{"id":311706,"date":"2017-06-07T13:03:46","date_gmt":"2017-06-07T12:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/democrats-chase-red-herring-of-russia-gate\/"},"modified":"2017-06-07T13:03:46","modified_gmt":"2017-06-07T12:03:46","slug":"democrats-chase-red-herring-of-russia-gate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/democrats-chase-red-herring-of-russia-gate\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats Chase Red Herring of Russia-gate"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The Democrats\u2019 demagogic use of Russia-gate to \u201cresist\u201d President Trump is putting progressives in league with warmongers and war contractors while postponing a serious assessment of the party\u2019s political problems, warns Norman Solomon.<\/p>\n<p>By Norman Solomon<\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration has already done enormous harm to the United States and the planet. Along the way, President Trump has also caused many prominent progressives to degrade their own political discourse. It\u2019s up to us to challenge the corrosive effects of routine hyperbole and outright demagoguery.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_16005\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/645997.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/645997-300x200.jpg\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-16005\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/645997-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/645997-260x173.jpg 260w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/645997-160x107.jpg 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/645997.jpg 405w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-16005\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/645997-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/645997-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/645997-260x173.jpg 260w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/645997-160x107.jpg 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/645997.jpg 405w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Russian President Vladimir Putin, following his address to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 28, 2015. (UN Photo)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Consider the rhetoric from one of the most promising new House members, Democrat Jamie Raskin, at a rally near the Washington Monument over the weekend. Reading from a prepared text, Raskin warmed up by declaring that \u201cDonald Trump is the hoax perpetrated on the Americans by the Russians.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Soon the congressman named such varied countries as Hungary, the Philippines, Syria and Venezuela, and immediately proclaimed: \u201cAll the despots, dictators and kleptocrats have found each other, and Vladimir Putin is the ringleader of the unfree world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Later, asked about factual errors in his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=uKml53OjzGY\">speech<\/a>, Raskin floundered during a filmed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Ce0X7_48vGY&amp;feature=youtu.be&amp;app=desktop\">interview<\/a> with The Real News. What is now boilerplate Democratic Party bombast about Russia has little to do with confirmed facts and much to do with partisan talking points.<\/p>\n<p>The same day that Raskin spoke, the progressive former Labor Secretary Robert Reich featured at the top of his website an <a href=\"http:\/\/robertreich.org\/post\/161358902975\">article<\/a> he\u2019d written with the headline \u201cThe Art of the Trump-Putin Deal.\u201d The piece had striking similarities to what progressives have detested over the years when coming from right-wing commentators and witch-hunters. The timeworn technique was dual track, in effect: <em>I can\u2019t prove it\u2019s true, but let\u2019s proceed as though it is.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The lead of Reich\u2019s piece was clever. Way too clever: \u201cSay you\u2019re Vladimir Putin, and you did a deal with Trump last year. I\u2019m not suggesting there was any such deal, mind you. But if you<em>\u00a0<\/em>are Putin and you\u00a0<em>did<\/em>\u00a0do a&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2017\/06\/05\/democrats-chase-red-herring-of-russia-gate\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Democrats\u2019 demagogic use of Russia-gate to \u201cresist\u201d President Trump is putting progressives in league with warmongers and war contractors while postponing a serious assessment of the party\u2019s political problems, warns Norman Solomon. By Norman Solomon The Trump administration has already done enormous harm to the United States and the planet. Along the way, President [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2524,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-311706","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2524"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}