Suddenly the media loves General Jim Mattis. But is he the ally the progressive left really wants?
At the time of his appointment in the Trump administration, the Washington Post and CNN were both skeptical of Mattis. But now he’s criticizing President Trump, they’ve fallen in love. These globalist outlets see him a way to “own” the protests.
Gen. Mattis seems to have gone full Trump derangement syndrome. But he’s been this way ever since Trump removed him for wanting to continue fighting foreign wars in the Middle East, while President Trump wanted to put that effort and money towards helping American citizens at home.
On Wednesday Mattis created a media firestorm, complaining:
“I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled… The words ‘Equal Justice Under Law’ are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation… We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution.”
But just a few years ago Mattis was keen on drawing distinctions between the military and the political in the United States.
CNN reported Mattis as saying [e]lected officials have a responsibility, “to win political arguments instead of depending on the military to do so.”
Now Mattis has thrown himself into a political argument himself.
The same CNN report from 2016 placed him at odds with Trump’s America First campaign positions.
Mattis has always wanted more troops deployed, and more wars started.
And when he didn’t get his way in declaring war on Iran, he hoped he could fight that war by proxy in Syria.
Trump resisted this, too.
By 2019 the Atlantic was reporting:
Mattis was facing the most urgent crisis of his nearly two years in the Cabinet. Trump had just announced, contrary to his administration’s stated policy, that he would withdraw all American troops from Syria… This sudden (and ultimately reversed) policy shift posed a dire challenge to Mattis’s beliefs.
Mattis reportedly told Trump that the U.S. would lose to ISIS if he wasn’t heeded. Well he wasn’t, but the U.S. didn’t lose. Mattis was gone.
Now the same outlet (and the same reporter) are collaborating on a hit piece against the President for cracking down hard against rioters and looters.
You’d think the progressive left with its anti-war credentials would see it’s being led into a lion’s den, and openly reject any affiliation with Mattis.
Jim Mattis resigned with a tantrum because @realDonaldTrump wouldn't let him keep killing minorities around the world for neoliberal, corporate interests.
Thaaaat's not really the "ally" the progressive left, nor #BlackLivesMatter should want. pic.twitter.com/Uc9OcGmyGt
— Raheem Kassam (@RaheemKassam) June 3, 2020
The problem is these latest protests don’t really have a figurehead, nor a unifying leader. So neoliberal outlets like CNN and the Atlantic will happily continue to frame the debate on the behalves of protesters.
Mattis is now a figurehead for them, implanted by a new outlet which has no interest in the causes of the progressive left.
