Thread by @JYSexton

Okay.

We need to talk about Obamagate, conspiracy theory as a defensive weapon, Reagan's revisioning of the Vietnam War, and how Donald Trump and Fox News are framing Democrats as traitors in order to deflect responsibility for the tragic pandemic.

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themuckrake.com/main/obamagate

To begin, the Obamagate conspiracy theory is complete rubbish, a manufactured narrative that Trump and his cronies are pushing to change the narrative and deflect their failures in the pandemic and help with the 2020 Election.

It is a complete and utter farce.

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Unfortunately, Trump is well-versed in manipulating the media and understands they can't help but amplify even his craziest charges and statements.

Obamagate is no different, and it'll keep rearing its head until November and probably beyond.

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The reason we're being inundated with this Obamagate conspiracy theory is because Trump is sinking in the polls and needs a distraction.

What he has learned in his past and the GOP's past is that projecting conspiracy theories to hide their failures is a working strategy.

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Already the GOP has rolled out a massive memo to its members that they should blame the pandemic and their failures on China and tie in Democratic challengers as wilful conspirators in undermining America, the economy, and damning Americans to agonizing deaths.

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The memo instructs Republicans to step up to the line on labeling Democrats traitors and navigates how to blame China while implicating Democrats.

This is weaponized conspiracy theory and has been the GOP's operating principle for decades now.

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It works because of the myth of American Exceptionalism, which tells Americans we are God's chosen nation and thus anything that ever goes wrong it has to be because we have either strayed from God's path or are being operated against by evil forces or traitors.

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American Exceptionalism is a nationalist myth that currently serves as the main tenet of faith in the Cult of the Shining City I write about in my research. It is a narrative wherein we are ordained to be God's vehicle and are beset by evil forces.

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newrepublic.com/article/157062…

The idea that America, as God's chosen nation, could only lose if outside, evil forces interfered or if traitors within sabotaged us was a major part of Ronald Reagan's political strategy in the face of national "malaise."

This is where the modern strategy emerged.

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One of the key actions by Reagan was to relitigate the Vietnam War, a national tragedy and blight. Reagan told Americans they could never lose a war unless they were betrayed by their own.

In this case, he said the people and government had let down the soldiers.

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Reagan's "Betrayed" narrative was a rehashing of Adolf Hitler "Knife In The Back" conspiracy that claimed Germany, as an exceptional nation, had only lost WWI because traitors and Jewish people had betrayed them.

It is a consistent story in militaristic societies.

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An odd thing happened.

America started, in the 1980's, celebrating Vietnam and its veterans, throwing parades and celebrations, embracing Reagan's new narrative that Vietnam had been a noble war and America had been betrayed, leading to its failure.

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You'll find, strangely enough, in these articles that Donald Trump was always present at these "belated celebrations."

He was there, pushing the Reagan narrative that veterans had been betrayed by their country, even as he had opposed the war.

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This myth of a betrayal in Vietnam was carried in popular culture, through movies like First Blood, where Sylvester Stallone played a veteran hunted down, disrespected, and castoff. He was a victim of the traitorous betrayal Reagan was pushing.

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In the climax, Rambo rages: "And I did what I had to do to win! But somebody wouldn't let us win! And I came back to the world and see all these maggots at the airport, protesting me. Spitting. Calling me babykiller..."

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It becomes immediately clear that Reagan had constructed a massive alternate reality wherein liberals and Democrats had actively betrayed the country in Vietnam, casting them alongside the Evil Empire and sinister cabals determined to knock America from its heavenly mission.

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The truth, obviously, was more complicated. The men behind the Vietnam War were unable to win the war because it was an unwinnable war, a revolution that could not be contained, no matter how many bombs were dropped or what tactics used.

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In Reagan's myth, however, it was a lack of patriotism or intentional sabotage that cost America Vietnam, meaning liberals and Democrats were against the American mission and were, essentially, enemies of the people.

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It's hard to explain the ramifications of the loss in Vietnam on Americans. It created a sense of failure that needed to result in "Win At Any Costs" militarism and malleable ideology, creating a new mode of operating that would become more and more troubling.

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You've heard this. Trump, on the campaign trail in 2016, constantly referred to Vietnam, saying we lost because we were afraid to do what we needed to do, because America had become weak, etc. That we needed generals like Patton who would do the ugly business of war.

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Trump even went so far as to push the false story of General Pershing, who he claimed committed disgusting war crimes against Muslims, saying America should follow his example in fighting the war on terror.

It was an appeal to fascism, pure and simple.

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Trump's appeal was that America had, like Reagan had charged, lost the will to win and was betraying its soldiers, people, and duty.

In this narrative, again, liberals the like were seen as weak and traitorous.

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With Obama, Trump has shifted from saying he's weak and ineffective to insinuating he's a mastermind, all of it with a focus on the same concept that liberals are weak and traitorous and determined to oppose America's mission of serving as God's chosen nation.

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Trump's accusations against Obama have always nodded toward the New World Order conspiracy theory that American leaders, particularly Democrats, are conspiring against America in favor of a sinister, satanic one-world government.

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This has included a claim that Obama founded ISIS, a consistent conspiracy theory on the Right that charges Obama and other traitorous liberals are using elaborate conspiracies to bring down the United States in order to bring about a hellish New World Order.

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What you need to understand is this: the message is that America, as an exceptional country chosen by God, would never suffer a failure.

In war.

In the economy.

In a pandemic.

America, like in Vietnam, had to be betrayed by a combination of foreigners and traitors.

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What is being hinted at, on Fox, on Hannity, in the Right Wing alternate universe, is a continuation of this feverish Knife in the Back conspiracy.

They want people to believe Obama and liberals are part of a world conspiracy to destroy the United States of America.

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The constant, unfounded accusations that this was a bio-attack or conspiracy, are part of a larger framework intended to shift blame for the coronavirus pandemic onto China and the Democratic Party, focusing on Obama as a sinister mastermind.

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The Right Wing alternate reality is a mixture of multiple, interlocking, feverish, irrational narratives. In this case, it is the Deep State mixed with the New World Order, appealing to paranoid followers who are evangelical apocalyptics and Trumpists.

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The message is bizarre, but it isn't new. The underlying message for decades has been that liberals and Democrats are conspiring against the United States. Obamagate is another chapter in a larger story that has always brimmed right under the surface.

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This was the essence of Birtherism, of the Deep State, all of it. The idea has always been that the New World Order is a plot against America between outsiders (usually Jewish people) manipulating minorities like Obama and unsuspecting Americans and liberals.

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It all sounds insane, of course, but this is the alternate reality that millions of Americans live in and it is the intentionally constructed narrative within which the GOP has won elections and Trumpism has come to fruition.

This is honestly what they believe.

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