Jul 11, 2018
For
over two years, the U.S. government has been investigating Russian
interference in the 2016 election - interference broadly considered
to be in favor of candidate Donald Trump. As a result, a bizarre
flip has occurred with the Right and Left: Polls show liberals now
trust the FBI and CIA, while many right-wingers – though by no
means all – suddenly act concerned about the so-called “deep
state.” Liberals have been turned into even more extreme hawks, not
just on the issue of Russia, but anything that shores up support
for American intelligence agencies broadly seen, fair or not, as a
check on the unhinged Trump administration.
Given
that so much of RussiaGate coverage is about the alleged
manipulation of Black activists, anti-fracking protesters, the
Green Party –and even Bernie Sanders supporters - to attack Hillary
Clinton and her campaign, the consequence has been the media, time
and again, framing Leftist dissent as de facto Russian
propaganda.
Today
we ask: what is the collateral damage of RussiaGate on left-wing
activists and media? Who does Red Scare 2.0 benefit, and how can we
be honest about "foreign influence" without losing our minds over
it?
In
Part I of this two-part episode, we are joined by
Jacobin's
Branko Marcetic.