The day before the third anniversary of brutal, lawless invasion of Ukraine, Shannon Bream, moderator “Fox News Sunday”, depressed Defense Minister Pete, Pete, whether it is “fair to say” that Russia's attack was not provoked. Hegseth replied that it is “fair to say that it is a very complicated situation”.
This is a good representation of the difference between a complicated question and the complications in the honest answer to a simple question. The answer to the question “Did this dress look fat?” It may be simple enough, but in certain circumstances it can be quite difficult to answer it honestly.
Hegseth has hardly been the only prominent republican official who has given up the question since the president claimed that the Ukraine “started” the war. Mike Waltz, Trump's national security advisor, also repeatedly refused to answer the question.
Sometimes it is complicated to find out who started a war. But this is not the First World War I or the War of Jenkin's ear. Of course, Russia started.
Given the fact that the answer to the question is so straightforward, why is it that it is Answer it so complicated?
It is not because Russia is insulted by an exact answer. The West has delivered billions of military aid to Ukraine and seized sanctions against Vladimir Putin and its regime in response to criminal invasion. To say again that Russia began war, the geopolitical equation would not change in the slightest.
No, what makes this complicated is that Donald Trump is Putin's topics about who started the war. Trump publicly contradicts complications for every Republican official who dares.
If Trump says Basset Hounds can fly, you have to say it too. This is the dynamic that GOP has received since the winning of the president's nomination in 2016.
But so disgusting to find the moral and intellectual corruption that makes the collective decision of the Republican to protect Trump's ego and avoid the anger of its fans, it is worthwhile to consider that such a corruption in politics in Is general. In addition, Trump's success in the falsification of our politics depends on the widespread view that his critics are corrupt.
In recent years, the Democrats have spoken to a kind of dead end by agreed to enforce false Pietys above all, from identity policy to Israel to inflation. When Joe Biden was still president, the pressure was to insist that he was as fit as a violin and as hot as a tang was to support a fatally unpopular president.
Much of the media was rightly considered complicated in this project. I have long argumented This journalism is not immune to such corruptions. The fear of insulting readers or spectators drives more media tension and self -censorship than the ideology.
Fox News is so afraid of his viewers that it dealt with her hunger for confirmation of the lie that the election was stolen in 2020. It lost Almost $ 800 million As a result, a defamation lawsuit – everything because it would have been so complicated to say the simple truth.
The Associated Press, which is exposed to a small retribution, because it is to rename Trump's little attempt to rename the Gulf of Mexico Story from attempt To smuggle ideological Arguments In his supposedly objective reporting. Anyone who adheres to the AP-Stylbook, a hegemonic force in journalism, cannot refer to “illegal immigrants”, must capitalize “black” and observe the right to transgender pronouns. And even after the officials in Israel had confirmed that an Israeli woman and her children were put to death by her kidnappers in Gaza, the AP continues to report that they only “only”died in captivity. ““ No, they were murdered In captivity.
Even dictionaries are not immune to this type of corruption. After the Democrats Amy Coney Barrett accused Bigottery to use the expression “sexual preference” during their hearing to confirm the Supreme Court, Merriam-Webster changed His definition of the term in real time to ensure the claim that it is “insulting”.
Social media, partisan polarization and politicization of institutions have fueled an erosion of trust in the entire society. This is an ideal milieu for a president who Don't care about facts Or truth, but only about his own vanity and glory. And so you answer the simple question: “Who started the war?” became so complicated. The truth to say requires a certain degree of courage that disqualifies in Trump's circle.