Preview

There are countless reasons why it is almost always a terrible idea for the U.S. to plot, carry out, or even cooperate with a political coup in a foreign nation. Among the most relevant are:
It involves murdering people.
It undermines democracy.
It empowers torturers and murders and kleptocrats.
It usually engenders more coups.
It makes the local population hate us and act accordingly.
It provides our adversaries with propaganda victories.
It demands a great deal of presidential lying and therefore undermines our own democracy.
It almost always makes the original situation worse.

I go into detail about the U.S. role in coups that took place in Iran in 1953; Guatemala in 1954; Indonesia, 1957 and 1964; the Republic of the Congo, 1960; the Dominican Republic, 1965; and Chile in 1973, in my 2020 book Lying in State: Why Presidents Lie—and Why Trump Is Worse.

One thing about coup-plotting is that if you know about it, you are “in the loop”—a distinction that is even more coveted than money inside the Beltway (and its geographic and ideological environs). Journalists are supposed to report on coups when they find out about them, but as often as not, they decide to sit on the story lest they be accused of “endangering national security.” What’s more, it’s frequently the case that the kind of journalists who are brought into the inner circle are those who see their responsibility less as informing the public than working hand in glove with those in power to engineer consent. My late friend I.F. Stone put it this way: “You’ve really got to wear a chastity belt in Washington to preserve your journalistic virginity. Once the secretary of state invites you to lunch and asks your opinion, you’re sunk.”

With all that in mind, the spectacle of John Bolton bragging to CNN’s Jake Tapper, “As somebody who has helped plan coups d’etat—not here, but, you know, other places—it takes a lot of work, and that’s not what [Trump] did,” was both revealing and revolting.

The “savvy” Mr. Tapper initially let Bolton’s admission go, but later returned to it. Tapper evinced no issue whatsoever with the idea of a government official who claims to support democracy pursuing an explicitly anti-democratic policy and bragging about it; rather, the question he pursued was whether or not one “has to be brilliant to attempt a coup.” He asked whether these were “successful coups,” though of course he did not define what that meant (How many dead? How many tortured? For how many years was democracy destroyed?). The two men then bantered about whether, as Tapper put it, there was “other stuff you’re not telling me.” Bolton responded, “I think—I’m sure there is.” Ha. Ha.

Like Tapper, The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser found the whole exchange awfully amusing. “This is a priceless exchange,” she tweeted, “and it seems that John Bolton has a point: pulling off a successful coup isn’t a walk in the park …” (Note, I don’t think Glasser was referring to the people routinely jailed, tortured, exiled, and denied all human and political rights when describing the “walk” in this “priceless exchange.”) Meanwhile, also on CNN, Chris Cillizza did not disappoint his many fans by giving his opinion that Bolton did not give Trump nearly enough credit. And in New York magazine, Jonathan Chait apparently forgot the true meaning of the word “gaffe”—at least among the savvy—when he denied that Bolton had made one. Michael Kinsley defined the term for all time when he observed: “A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth—some obvious truth he isn’t supposed to say.” And Bolton’s was a “gaffe” for the ages. Just see here.

The Times has been focusing on the disinformation beat of late, but when I try to read the stories as someone with an open mind, and we here at Altercation have sought to follow this coverage, I find their stories are often more confusing than illuminating. I came across this tweet from Mark Jacob that one wishes journalists would take to heart: “Stop saying, ‘Our politics are so divisive.’ Say instead, “A major political party is trying to overthrow our democracy.’”

This story, for instance, about the Biden administration’s caving in to right-wing pressure rather than allow the Department of Homeland Security to monitor disinformation and warn people about the dangers it may inspire, by Steven Lee Myers and Eileen Sullivan, “Disinformation Has Become Another Untouchable Problem in Washington,” is all about “partisan politics,” as well as “the country’s deepening partisan and geographical divides over issues like abortion, guns and climate change.” It is not about how Republicans must all lie and lie and lie some more if they have any hope of being nominated for higher office—or even retaining the offices they presently enjoy. There’s a good quote at the end, though: “We’re basically at this point unable to have a calm discussion about this problem,” said Paul Barrett, deputy director of the Stern Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University. “And there’s a weird, circular, looping-around effect. The problem itself is helping make us unable to talk about the problem.”

And in “The Fight Over Truth Also Has a Red State, Blue State Divide,” Myers and Cecilia Kang evince a similar problem regarding the same issue when looking at it from a state level. It seems that in places like Alabama, where Republicans rule, legislators want to ensure that people are free to lie on social media, no matter what the potential ill effects, say, up to and including violent insurrection, their lies may result in. But yet again, “in this deeply polarized era, even the fight for truth breaks along partisan lines.” Here the concern is not that such lies undermine the foundation of democracy and could easily form, instead, a foundation for fascism. Rather it is that they “could reinforce information bubbles in a nation increasingly divided over a variety of issues—including abortion, guns, the environment—and along geographic lines.”

In addition to Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, and Alaska are all seeing “right to lie” laws pushed by Republicans in state legislatures. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is concerned about “authoritarian companies” that have sought to mute conservative voices. “Voters have a palpable fear of cancel culture and how tech is censoring political views,” said Chris Hartline, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

This is also yet another example of how bad Democrats are at politics. “Cancel culture” is far more prevalent on the right than on the left. Indeed, DeSantis—I’ll say it, the likely Republican 2024 nominee—is its national champion. “In blue states,” Myers and Kang write, “Democrats have focused more directly on the harm disinformation inflicts on society, including through false claims about elections or Covid and through racist or antisemitic material that has motivated violent attacks like the massacre at a supermarket in Buffalo in May.” But hey, both sides do it …

I keep seeing Eric Clapton trending on Twitter, with people attacking him because they don’t like his views on vaccines. I find this profoundly foolish. First of all, people who get their medical information from aging British guitarists are themselves morons. Second, Eric had a terrible personal experience with the two shots he got. Third, give the guy a break, his young child fell out of a window and died. (People are actually making jokes about that.) Fourth, he’s done a lot of good in the world with his addiction center and his willingness to auction off so many of his guitars and to organize concerts to support its treatment for people who can’t afford it. Fifth, Eric may not be the guitarist he was, but there is no moral lesson to be drawn from that fact. Nobody is forcing anyone to go to his concerts. But anyway, literally all of the above ought to be beside the point when it comes to listening to his past music, which if you have any taste at all, you cannot help but admire, as it is often terrific, tasteful, thoughtful, emotionally resonant, and rarely pyrotechnical save when that is called for. (That ended with Cream.)

If you want evidence of his brilliance as a guitarist and dedication as a bluesman, I suggest you listen to his latest release of the 1995 film and CD Nothing but the Blues. It was recorded in San Francisco during Eric’s 1994 tour supporting From the Cradle, the album of blues originals by the likes of Robert Johnson, John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy, etc. The music is excellent—Eric always pays for the best musicians available. The film has been upgraded to 4K (executive producer, Martin Scorsese) and there’s an expensive “Super Deluxe Edition” that comes with the documentary on Blu-ray, the soundtrack on both 2-LP vinyl and CD, a bonus CD with four extra tracks, a hardcover book, a numbered lithograph, and a whole bunch of tchotchkes, including a poster, a guitar string set, custom guitar picks, and even an exclusive bandana. But the focus is, as it should be, on the music. Here is the man playing (allegedly) Willie Dixon’s “Groaning the Blues,” here on Elmore James’s “It Hurts Me Too,” and here on “Have You Ever Loved a Woman,” which I always thought Eric wrote about Pattie Harrison, but turns out to have been written by Billy Miles and merely adapted for that purpose.