What whistle is Trump blowing?
By Matt Taibbi’s full MAGA turn has involved a lot of self-humiliation, but this is a whole new level:
A series of brave martyrs who have given up their freedom to take on The Deep State. Well, except for that lady “leaker” (who I had nothing to do with sending to jail). She doesn’t count. https://t.co/fHzlGyIGqz— GLEM (Not Affiliated with Glem Phone) (@GlemGreenwald) August 14, 2022
Comparing Trump to Daniel Ellsberg? Are you shitting me? I suppose the fallacy here is too obvious to even needed pointing out, but liberal objections to the Espionage Act have focused on 1)its use to prosecute people for political speech and 2)its use to punish whistleblowers. I don’t recall any liberal outrage about it being used to prosecute, say, Robert Hanssen. Since Trump obviously does not fall into either category — he’s not being arrested for speech, and he’s the power, not someone committing civil disobedience to speak truth to power — we can quickly dispose of the entire basis of Taibbi’s latest round of Trump apologia.
Of course, the key to understanding the worldview of the anti-anti Trump “left” LOL is that they legitimately don’t think Republicans have any power. They inhabit some kind of alternate universe in which the English department of the University of Missouri has more power than the Supreme Court of the United States and the Oberlin student newspaper is more influential than Fox News. Seriously, he doesn’t think by far the most influential (not to mention destructive, if your politics are on the left) news source in America is worthy of any critical attention at all:
It should be noted as well that the political analysis is equally stupid — who is going to be upset by this investigation who wasn’t already 100% certain to vote for Trump if he’s on the ballot in 2024? But when you’re committed ex ante to the belief that everything is excellent news for Donald Trump it doesn’t matter.