I go back and forth regarding what to think about Wikileaks’ Julian Assange. On one hand his leak of Jon Podesta’s emails before the 2016 election was a public service–it informed voters of Hillary Clinton’s true attitudes and policy plans. On the other hand publishing documents supplied by Bradley now Chelsea Manning, exposed Americas military secrets and may or may not led the deaths of Americans or American-allies. But his latest release does not reveal political or military secrets, instead it is an Op-Ed explaining why the Democratic Party may be doomed. He argues that the self-destructive party is void of any kind of message. Instead, they it puts all its eggs in the Russian collusion basket.
Here is are the points Assange gives for the Dems downfall:
Why the Democratic party is doomed
By Julian Assange
1. The Democratic establishment has vortexed the party’s narrative energy into hysteria about Russia (a state with a lower GDP than South Korea). It is starkly obvious that were it not for this hysteria insurgent narratives of the type promoted by Bernie Sanders would rapidly dominate the party’s base and its relationship with the public.
Without the “We didn’t lose, Russia won” narrative the party’s elite and those who exist under its patronage would be purged for being electorally incompetent and ideologically passe. The collapse of the Democratic vote over the last eight years is at every level, city, state, Congressional and presidential. It corresponds to the domination of Democratic decision making structures by a professional service class and to a shocking decline in the health and longevity of white males, whom together with their wives, daughters, mothers and sisters comprise 63% of the US population (2010 census). Democratic campaigns have conspicuously promoted racial and sexual identity politics (for everyone but whites and males).
This delineated and alienated white and male identity grievance classes, pushing these majorities into the arms of GOP dog racial and sexual dog-whistling (53% of all men voted for Trump, 53% of white women and 63% of white men according to PEW Research). Unlike other industrialized countries US male real wages wages (all ethnic groups combined) not have not increased since 1973.
2. The Trump-Russia collusion narrative is a political dead end. Despite vast resources, enormous incentives and a year of investigation, Democratic senators who have seen the classified intelligence at CIA HQ such as Senator Feinstein (as recently as March) are forced to admit that there is no evidence of collusion. Without collusion, we are left with the Democratic establishment blaming the public for not liking the truth about what Hillary Clinton said to Goldman Sachs and blaming their own base for not liking what they said in their own emails about about fixing the DNC primaries.
3. The Democrat establishment needs the support of the security sector and media barons to push this diversionary conspiracy agenda, so they ingratiate themselves with these two classes leading to further perceptions that the Democrats act on behalf of an entrenched power elite. Eventually, Trump or Pence will ‘merge’ with the security state leaving Democrats in a vulnerable position having talked up two deeply unaccountable traditionally Republican-aligned organizations, in particular, the CIA and the FBI, who will be turned against them. Other than domestic diversion and geopolitical destabilization the primary result of the Russian narrative is increased influence and funding for the security sector which is primarily GOP owned or aligned.
4. The twin result is to place the primary self-interest concerns of most Americans, class competition, freedom from crime and ill health and the empowerment of their children, into the shadows and project the Democrats as close to the DC and media elites. This has further cemented Trump’s anti-establishment positioning and fettered attacks on Trump’s run away embrace of robber barons, dictators and gravitas free buffoon’s like the CIA’s Mike Pompeo.
5. GOP/Trump has open goals everywhere: broken promises, inequality, economy, healthcare, militarization, Goldman Sachs, Saudi Arabia & cronyism, but the Democrat establishment can’t kick these goals since the Russian collusion narrative has consumed all its energy and it is entangled with many of the same groups behind Trump’s policies.
6. The Democratic base should move to start a new party since the party elite shows no signs that they will give up power. This can be done quickly and cheaply as a result of the internet and databases of peoples’ political preferences. This reality is proven in practice with the rapid construction of the Macron, Sanders and Trump campaigns from nothing. The existing Democratic party may well have negative reputational capital, stimulating a Macron-style clean slate approach. Regardless, in the face of such a threat, the Democratic establishment will either concede control or, as in the case of Macron, be eliminated by the new structure.
While I disagree with his characterizations of people like Mike Pompeo, most of Assange’s criticism above is right on
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