US Anti-Russia Sentiment Is Built On Racism, Xenophobia, Homophobia, And Demagoguery

Caitlin Johnstone
6 min readJun 22, 2017

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The Democratic party built its entire presidential campaign upon the argument that Donald Trump is a racist, xenophobic, homophobic demagogue, so the American people must therefore rally against him. Since losing the presidential election, the Democratic party has revised its entire political strategy around an argument that is steeped in racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and demagoguery, and called the American people to rally behind it.

Racism

James Clapper, former head of the “17 intelligence agencies” purported to have confirmed Russia’s attempt to interfere in the US election (a thoroughly debunked lie, by the way) has gone on record since his resignation making downright Klansman-like assertions about Russians being “genetically driven” toward nefarious behavior and subversion. This is not merely xenophobia; a position on a group’s genetic disposition toward subversion is not in any way different than saying that Jews are “genetically driven” to cheat or that black people are “genetically driven” to steal. This is outright racism, and it is coming from one of the primary intelligence architects behind the current Russiagate hysteria.

This was not some conversational accident or gaffe on Clapper’s part. Prior to his inflammatory comments on NBC News, Clapper expressed the same exact sentiment in a speech in Australia, saying, “But as far as our being intimate allies, trusting buds with the Russians that is just not going to happen. It is in their genes to be opposed, diametrically opposed to the United States and to Western democracies.” The advancement of this racist, eugenicist, Naziesque argument is a willful decision on Clapper’s part.

This man was the Director of National Intelligence. How did he make it all the way to the very top of the intelligence community while openly holding these insane, archaic beliefs about race and genetics? How did he receive promotion after promotion throughout the upper echelons of the military and on into the intelligence community as a proponent of this belief system regarding the one other nuclear superpower on the planet? Could it be that the people promoting him and pointing at him as someone to respect shared similar views? Is it not likely that Clapper’s irrational, racist position is shared by a large portion of the intelligence community he ran? The same community currently asserting that Russia sabotaged American democracy and plans to do so again? Is there any reason to believe the blatant racism exhibited by Clapper is limited solely to the very top of the intelligence community he ran?

Either way, these seeds have now been planted in the consciousness of the American public, blatant racism toward Russians is currently taking root, and it is not an accident that this is happening.

Xenophobia

Russia bad! Russia scary! Gather round for your two minutes of hate!

The prevalence of the hammer and sickle on signs throughout the so-called March for Truth earlier this month, along with top establishment pundits referring to Russia as a “communist” country, proves beyond a doubt that there is a deliberate attempt to reignite the vestigial xenophobia of the Cold War coming from these Democratic neocons. The red-under-the-bed scare tactics used so efficaciously to stomp out most of the social progress made by the last Roosevelt administration still reverberate in American culture, and the pilot light of that fear has remained lit. Generations of Americans are now united by the shared fear trauma that has been inflicted upon them by generations of propagandists, and they huddle together looking to the US power establishment to protect them from the fanged Red Menace across the sea.

Homophobia

Har, har, har, Trump and Putin are gay for each other. Trump’s mouth is Putin’s “cock holster”. Trump is “in bed with Putin”. Because gay sex is gross, right? Because two men kissing is revolting, right? Because homosexuality is an abomination, right?

Amazing how quickly Clintonists abandoned any pretense of socially progressive values the second it became politically convenient to do so. These vile neocons took up the time-honored banner of homophobia and began waving it frantically in an attempt to reify the completely baseless allegation that Trump colluded with the Russian government to win the 2016 election.

In order to get the public freaking out about what a disgusting thing this imaginary act of collusion is, establishment pundits and their loyal followers spent the first half of 2017 making homophobic jokes to help sow the seeds of revulsion and rejection. Gay rights activists have since condemned this behavior and shamed it into the fringes of internet discourse, and now I receive far fewer “hurr hurr, Putin’s dick in Trump’s ass” comments from establishment loyalists than I used to. But the damage was done, the seeds were planted, and establishment Democrats have forever shown us their true colors.

Demagoguery

Russians are the source of all your problems, and the benevolent Democratic party will protect you from them. Don’t like the president? Blame Russia. Worried about healthcare in America? Russia. Don’t like an opposing viewpoint? It’s Russian propaganda. Worried about the DNC weighing the scales for Hillary and openly declaring that it has no obligation to provide real party primaries? Hey, look! Look over there! It’s Russia!

There’s a word for this, Democrats, and it’s one you cited frequently as a reason to fear Trump throughout his presidential campaign. While Trump gained political power pointing at illegal immigrants and Muslims as the dangerous outsiders that he would protect voters from, Democrats have been trying to do the exact same thing with Russians.

Miriam-Webster defines a demagogue as “a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power”. Watch Congressman Jamie Raskin’s speech in the video above and tell me it doesn’t fit this description to a ‘t’. We have discussed the prejudices being used by these demagogues above, and we have gone over their false claims extensively in the Big Fat Compendium of Russiagate Debunkery. They are using lies, racism, xenophobia and homophobia to gain political support in the United States.

There are of course other elements that Russiagate is premised on, too (the lies about Russia’s behavior in Syria and the Crimean peninsula, for example), but it is undeniable that racism, xenophobia, homophobia and demagoguery have played an immense role in the promulgation of the Russophobic mass hysteria which has seized America today. America’s unelected power establishment and its corporate media arms are responsible for inflicting this hatred and fear upon our species and using it to manufacture consent for insane escalations with a nuclear superpower in order to shore up geopolitical power in a few key strategic locations. This is insane, it is evil, and it is unforgivable. I look forward to the day humanity snaps out of the lies these monsters have been feeding it and shrugs off the old power structures like a heavy coat on a summer day.

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