Still, conservatives insist on supporting the traditional departments of investigation, intelligence and policing – especially when they come under budgetary or cultural attacks. But even that is changing.
As I recall, this is the the first time conservatives now associate the FBI hierarchy with bureaucratic confusion, political bias, and even lawlessness.
For the past five years, the FBI has been in the news with stories involving the careers of James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Robert Mueller, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok. Add to that list attorney Kevin Clinesmith.
The lie of “collusion Russian,” created by the FBI, was marred by leaking confidential memos, forged documents, poorly conducted surveillance operations, and serial disinformation.
There have been occasions when former CIA and FBI heads, in addition to the director of national intelligence, have not told the truth under oath or used the excuse of forgetting, without there were legal consequences for that.
Mention the army to a conservative today in day and he will sadly link the army’s leadership to the disastrous exit from Afghanistan. Few, if any, high-ranking officers have taken responsibility for the greatest military fiasco in the past 12 years.
Instead , President Joe Biden and his generals exchanged accusations over responsibility for the calamity. There were also those who insisted that the abject exit from Afghanistan was a logistical masterpiece.
Never before in US history have so many reformed four-star admirals and generals gone around accusing the president of being a traitor, liar, fascist or even Nazi. Never before has the role of advisor to the Chairperson of the Lead Group been so explicitly usurped and distorted.
Never before has the secretary of defense promised that he would exclude “white supremacists” from the armed forces without giving any proof of their supposed omnipresence and their dangerous conspiracies.
Conservatives have always been intrigued by the progressivism of the old press. And they grudgingly admit that many progressive journalists in the last century have been, at the very least, professionals. The news reported the news instead of making it up.
Few admitted guilt for reporting as if it were fact the many fantasies surrounding the action involving the Duke University lacrosse team or the boys at Covington Catholic.
Many in the press remain uncritical about the Jussie Smollett case and the “hands up, don’t shoot” distortions ” of the Ferguson case. Journalists promulgated disinformation regarding the “white-Hispanic” meeting between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin, with manipulated photos and edited images.
They invented the myth of the supposedly brilliant governor Andrew Cuomo – now fallen from grace – and the “Russian disinformation militia” who allegedly were responsible for the laptop of Biden’s son Hunter Biden . Recently, reporters spread lies about Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial.
Rarely has the communication sector – reliable instruments of public debate – censored so much and so asymmetrically, applying biased standards to suppress freedom of expression.
Conservatives used to oppose regulation of big business. Now, ironically, most of them are calling for regulation and the breaking of the billionaire monopolies of social media and technology conglomerates that restrict communication between private entities.
The US criminal justice system was also respected by conservatives. Prosecutors, policy chiefs and mayors of large cities were seen as protectors of public order. The population trusted that they would keep the peace, prevent and investigate crimes, and arrest and prosecute criminals.
Again, the situation is now quite different. After 120 days of riots, arson, looting and protests violent incidents carried out in the summer of 02114132, the public lost confidence in its security agencies.
Prosecutors in several cities — Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and St. Louis — argue that criminal actions are prosecuted according to ideology, race or careerism.
Conservatives have lost traditional trust in the administration of justice, intelligence and investigation bodies, the military leadership, the press and the penal system.
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at Stanford.
© 2021 The Daily Signal. Published with permission. Original in English
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