Richard Grenell’s shadow foreign policy campaign is unsettling diplomats and threatens to collapse US interests
For Donald Trump, he is “my envoy”, the man apparently anointed as the former US president’s roving ambassador while he plots a return to the White House.
To critics, he is seen as “an online pest” and “a national disgrace” – and most importantly, the dark embodiment of what foreign policy in a second Trump administration would look like.
Meet Richard Grenell, vocal tribune of Trump’s America First credo on the international stage and the man hotly tipped to become secretary of state if the presumed Republican nominee beats Joe Biden in November’s presidential election.
A senior executive in the rightwing Newsmax cable channel, Grenell, 57, has crafted a persona as the archetypal Trump man, keen and ever-ready to troll liberals, allies and foreign statesmen in public forums and social media.
Grenell – who served as a rambunctious ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term – has carved a niche as the articulator-in-chief of a Maga approach to global affairs that appears to echo his political master’s voice.
Yeah I mean, I know why.
But it should be obvious to people when they see stuff like this and the heritage fund and other similar groups that it’s obvious propaganda efforts from the elites, and you think that alone would push people left.
But often times it doesn’t. And I don’t know how to fix that.
Well, people are trying to build the opposition to the conservative propagandized movements. Unfortunately, it’s hard thankless work that tends to get a lot of state repression. I think the movement to defend welaunee forest could have blossomed into something beautiful if the activists weren’t labeled terrorists and given RICO domestic terror charges :(
While I know it is pretty obviously fake, others don’t. While I can’t say for sure why that is, I do think it’s reactionaries recoiling to the new unfamiliar waters of the left’s attempt to rejoin mainstream politics after the fall of the Soviet Union, the crushing of left wing movements, and the rise of neoliberalism. Combine that with the crushing weight of late stage capitalism, mediocre leaders, and great propaganda and you’ve got the storm that I think is causing people to buy into the insane thinktank bullshit
Coming from my anarchistic perspective, I think forming movements based on solidarity and mutual aid is the best way forward. These movements are the most important when the state fails to address the needs of people (See cooperation jackson, or the mutual aid organizations that popped up after the state failed to address hurricane Katrina). If these movements are formed properly, it can be some of the most critical prefigurations for building a better society.
Unfortunately I don’t know how to counteract the radicalization of the members of the far right, but I do think what I outlined will help those who suffer because of it, and it will weaken the legitimacy of the conservative state that is beginning to seem inevitable.
The radicalization towards the right is what disturbs me the most. I am a blue collar working class person from a small town in a very conservative province, and I don’t understand at all how everything that’s happened has not radicalized people overwhelmingly towards left wing economics.
I blame most of it on culture war bullshit honestly, but a large part of me is just disappointed in how overwhelmingly stupid and easily manipulated a lot of my friends and family seem to be. The writing is on the wall as far as I can tell. I read a lot of books on economics and history and politics, and I don’t expect everyone to do that, but even before I got into reading about that shit I could tell that something was very wrong with how right wing pundits pushed their shit. It irritates me to no end having to explain these things in person to people I otherwise respect, see them talk about it and internalize it, and then two days later see them devolve right back into the same right wing propagandized mentality. Idk man, it’s disheartening.
I agree, I think the culture war bullshit is somehow effective at radicalization. It probably helps that anyone who is far enough right seems to get funding for their media projects, allowing their shit to spew on every form of media at all hours of the day.
I see the same thing happen, with pushing against far right talking points and having people see the flaws, such as CRT and having explained it is a often a graduate level legal course and then hearing them spew the same talking points with DEI in place of CRT. I’ve given up on deradicalizing my christofascist family, I don’t have the energy to deal with it :(
What irritates me is that I know whatever Ben Shapiro said on his show every week because the exact same words come out of people I know’s mouths that week. It’s such low effort, easily identified propaganda. I don’t understand why it works so well. Like I don’t get it at all.