The Rise of the Liberal Conspiracy Theorist

[babylonsister]

The Rise of the Liberal Conspiracy Theorist
Louise Mensch’s loony Trump fantasies fill a craving the left didn’t know it had.
May 24, 2017 Cover Story


You may have heard on the internet last week that, according to “multiple sources close to the intelligence, justice, and law enforcement communities,” the marshal of the Supreme Court had commenced the sacred impeachment-notification rite—you know, the one you learned about in civics class, in which the marshal marches to the White House in a cool costume and tells the president that proceedings for his removal have begun. “The notification was given, as part of the formal process of the matter, in order that Mr. Trump knew he was not able to use his powers of pardon against other suspects in Trump-Russia cases,” Louise Mensch explained on her website Patribotics. She added, “Sources have confirmed that the Marshal of the Supreme Court spoke to Mr. Trump.”

Earlier this month, Mensch and Claude Taylor had reported for Patribotics that “separate sources with links to the intelligence and justice communities have stated that a sealed indictment has been granted against Donald Trump.” While the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution forestalled Trump’s immediate prosecution, Orrin Hatch—the federal government’s “designated survivor”—was already receiving copies of security briefings to ensure “a smooth transition of power.” Meanwhile, Paul Ryan awaited arrest for racketeering.

For those of us who haven’t yet found a great hiding spot behind the gold curtains in the Oval Office, it’s impossible to know with certainty what’s going on in the Trump administration. Mensch’s blog and Twitter feed, larded as they are with double secret indictments, SCOTUS marshals sounding the horn of impeachment, and Russian spies in every desk drawer, invite all of us into the White House through a side door, one that’s accessible only via the 11th dimension. Sources with links to the intelligence, justice, and literary communities tell me that Mensch’s overheated, conspiratorial prose is very easy to mock. After her Supreme Court marshal “scoop” started to crawl across the web, pundits ridiculed it as the “saddest fanfic ever” and “another hot scoop rooted in finely granular knowledge of how the U.S. government does not operate.”

But Louise Mensch shouldn’t be dismissed as a crank with a Wi-Fi connection. In March, she penned a widely publicized piece for the New York Times titled “What to Ask About Russian Hacking.” Her reporting—well, some of her reporting—has been confirmed by the Times and Washington Post, and she gets cited in tweets by celebrities, DNC staffers, and congresspeople. Last month, Keith Olbermann alluded to a bombshell she’d dropped claiming Carter Page had ferried a tape from Washington to Moscow—a recording that allegedly featured Trump reciting a series of promises to shift U.S. policy in a Putin-friendly manner in exchange for Russia’s helpful interference in the 2016 election.

Mensch is the paranoid bard of the age of Trump. While more sober outlets reel from the president’s madness and question whether the sky is blue, she deftly weaves plentiful, narcotic tales about Russian infiltration. She has become a new stock character in this shambolic White House opera: the liberal conspiracy theorist, remaking a certain corner of progressive discourse in the image of Breitbart News and Infowars. She is a mirror for the left’s Hitchcockian fantasies and an avatar of our political dysfunction, a symbol of how far off the deep end one has to travel to reach a land beyond believability. According to the Post, Russian propaganda may have beguiled James Comey into bungling the FBI’s probe of Hillary Clinton’s private email server. If this is the reality of 2017, then where is the fringe? It’s a place where Anthony Weiner is a Russian operative, and where Vladimir Putin pulls the strings of Black Lives Matter.

more...

https://redux.slate.com/cover-stories/2017/05/louise-mensch-and-the-rise-of-the-liberal-conspiracy-theorist.html

[titaniumsalute]

1. Well I couldn't agree more

[SticksnStones]

2. Why is Louise the one called out?

Claude Taylor has been right by her side the entire time. Andrew Laufer agrees and retweets just about everything Louise writes. Taylor gets a single mention in this article, yet has just about as many followers...

But it's Louise that gets called out. When I push back on the Lousie pile on, it's somewhat reflexive of a lifetime lived where women are an easier target.

Read Louise, don't read Louise I have no dog in that fight...but if the goal is to discredit fringe Russian conspiracy theorists on Twitter I wish the standard was held a bit more uniformly.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Because she was a Tory MP and Rupert Murdoch employee?

When you have a shit reputation due to your career choices, it'll stick to you.

[SticksnStones]

5. I don't think that's a solid enough answer

It works as an excuse, but it's not a solid enough answer as to why, when trying to tamp down Russian conspiracies run amok, Louise is served up while her male counterparts are given a pass.

It's the same reports. Taylor often tweets, "we" are about to drop something big. The 'we' being he and Lousie.

