In a poll that should surprise absolutely no one, most republicans support the right to protest- unless it is Israel. Claims from the party of Freedom Fries that they were now the defenders of free speech were obviously idiotic of course, but the clash of the idea of American First with the reality of Israel First has to be the most jarring, if hardly unexpected.

While the neo-McCarthyism of Russiagate was the most famous aspect of that odious and deeply stupid era, I think the worst aspect about it is that there was in fact a foreign nation that pupeteered the GOP all along- it just wasn’t Russia. But the Democrats are almost as compromised by the Israel Lobby as the Republicans are, meaning they could not have brought this up without facing a similar scrutiny themselves.

Strategic rivals have very little influence over a (powerful) states’ domestic politics. Recognized as a threat, their agents are monitored and tracked. This is not so with allied states, who are the true media savvy juggernauts of foreign policy discourse. Rivals may spend as much or more, but their payoff is far less. Closely interlinked nations on the other hand get away with almost anything. Alliances themselves become lucrative intuitions and develop a certain existence independent of their constituent countries. One of the reasons that George Washington warned against overly close attachments with foreign nations is because people tend to romanticize and become too invested in their destinies to the point where it overrides their interest in their own country, creating dangerous commitments and contradictions.

This brings us to another and seemingly unrelated phenomenon of the post-Cold War Era: the Dittoheads. The term is now hopelessly archaic, to the point where I’m surprised I even know of it. It was on the way out before I was even conscious of anything on the news that wasn’t related to Joe Lieberman trying to cancel my beloved games. It described the average Rush Limbaugh listener. A mindless compliant who would call in to agree with everything The Pig and his previous callers had spouted out beforehand. Limbaugh was a product, and his audience mindlessly consumed it.

I think one of the reasons we no longer use the term ‘dittohead’ is because it is so specifically linked with Limbaugh, but he really was a pioneer for the entire media’s eventual fate in the 21st Century. This style of mindless repetition in service of narrative creation rather than critical thought went mainstream with Fox News, and then was copied by the other cable news networks and even what was once (painfully) called the ‘blog-o-sphere’ until it became the messaging apparatus of a two party system in general. The explosion of social media’s popularity in the 2010s at first broke this partisan monopoly but then would go on to reaffirm it in stranger and more unhinged ways. This would culminate in nakedly gamed and astroturfed platforms such as reddit and increasingly ””””””’X””””””’.

Now we live in the postmodern utopia all of the most naïve people I went to grad school with so badly wanted to come true. People choose their own truth out of brand loyalty rather than critical thought. Its called being a good fucking person, you Islamosexual Communazi. It basically doesn’t even matter anymore which of these self-contained echo chambers someone is in, they are all dittoheads. They signal group loyalty and wear their inability to engage in nuanced thought as a point of pride. If you disagree with them, you are assumed to be a diametric opposite of all they hold dear, even if that is far from true.

These are the easiest people in the world to manipulate. Now, who do you think realizes that aside from the usual suspects of political culture warriors and profit maximizing corporations?

I would hazard to guess foreign lobbies. Specifically allied foreign lobbies with media connections and cultural cache. Israel is the big one, but I also (to bring it back to Russiagate) suspect Britain, and possibly in the future a South African diaspora trying to pull a Miami Cuba 2.0. And this isn’t even to bring up the entire mess that is the western-based Ukraine fanboys.

This isn’t new. The pro-France contingent of American politics in the 1790s was so strong it took a major diplomatic incident, an undeclared naval war, and an invasion scare to remove their influence from policy. But I will refrain from talking too much about that now as I will have multiple future publications that go into great detail into the topic, both in book chapter and article form, so stay tuned.

The dittoheads are waiting to be sent their instructions, and as many foreign as domestic actors know of their pliability and narrative shaping abilities. They will advocate against civil liberties at home to protect their beloved proxy-countries abroad. They are fools who vicariously fight battles for a sense of meaning in their little plebian lives. If they are catered to they will drag us all down with them.

Never say ‘ditto’.