A Crisis of Harmony: The Fear Game

 

Not an hour ago, I opened a stream from Bloomberg expecting to see news on a report from the WTO. Instead, I was treated to an eyeful of Mike Pompeo, former U.S. Secretary of State and neo-McCarthyite crank. He was bragging about how successful he'd been in turning public opinion against the "Chinese Communist Party." He often speaks like this, in part because it allows him to repeatedly use that scary word "Communist," but also because it lets him act like his campaign to inculcate paranoia in the American people is really only aimed at the government, not the people.

This is garbage. Follow Pompeo's speeches as I've done, and you'll know that he also teaches people to assume that all Chinese people are party members. Friendly Chinese people are suspect, he says; they're liars, behaving that way to create a new dupe. International students are suspect, Chinese Americans are suspect, even white people like me are suspect because we're too friendly to them.

And you know what? Pompeo was a terrible Secretary of State, but if inculcating anti-Chinese fear really was one of his objectives, then it's one area where he succeeded.

Opinion of China pitched down sharply during his tenure - not all because of him, obviously, but he must be proud. Tailgunner Joe must be looking up and smiling.

But I'm not afraid of China or the Chinese. I don't think people here are brainwashed, or conniving, or aggressive. And if you're open-minded, I hope you'll hear my case.

 

A Crisis of Harmony will premiere February 10th, 2021 at 8:00 PM Central time. Watch it then if you can, later if you can't - or both, it could help my metrics. I'll do a Q&A video if I can get enough questions, so feel free to ask, either in the comments on the video or via my website. I do look forward to hearing from you.