Back to the Future: "Evil Communist" Bogeyman Returns!
(2020-05-01 at 12:46:21 )

Back to the Future: "Evil Communist" Bogeyman Returns!

United States pundits and politicians have with gusto taken to dusting off an old bogeyman - "evil communism" - in reference to China over the Covid-19 pandemic. Such retrograde rhetoric shows how politically bankrupt Washington,D.C. is.

Leading the charge is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who hardly ever now refers to China simply as "China" in media interviews. He continually and feverishly equates the nation with the "Chinese Communist Party". In recent weeks, going by the number of times the word "communist" has been heard across United States media one would be forgiven for thinking that we have been transported back to the Red Baiting days of the Cold War ca. 1950-60.

Fox News, the pro-Trump, rightwing Murdoch-owned channel, is the premier platform for this China bashing. Its hosts and guests are painting "communist China" as the "evil of our time". Mr. Pompeo and other obsessed anti-China hawks like Senators Lyndsey Graham, Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio, or Donald Trump aides like Peter Navarro and former aide Steve Bannon, are given free rein to spout rhetorical venom demonizing China. The Covid-19 pandemic seems to have unleashed pent-up hostility that was already lurking in Washington,D.C.

It is like watching a political parody of the sci-fi movie "Back to the Future". Though the present real-life rendition is far from funny. The Cold War reboot against China is careening in a dreadful direction towards open conflict.

It seems obvious what is happening.

President Donald Trump and his administration are scapegoating China for the social and economic disaster that the United States has incurred from the Covid-19 pandemic. With more than 63,000 American deaths in a matter of two months, over a million people infected - a third of the worlds total - and at least 30 million unemployed, the Donald Trump administration is seeking to blame China rather than be held to account for its own failings and gross incompetence.

This week President Donald Trump is pushing even harder on accusations that China is responsible for the disaster. He is trying to line up a legal case to make China pay enormous reparations, perhaps trillions of dollars. To this end, Donald Trump is touting a conspiracy that the novel coronavirus which causes the deadly Covid-19 disease was released from a laboratory in Wuhan, near the city where the outbreak first emerged in December.

Donald Trump assured United States media that he has seen evidence to back up his charges, but he refuses to provide details. There are now reports that his administration is pressuring United States intelligence agencies to find a link between the virus and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. (Echoes there of the 2003 Iraq War and the non-existent WMD farce.)

What is even more incendiary is that Donald Trump is insinuating that the Chinese government deliberately spread the disease as a political weapon to undermine his presidency. He claimed this week that China favors Democrat presidential contender Joe Biden and that Beijing "will do anything" to thwart Donald Trumps re-election in November.

This is insane politics.

For, make no mistake, Donald Trump is on a cynical, perilous path towards war with China. The accusations against China are preposterous. His conspiracy theory has been debunked by international scientific assessment. The virus was an unfortunate natural accident that happened to emerge in China. But if somehow United States intelligence implicates Chinese responsibility, as Donald Trump is gunning for, then the agenda for "punishing" Beijing will become implacable. China, which claims it is a victim of disinformation, will not tolerate the audacious baseless attack on its vital interests.

In order to pursue the "blame China" agenda, Donald Trump and his political and media acolytes are logic-bound to demonize China.

This would explain the dredging up of Cold War rhetoric denouncing China as a "communist evil". Donald Trump is betting on whipping up nationalism and anti-China xenophobia among United States of Americans who will, it is calculated, blame a "foreign enemy" instead of taking a hard look at the internal failings of the United States government, its capitalist economy and society.

The same devious dynamics pretty much applied to the original Cold War. Back then it was the Soviet Union which was the bogeyman to distract from the United States of Americas intrinsic problems of poverty, racism and imperialist wars.

There is still a toxic linger of that legacy as seen in the whole nonsensical "Russiagate" hysteria claiming that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential elections to elect Donald Trump.

Donald Trump has repeatedly scoffed at those claims, and rightly so, as "fake news" and a "hoax" concocted by domestic political enemies.

Ironically, however, Donald Trump is now using the very same grotesque gas-lighting tactics on the American public against China for his own ends.

The use of Cold War-type propaganda and psychological operations - demonization, baiting and conflict - demonstrates how bankrupt American politics is.

It was bankrupt then as it is bankrupt now.

But while the rest of the world has moved on, the United States political system is stuck deep in the past.

That is why it can not deal with present challenges and why, ultimately, it is doomed to failure. If that is, it does not end up starting a catastrophic war to fail us all.

Reprinted here from the "Strategic Culture Foundation" provides a platform for exclusive analysis, research and policy comment on Eurasian and global affairs. We are covering political, economic, social and security issues worldwide. Since 2005 our journal has published thousands of analytical briefs and commentaries with the unique perspective of independent contributors. SCF works to broaden and diversify expert discussion by focusing on hidden aspects of international politics and unconventional thinking. Benefiting from the expanding power of the Internet, we work to spread reliable information, critical thought and progressive ideas.