But she gets crap. She's called a loon. He gets a gofundme.

One of these things is not like the other.

[Blue_Tires]

13. For the record, quite a few prominent conservatives

openly hate and oppose what Trumpism has done to their party...

Why is that so incomprehensible to you?

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. For the record, you're quite happy to call women 'ratfuckers' and say

they have never been on our side, and start threads on DU to get your message out. I think you have a double standard. https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029109565

Louise Mensch hates Bernie Sanders. Tweets like this are part of what makes her an unreliable arsehole:

Link to tweet

[Blue_Tires]

17. Let's not throw "double standards" around, my dear

lest you wish for me to start digging through your archives, too

And for the record, since you did not read closely enough: I did NOT call Cassandra Fairbanks a "ratfucker", I said she pulled off a ratfucking operation... Surely you can debate me without putting words in my mouth, can you not?

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. She's not a ratfucker, she just pulled off a ratfucking operation

You're a joke. That is one of the most pathetic responses I've ever read on DU.

Digging through your archives? That's an active thread. Shit, if you're that ashamed of it, then you shouldn't have kicked it less than an hour before replying to me.

Fuck knows why there's so much support on DU for a self-promoting ex-Tory MP. This place ain't what it used to be. When someone points out that David Frum is a Bush-supporting fucker, no one gets up in arms and says "but he's ours now!!!!".

[FBaggins]

4. She has a higher profile than he does

She has been a public figure (elected to UK parliament) and published articles in several papers.

Not a "journalist" by my standards... but well ahead of Taylor.

[grantcart]

20. Because she works for Rupert Murdoch?

Because she has a long history of trying to create online businesses that have failed and she is now monetizing these unsubstantiated nuttery?

That she alone has posted things that can't happen in our system? The Marshal of the Supreme Court has nothing to do with impeachment. No grand jury has ever indicted a President due to separation of powers and she states that it has already begun.

That she is very transparently trying to take over Breitbart following by posting obvious ridiculous posts like "Putin had Breitbart killed?

Show me where Taylor has done any of these things.

More to the point Hannity and the others, who work for NewsCorp, have only one out "liberals are falling for fake news" and here we have Mensch who works for NewsCorp posting obvious fake news. She has even said that everything on her Tweet is "feelings" and shouldn't be considered with "facts".

She isn't getting called out because she is a woman she is getting called out because

a) no one can touch the volume of obvious fake reports that she does
b) she is the only one that has a Pay option to help her with her work
c) she is the only one that works for Rupert Murdoch who is posting crap that helps validate what other NewsCorp on air people are saying.

I also don't believe that anyone else, Claude Taylor or anyone has charged Malcolm Nance lying about writing his universally praised book. Should I assume that the reason that Louise Mensch didn't think that he actually wrote the book is because he is an African American?

[wildeyed]

23. That Schindler guy actually works for Jared Kushner's rag.

He got fired from his real job for tweeting dick pics. I still follow him on Twitter and find his posts interesting, but I take it with a BIG grain of salt. That entire crew is a bit nutty. I take them ALL with a big grain of salt. But yeah, not sure why Mensch has the biggest target on her back.

[joeybee12]

6. Bull

I'm not a fan of hers but wholesale disregard is sign of an infantile mind

[bigtree]

7. whether one believes Mensch, or not

...the effort to discredit her is wedge politics, even if that's not the overriding intention.

Whatever Mensch says, or whoever repeats it, isn't going to be a determining factor in Russiagate. That scandal will rise or fall on the preponderance of evidence, and on the willingness of the national legislature to confront Trump on it, not on what she discusses, or what we discuss here.

Besides, all of this Mensch bashing looks a little silly next to the love-fest here over Brennen. Other republican-oriented figures have also been embraced for their resistance to Trump, or for their roles in that effort, intentional or not.

Understanding who these folks are is important, recognizing that their backgrounds or efforts may not necessarily comport with progressive agendas or principles in each and every instance is also of importance.

[FBaggins]

9. There is no effort to "discredit her"

(Apart from her own unintentional efforts of course).

The "effort" appears to be entirely focused on keeping otherwise-progressive Democrats from looking like fools and damaging the brand.

[bigtree]

10. right

...

[Orrex]

18. Yes, "right" is right

The call, again and again, has been to seek corroboration for her super-fantastic breaking news announcements, and to hold off on celebration until her tales are confirmed.

Thereafter, let us all celebrate her prescience and journalistic chutzpah.


Until that time, let's wait until her claims are independently verified.

[bettyellen]

25. You must have missed a lot here- so many threads trashing her- Milo is doing it also...

I don't totally trust all the leaks going out there but if Milo is trashing her now, and Hillary haters, I'm not joining in.

