Journalists had to use the word “dogwhistle” over and over again when reporting on Trump’s presidential campaign because so much of what he did was designed as just that—a dogwhistle signalling, in his case, rabid alt- and far-right groups, letting them know that he stood with them, racism, violence, misogyny, and all. During the campaign and after his popular vote loss, activity from the worst kinds of rightist groups—neo-Nazis like Richard Spencer, the KKK as demonstrated by David Duke, and an assortment of other groups like the Oath Keepers and any number of other gaggles of ghouls with “Brotherhood” or “Aryan” somewhere in their names—all spiked. Suddenly we had more hate crimes, more disturbing xenophobic rhetoric. We can all still remember so many crimes committed against vulnerable populations committed in the name of Trump or his policies since January 20 because they are still happening.
But ever since the campaign, we’ve used “dogwhistle” less and less to refer to Trump’s actions, except in retrospectives on the campaign. We let it die after the inauguration speech, the American carnage speech, which painted in broad strokes an apocalyptic America attacked from all sides by foreigners, liberals, you name it, it’s killing us. But that was when we heard for the first time, or rather, for the first time all over again, the phrase “America First,” an obvious callback to the anti-Semitic movement against American involvement in World War II, now the current New Deal, Great Society, Square Deal, whatever, the process that will Make America Great Again. A dogwhistle for racists. But not anymore. We seem content to label anything this administration does overtly racist, vile, alt-rightist, whatever.
Despite that, the administration has made a plethora of bizarre moves no rationally self-interested administration would ever make for any decent reason precisely because of how politically suicidal they are. The shining example of this is Trump’s decision to fire James Comey, his asking his AG and deputy AG for rationale justifying that firing, and then firing him, all because of an FBI probe into his campaign’s ties with Russia. But that’s not the example. The true shining example came the very next day, when Trump met privately, with absolutely no press except a single state-sponsored Russian one, with a high-ranking Russian diplomat. There is absolutely no logic that can describe this as a good move, and, frankly, you cannot convince me that the move was made by Trump against advice from his pleading, desperate staff. Trump indicated that he had the meeting because he can’t say no to Putin, which makes it even more insane to believe that this was not a well-planned political move. All Putin tries to do is execute well-planned political moves.
And yet it seems as though the more evidence we get that something seriously smacks of treason about high-ranking Trump officials and possibly even Trump himself, the more lenient the administration’s stance seems to be on Russia. Trump is experiencing heavy fallout because of the above, then he goes on his first trip abroad and slams America’s NATO allies and refuses to endorse Article 5 despite aides’ attempts to make him—or so they say. Comey testifies against him, Sessions’s testimony in response flops, the Senate actually manages to pass a massively bipartisan resolution imposing sanctions on Russia that Trump can’t touch, and Tillerson decides now is the best time to work with Russia on cybersecurity, the very same American defense the weaknesses of which Russia may very well have exploited to give Trump the electoral college.
Say what they will, even the GOP’s top elected brass knows that if it’s true that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to interfere in the elections, it would be indefensible. Yet the administration is making sure that it reeks of collusion, going so far out of his way to do so as to get Trump, who can barely stand up except to play golf, to putter himself to a meeting with a foreign official (actually two, but we didn’t learn that until the Russian media told us) that he knew would not be a good photo-op for him. Can you imagine any reasonable instance where Trump would do something boring without there being a chance of it making him look good at home?
So why do it?
If the younger alt-right is clashing with the older far-right for not being quite racist enough, that is, if there are significant divisions in the right-wing factions that were emboldened by and most strongly support Trump, one thing beyond their hatred that seems to unify them is their belief that Russia is an ally. But that’s not all. Another unifying principle is their belief in the “deep state,” which is described as an enormously powerful secret cabal of incredibly leftist politicians that work to control every aspect of the government to prevent the Holy Crusaders of the right from attaining political or social power. According to these groups, the deep state is responsible for their many political failures and any attempt to silence them. It’s the boogeyman that haunts them. It apparently intimidates and blackmails every member of Congress (the same one that voted for the AHCA, I guess in righteous defiance of their leftist masters):
I estimate that President Trump would have to fire over half of the government employees in the various Federal agencies to rid his administration of communist-style subversives serving to undermine this administration.
If one is wondering why I was given this information and asked to spread the word, so to speak, I am compelled to say that there are many people in serving in Congress that want to take a stand but they feel outnumbered and intimidated by this modern-day version of the Pretorian Guard. So, they are resorting to contacting members of the Independent Media in an attempt to expose this corruption to the general public. It is certain that CNN is not going to be investigating.
There are other examples that I can look at and tell that a member of Congress has reached out a public figure for help in this area. Look at the fundraising letter that Chief Counsel for the ACLJ has sent out. He is soliciting funds so he can pursue legal action against members of the Deep State for their criminal and treasonous behavior. [...]
