‘Neoliberal elites’ ignoring serious dilemmas plaguing US: Chomsky
Americans are fed the narrative purporting that everything is “fundamentally wonderful” in the country, despite some setbacks, prominent US linguist and historian Noam Chomsky says, blaming the country’s “neoliberal elites” for not acknowledging serious problems plaguing the nation.
The US likes to portray itself as an inherently good force always trying to correct its mistakes, and this approach is evident in how the January 6 Capitol Hill deadly violence was covered, Chomsky said during an interview with RT on Saturday.
“This assault on the Capitol shows the power of American democracy, ‘cause we didn’t collapse into a fascist state. And that enabled us to show that American democracy in its magnificence has triumphed,” the revered scholar further emphasized in describing the predominant narrative.
He note that similar self-deceiving triumphalism gripped the US in the wake of the Watergate scandal.
However, Chomsky underlined, the reality is that there are “really serious ills” that neither of the two dominant US political parties is willing to discuss, which makes it impossible to reflect on the causes of the Capitol disturbances.
“What’s being discussed is ‘a crazed mob’ as if they came out of nowhere. They didn’t come out of nowhere,” added Chomsky, the co-author of the influential book on media’s role in forging tragic US policies, ‘Manufacturing Consent.’
The remarks came amid a new poll showing that Americans today increasingly view “other people in America, and domestic enemies” as the biggest threat to their way of life, pointing to the depth of existing political and cultural divides across the US.
Most Americans – 54 percent – now believe that other Americans pose the biggest threat to their way of life as opposed to foreign adversaries and economic forces, according to a new CBS News/YouGov survey.
Unlike other issues, there is bipartisan agreement on the most significant challenge to the nation’s way of life, with 53 percent of Democrats, 56 percent of Republicans, and 57 percent of Independents describing others in America as the biggest risk.
On January 6, Trump supporters launched a deadly assault on the US Capitol, disrupting briefly the certification of the November election results. Five people were killed in the siege.
Trump was impeached for the second time last week under the charge of incitement of an insurrection. The Senate is due to begin the impeachment process next month.
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