox’s cadre of pundits, all of whom are devoid of any history of public service, as vividly pointed out by Ralph Peters, a onetime Fox News commentator who quit the company this week, excoriating the network’s slavish propaganda:
"Four decades ago, I took an oath as a newly commissioned officer. I swore to 'support and defend the Constitution,' and that oath did not expire when I took off my uniform," Peters wrote in the letter sent to a handful of colleagues. "Today, I feel that Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers. Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association. Now I am ashamed.”
Last week Peter Hegseth, a Fox News pundit, emerged as the “leading candidate” to head the Veterans Administration. Also last week we learned that Heather Nauert, another Fox News commentator, is being tapped to fill the fourth highest-ranking position in the State Department:
Nauert is yet another appointee who is remarkably unqualified for her new position. She has been the State Department spokesperson since April of 2017, but has no other diplomatic experience. She just jumped from Fox News to State. The highlights of her career as spokesperson consist of an awkward first briefing where she thumbed through a giant binder for an inordinate amount of time to answer questions, and a briefing in which she responded to a question about the specifics regarding the US’s involvement in Syria with, “I don’t know what some of you expect us to do.”
Meanwhile, this week Trump hired as his personal lawyer Joseph DiGenova, a “legal pundit” from—you guessed it—Fox News.
Trump is turning the country into an arm of this propaganda organization. And if you think America has been degraded now, by year’s end we will swimming in sewage. With the Bolton appointment, however, there’s a good chance that a whole lot of people—including Americans, North and South Koreans, and Iranians-- are going to get killed as a result. The only reason to hire someone like Bolton is to begin the process of initiating a war.
This needs to stop. On November 6, 2018, the process of stopping it will begin in earnest.