Ugly (Liberal) Americans

I saw this tweet this morning and found it rather striking. You can say anything you like about China and its regime, you can and should disagree with the policies of the Chinese government in many respects. However, what you shouldn’t do, if you’re an official in the US government - prog - media complex, is treat the representative in the US of a major foreign power—on which the US depends to a great degree—as simply on the same level as any other dissenter from Prog received wisdom. You should not treat China’s ambassador to the US as if he were simply equivalent to a non-Dem US figure, to be accorded no respect and not allowed to express his views. The truth, of course, is that Margaret Brennan takes her cue from the behavior of US government officials toward foreign leaders, which mirrors Big Tech and Media behavior toward American citizens who don’t bend the knee to the Prog gods of the moment.

In all fairness, I don’t believe what we see below would have happened, say, on Tucker Carlson’s show, or on Steve Bannon’s Warrroom—to offer two examples of non-Prog media outlets. Joe Rogan wouldn’t have done that either. On non-Prog shows I’m confident that the ambassador would have been allowed to express his views and an attempt made to understand what his position was and what basis there might be for it. But Progs recognize no room for dialog with anyone who disagrees with them. It’s never about rational inquiry to arrive at reasoned insights. It’s about virtue signaling and beating into submission—bullying, forcing the person to bow down to the current Prog narrative, whatever that happens to be. It’s war by other means—rhetorical carpet bombing. Which explains the usual Prog designation of whatever issue is exercising them as “the moral equivalent of war.”

If the US ruling elite truly aspired to leadership in the world, rather than mere rule—moral authority rather than the mere exercise of power—the US Department of State would apologize to the Chinese ambassador for this treatment. Just as it should be apologizing for the statements of global non-entities like Lindsey! and Zhou himself. The reason is simple enough. Projecting an image of the US as Global Bully does not serve US interests. Nor will this behavior—matched by Blinken’s and Zhou’s arrogant, hectoring behavior toward Chinese officials—do anything to influence China’s positions. Rather, it will simply bolster support of most Chinese for their rulers, as representatives of the Chinese nation.

Li Jingjing 李菁菁 @Jingjing_Li

The arrogance, wow. They pretend they want to hear views from #China on #UkraineCrisis, but when interviewing China's ambassador to the U.S. @AmbQinGang, they constantly interrupt, with an attitude of interrogation, reluctant to let him finish a complete sentence.

Face The Nation @FaceTheNation

Why can’t you condemn this as an invasion?” @margbrennan asks China’s Ambassador to the U.S., Qin Gang of Russia’s Ukraine invasion. “Don’t be naive. Condemnation doesn’t solve the problem,” he says. https://t.co/Oe47GsJSTC

Face The Nation @FaceTheNation

Why can’t you condemn this as an invasion?” @margbrennan asks China’s Ambassador to the U.S., Qin Gang of Russia’s Ukraine invasion. “Don’t be naive. Condemnation doesn’t solve the problem,” he says.

It’s not a question of accepting the ambassador’s words, necessarily, at face value. But Brennan’s failure to engage in any meaningful way with anything the ambassador actually says, is a sign of the intellectual weakness at the heart of Progressivism. For example, the absurd contrast of Putin—free to move—with Zelenskiy—”in a bunker”—is easily seen as mere rhetoric by non-Americans: how many foreign rulers have had to descend into bunkers under a rain of US unilateral bombing, while US presidents vacation or weekend freely?

Power has corrupted the American body public. That has been Putin’s message to the US, as well. Rather than self righteous indignation in rejecting such criticism from Putin, a bit of introspection might be called for. Putin’s calls for mutual respect may not be simply self serving rhetoric. His advice to the West may actually serve us well in a changing global geopolitical environment.

Which brings me to this tweet, which illustrates the further moral corruption of American society:

Marc Andreessen @pmarca

Overheard in Silicon Valley: "The modern university is a political madrassa married to a trade school married to a hedge fund married to a sports team married to an adult day care center married to a visa law firm."