What Julian Assange and Donald Trump Have in Common

[applegrove]

By George Packet at the Atlantic

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/donald-trump-and-julian-assange-have-same-enemies/579811/

"SNIP.....

If it were just dumb luck that landed WikiLeaks in the Trump camp, then the only question would be how Republicans became so unprincipled that they would welcome the political help of avowed enemies of American democracy. But it’s always a mistake to explain Trump’s motives as sheer opportunism. In fact, the lift from WikiLeaks wasn’t dumb luck, and more than self-interest led to the embrace between Trump and Assange. For years, WikiLeaks was considered politically on the left, the darling of Western progressives. Then why did it organize its releases to inflict the greatest damage on Hillary Clinton? Why not go after Trump instead? Or, at least, Trump too? What made WikiLeaks a hero to Fox News and the American right?

The answer lies in one of the weirdest inversions of the past few years: Trump and Assange turned out to be second cousins. WikiLeaks and the Republican Party are distant ideological allies. They have common enemies. They use similarly nihilistic tactics toward similarly antidemocratic ends. In that dark place where the extremes meet, they benefit by undermining the same institutions. They despise the same mainstream press and the same nefarious “deep state.” Their supporters hate the same people. They hate liberals, and liberalism.

Four or five years ago, a few writers looked into the politics of Assange and two other famous radical leakers, Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald, and made a strange discovery: Many of their views shaded toward the farther reaches of the right. Their greatest animus seemed to be reserved for the Democratic Party and The New York Times. They had friendly things to say about the ultraconservative libertarian Ron Paul and the Republican Liberty Caucus. Assange eventually became an open mouthpiece of Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy. Snowden, after leaking thousands of secret documents to Greenwald and Laura Poitras, became the ward of and occasional apologist for the autocratic regime in Moscow. After the 2016 election, when reporters began to uncover interference by Russian intelligence, in concert with WikiLeaks, on Trump’s behalf, Greenwald used his wide influence to denounce and mock the very idea.

Defenders of the radical leakers said that their politics didn’t matter—what mattered was the dirty doings of the surveillance state that the leakers exposed. It turned out that both things mattered. And now that we’re living in Trump’s America, in what looks more and more like Putin’s world, it’s possible that the politics matters more.

.....SNIP"

I've said all along that unless there is some whistle blowing scandal information of wrongdoing, government should be able to decide what is public and what is not according to the laws of that particular western democracy.

[dalton99a]

1. Great article

[Scurrilous]

2. K&R

[Pachamama]

3. Fascinating....

I will include myself as one of the many on the DU and in general who at first applauded Wikileaks and also Greenwald's early writings....in the beginning. But over time as I watched what they were doing and saying, I questioned the actual motives and philosophy that drove them. With Julian Assange, I was always highly suspicious of him and I was disturbed about the sexual rape charges against him brought on by the woman in Sweden accusing him and his evading arrest and claiming it was essentially a "witch hunt" by the deep state against him. Greenwald shocked me, because for a long time I really believed he was a progressive and when he met with Snowden, I thought at first that he was trying to reveal to us all what we needed to know from Snowden and his purpose genuine....but somewhere he took a really bad turn and has never looked back and I saw Greenwald as none of the things I originally thought he was and that he somehow went to the dark side.

Snowden is an enigma for me....there were times in the beginning where I truly believed he was a patriot and did us all a favor revealing what he did. But with time, I began to see things differently, including that he likely led to the death of intelligence operatives in the field and harm to our national security. I thought at first he was a hostage in Russia and had no choice but to be hiding there. Now I believe that he whether willingly or not, gave the Russians and Putin our biggest secrets that have been used against us, including in the effort to subvert and interfere with our elections and that indeed, Snowden is a traitor and a coward and self-serving.

Ultimately in the end, I think none of those people have a moral compass and are all narcissists who want attention and who ultimately only think of themselves and money. So that is for me where they all intersect with Trump and the far right.

[applegrove]

4. Yes. And i do not doubt that some right wingers identified them as narcissists

and encouraged the transition. The GOP loves stealing our totems.

[robbedvoter]

6. Snowden is no longer an enigma - just look where he lives.

He was a Russian agent all along. The only thing I am still wondering is: was Greenwald already working for Putin when Snowden came to him, or was he coopted then? Anyway think of the circus we all offered them with Oscars and all...

[Julian Englis]

5. tRump & Ass-ange(r) also have sexual assault of women in common. n/t