The Dangerous effect of Saagar Enjeti's Pro-War propaganda.
The effects of the "populist right's" manufacturing consent for war
Recently people have been getting sick of mainstream media. The constant lies and deceptions to manufacture consent for wars in Iraq, Lybia, Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen as well as large-scale deceptions like Russia-gate have led to people getting sick of the mainstream media. This has led to a rise in populist alternative media on the left and the right. Unfortunately, much of the right-populist media are pushing the same kind of deceptive propaganda to manufacture consent for a new cold war and at times even hot war with China.
The most obvious of these propagandists is Tucker Carlson who pretends to be a populist on corporate backed Fox News. Recently he invited a guest on who disgustingly said the military needs “Type a men who want to sit on a throne of Chinese skulls”.
Tucker is an obvious propagandist who uses faux-populist rhetoric to push the corporate agenda. There are however subtler propagandists infiltrating the alternative media fostering a pro-war sentiment amongst their audiences. The best example of this is Saagar Enjeti. Saagar Enjeti is a faux-populist who co-hosts the show “Breaking Points”. Anti-war journalists Abby Martin, Robbie Martin, and Alan Macleod have exposed Saagar’s ties to pro-war think tanks such as the Hudson Institute. Previously I have reported on Saagar Enjeti’s platforming of a military-industrial complex funded pundit who argued for war with China over Taiwan. Enjenti has recently continued this propaganda when he hosted a “debate” over whether the United States should go to war with China over Taiwan. As political streamer, Jackson Hinkle pointed out on Twitter both authors featured in the debate gave into the premise that China has a desire for domination and that the United States should be involved in Tiwian’s self-defense.
Some background on the authors
Similar to previous guests like Jacob Helberg and Josh Rogin these do not seem like the kind of people you would expect on a supposed outsider anti-establishment show. The author that argued in favor of going to war with China over Taiwan was Elbridge Colby. Colby like many of Saagars favorite guests has worked for corporate-funded think tanks. From 2014 to 2017 he was a senior fellow at the Centre for a New American Security, a think tank funded by the defense company Northrop Grumman, the United States state department, Bank of America, and defense company General Atomic’s CEO as well as other state and corporate interests.
After this Colby worked for Donald Trump's Department of Defense from 2017 to early 2018 when he left. Of course, none of this is disclosed by Enjeti in the segment. The second guest Patrick Porter who basically agreed with every pro-war talking point Colby made, is a fellow at the think tank Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies. The think tank is funded by many arms manufacturing companies such as BAe Systems, Lockheed Martin UK, and Lockheed Martin US. The think tank also takes money from the U.S. state department as well as countless other corporate and state interests. Again none of this was disclosed by Enjeti. Both authors wrote their pieces in the National Review, a known neo-con magazine that published articles defending the Iraq war as late as 2019 .
Why this Matters
Saagar Enjeti has been slowly building the case for war with China with no pushback from his co-host Krystal Ball. He has pushed anti-China talking points under a populist guise since the beginning of his show which started as “Rising” on the Hill. As of late, he has gotten more explicit with his pro-war propaganda inviting on Jacob Helberg to argue for war with China over Taiwan and with this most recent “debate”. This propaganda has had an effect on the breaking points audience who now take up the neoconservative position on China. Recently Breaking points polled their audience on whether the United States should go to war with China over Taiwan. The poll at 127 thousand votes resulted in 57 percent of their audience voting yes.
Enjeti is doing the exact same thing the mainstream media did during the lead-up to the Iraq war, slowly building a case for war to manufacture consent. Enjenti is repeating the same mainstream media technique of inviting on military-industrial complex and state department funded pundits without disclosing their funding. This pro-war propaganda is taking a well-meaning populist audience and turning them into pro-war neo-cons with propaganda.
Phenomenal piece
This is disappointing. Yet I, too had noticed this in Saagar's remarks during several podcasts many months ago when I more regularly had tuned into Breaking Points. When I first heard those, it took me by surprise because up to that point, he'd seemed rather non-interventionist in general. The first time I heard anti-China remarks, it gave me pause but I gave it a pass; but later was quite disappointed with the sense that, as this article clarifies, he really is comfortable pushing an anti-China narrative that is remarkably parallel to the sudden rise of anti-China propaganda emerging from all establishment voices.
This illustrates a sad point: that one should not give uncritical acceptance of everything said by any particular writer/speaker on any particular platform, regardless of the latter's historic 'progressive' creds. We've seen that with Democracy Now, The Young Turks, the Intercept and others. All continue to maintain an outwardly leftist face (and still sometimes do good work); but when it comes to the issues of most fundamental importance to Empire, the other face becomes visible.