Jay Sekulow appeared on Hannity this past week and the two of them exposed specific members of Congress, such as Al Franken(stein), who are Congressional agents of the Deep State.
I can tell, without a doubt, that Sekulow has been approached by members of Congress in the same manner that I was. Consider the following fundraiser letter that Sekulow sent out in which he is soliciting funds to prosecute members of the Deep State who are breaking the law through threats, intimidation and Deep State leaks of classified information.
If the name Jay Sekulow sounds familiar to you, that’s because he’s now Donald Trump’s defense attorney. The same one Trump saw on Fox News and liked so much he had to hire him. The one that DailyKos’s xaxnar listened discuss the deep state as, ostensibly, part of his defense tactics for Trump.
The Trump team’s deliberate moves to make themselves reek as much as possible of collusion and treason, to any reasonable outsider not trying to bide time to get through tax reform, seem bafflingly self-destructive. What kind of intensely moronic, tone-deaf creatures would actually do all of these stupid, guilt-declaring things? It is entirely incoherent—to us. But what about to a campaign that not only knows that its base it populated by militant right-wing thugs but that is so aligned itself with those thugs that it seeks to empower them for their own sake?
The Trump campaign blew numerous dogwhistles for these groups, and Trump’s administration is continuing to do so by consistently demonstrating its solidarity with Russia (dashing in enough “security concerns” over Syria to play coy) and by continuing to insist that there is a swamp to drain, a deep state to destroy. In the meantime, it continues encouraging legislation—and Trump keeps signing executive orders—that fits in with the GOP’s overall platform, down to almost the letter. Centrist, moderate, and hard right politicians are happy, the general Republican electorate is happy on policy grounds (though Russia is biting into that happiness lately), and, most importantly, the far-right is delighted. Because the worse the investigation gets for Team Trump, and the more they double down on Russia, the deep state/swamp, the media, leftists, Democrats, liberals, the media, the more enthusiastic the alt-right becomes.
And that is where things get a little scary. Because we can all see the machine barreling down its inevitable path to an impeachment trial, and not only a trial but a loss for Trump, an ouster from the Oval Office. The thing is, that may be precisely what he and his administration want. Because the base Trump truly represents, the ones with guns and swastika tattoos (certainly not coal miners or “victims of undocumented immigrant violence” or whatever), believe they are being persecuted by a genuine government conspiracy. Everything else is almost meaningless in the face of what they believe to be the only thing that keeps them in their place. The deep state is the architect of “racism against whites,” the “destruction of the white man,” and the supposedly-growing acceptance of communism and socialism instead of rote fascism capable of excluding all but the white and powerful. This persecution is what truly unifies them in action and is why they are so quick to tone police anything critical of a rightist’s free speech but not a leftists, why they won’t condemn right-wing violence but excoriate left-wing violence, etc. etc. It is not because they’re hypocritical; rather, the far-right believes itself to be a victim of state violence infecting the government top to bottom and so their own violence is not an attack. The Portland stabbings were done in self-defense against an arm of the deep state aiming to violently suppress the right. Alexandria, on the contrary, was just the usual violence of the state against the right on full display, remarkable only for its honesty.
This brings me back to the question asked by the title of this blog. What if the Russian collusion investigation is a snare? Think of it this way: The far-right was newly emboldened by their political symbol’s victory. That he did not win the popular vote is actually more fuel for their fire: Of course he didn’t, the deep state wouldn’t let him, but they underestimated us. Now that their views are permanently codified in American presidential rhetoric from the inauguration speech, they feel that they are now poised to finally get rid of the deep state jailer keeping them shackled. But they know as well as we do that no such deep state exists. But that’s not a problem. Actually, it again works in their favor, because when Trump loses at trial and loses his office, they can blame the loss not on actual process, genuine wrongdoing (though again they likely do not believe Trump engaged in wrongdoing even if he colluded with Russians; that’s not wrongdoing), but rather on the myriad agents of the insane left that really and truly control everything. It’s not us, they can say, but them. And when you blame something that doesn’t exist, what’s going to happen? It’ll stay silent. It doesn’t exist.
But of course it’d be silent. What makes the deep state the deep state is that it doesn’t speak in the open.
So, if their man loses, becomes a martyr sacrificed on the altar of the deep state even while blowing all of these dogwhistles, do you think a newly-”victimized” group of white men with rifles will feel defeated, deflated, destroyed? Or do you think they’ll grow even angrier, even more convinced that immigrants and gays and women are being given too much power in America by undemocratic forces, even more militant in their operations against the powerless, the non-white? And do you think that it is lost on them that their liberal opponents have fewer guns? And do you think that they think they cannot install Trump, or whoever they want, as a dictator?
So what if it’s a snare, a gambit, a tactic designed to encourage the far-right to take over?