[FBaggins]

27. I haven't missed anything

I'm just pointing out that I haven't seen anyone on the left with a desire to "discredit" her (which implies an attempt to harm what would otherwise be a good reputation). She doesn't HAVE a good reputation to harm and her wild fantasies are ridiculous on their face.

All I've seen is solid DUers pointing these things out to some people who are desperately caught up in confirmation bias that they can't see the danger of latching on to her nonsense.

[bettyellen]

28. So you did see the many threads trashing her, okay then.

[OnDoutside]

11. +1 Even if those here don't believe her, they SHOULD be happy that she's getting under the skin

of Trump and Trumpists.

[alarimer]

21. No, because it's fake news.

If we rely on conspiracy theorists to bolster our case, then we have no case.

She's as full of shit as Fox News. Liberals who rely on her and the others are just as stupid as wingnuts who rely on Fox News.

[OnDoutside]

29. Very high minded of you, but I don't mind as long as she continues attacking RW and not Dems.

[Blue_Tires]

8. And as predicted we're reaching the saturation point where

pundits on the left and right are more interested in smearing Mensch than they are in doing further research into Kremlingate, or the CT nutbars from Breitbart and InfoWars who are officially employed by the WH and actively involved in shaping Trump's daily message...

I'm not playing that game, sorry... And while Mensch overreaches on occasion, it has to be said that she was long onto Kremlingate at a time when 95% of the most respected and credible liberal pundits were saying it was a "nothingburger", or "sour grapes" and that we "needed to forget Cold War 2.0 and move on..." And mark my words, this sticks in the craw of those people much more painfully than some high horse faux outrage over "conspiracies"...

No matter how much she has it coming, taking down Mensch isn't making Kremlingate go away, and DU would do well to remember where the line is drawn. Don't fall into the trap of putting her in the same conversation as Kenyan birth certificates, Jade Helm, the Sandy Hook movie effects hoax, Pizzagate, Seth Rich, etc.

[Hortensis]

12. Left-wing populists seem to be particularly vulnerable,

also of course left-wing radicals and others farther left.

The frequent references to all these people as "liberals" when most are not is obvious evidence of an evil conspiracy between the media and Putin to destroy the Democratic Party.

Someone should set up a website predicting more mislabelings in future, which when they amazingly, shockingly occur would of course prove the conspiracy true and that person to be a conduit for The Real Truth. Could be a good, solid first step to internet fame and power, and of course money. Anyone?

[Adrahil]

16. I think that is because...

many of the folks you mention are "outcome-based thinkers." The most important thing for them is to reach an established conclusion... the evidence and process are secondary. Yup, we lefties have our own folks who think that way.

See just about any modern-day communist.

[Hortensis]

22. Yes. And we all indulge to some degree. Very damaging

though, is the false equalization of universities and academics who are afraid of being attacked and ruined if they identify groups whose current ideology depends on "outcome-based" thinking and carefully avoidance of all information that contradicts.

Instead, they normally pretend all groups and peoples equally reflect the dishonest and irresponsible behaviors they describe, leaving no standard to respect and model on. And so we continue to spiral down, now with the disease of dishonesty infecting more and more on the left.

[geek tragedy]

15. more like "return" rather than "rise"

There was some ... interesting commentary during the Bush years here.

[wildeyed]

24. It's crazy to compare her to Infowars and Breitbart.

She is not flogging completely made up stories, just embroidering a narrative that already exists. This is another 'both sides do it' exercise in journalistic false equivalencies.

The Russian interference in our elections is documented. Unbelievable facts about the case come out every single day. Mensch is highly intelligent and puts a bunch of time into trying to connect all the dots. And she has a flair for narrative, as the article notes, so she manages to be somewhat entertaining in the process. Is she legit? I don't think so, at least not that she has special 'sources'. I do think she is very bright, charismatic and is making smart guesses about the investigation. So what? How is this any different that what pundits do on my TV every single day that god brings? I don't take them too seriously either.

And there are MANY conservatives who legitimately hate Donald Trump. She is not a longterm ally, but GWB's favorite neocon speech writer is now quoted constantly by the Resistance, myself included, so whateves.... The enemy of my enemy.....

There are actual trolls out there on the margins who are tying to feed on this. Watch for the ones deflecting from the actual facts and/or encouraging people not to vote because the system is so broken.

[awesomerwb1]

26. "The Rise....."

Really? Her stuff is NOWHERE near as fantastic or F-ed up as Breitbart and Infowars.

"In the image of breitbart news and Infowars".

FFS