U.S. Meddling in Politics

Here is former CIA Director James Woolsey joking that the U.S. still meddles in elections around the world "only for a very good cause."

It's well, well worth watching all of this exchange between Laura Ingraham and former CIA director James Woolsey. Woolsey acknowledges that the US has meddled in other countries' elections in the past and is doing so now, and both he and Ingraham find this laudable and funny. pic.twitter.com/TR3X7VM7Np

— Jon Schwarz (@schwarz) February 17, 2018

And yet we call Latin American leaders paranoid for believing that the United States is going to interfere in their political systems for our own benefit. "Very good cause" rarely means what's best for the country itself, or what the people of that country actually want. It is, as Woolsey says, for the good of the "system." And we are the system.

Ah, exceptionalism. Your average American is likely indignant that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, but simultaneously feels confident that if the U.S. government does so abroad, it's for the right reasons because we are the shining example of the world. That our own democracy has been so sharply eroded tends not to register.

Finally, I come back to the joking. It's funny to cause mayhem, illegitimacy, and death.