How Egypt is Revealing What is Wrong in American Discourse

Events in Egypt have revealed something incredible about American political discourse. Most of the time, most Americans – and even most of the media pundits – operate under the assumption that America is a force for good in the world. They glean and grin and comfort themselves in “knowing” that America has a tradition of democracy promotion and the spreading of freedom and free markets. Most Joe-six-packs aren’t sitting around the dinner table discussing America’s most time honored international tradition: supporting fascist dictators all over the world. They’re not discussing it, because they mostly don’t know about it.

But now that revitalized discourse on Egypt is front and center, the newspapers and media pundits and dinner tables have been forced to focus on this dark, sinister underbelly of American foreign policy. Even the flag waving jingoists at Fox News and other networks, where they typically omit any facts from the discussion that might expose America’s dirty hands, are talking openly about it.

What is remarkable about this new slice of honesty in our political discourse is that nobody seems to care. The pundits, the talking heads, who were seemingly ignorant about America’s near constant support of tyranny, simply mention it and accept it as part of the analysis for “what this means for us.” The newspapers gloss over the details where the devil lies, but openly report on the steadfast U.S. support for the Egyptian dictator. Political analysts understand it as business-as-usual, and present it as such. And Joe-six-pack, previously unaware that his internal notions of innate American goodness were a sham, simply nods in a docile, accepting manner.

No outrage. No indignation. No denial. No sign of revelatory unearthing. No visible indication of cognitive dissonance. Just acceptance and a passive nod.

No guilt over having voted for presidents and representatives who actively demonstrate direct support for Mubarak. He manipulated presidential and parliamentary elections to keep himself in power despite the people’s yearning for change. He arrested political dissidents without charge or fair trial, locked up in hidden detention facilities. He had a penchant for torture. He used an arbitrary, four decades-long state of emergency to violate every liberty and privilege Americans take for granted, from freedom of speech to privacy to property rights and economic liberties. Polling has shown that the Egyptian people are ideologically moderate, favor secular democratic reforms, and value individual rights. Mubarak’s ability to maintain his white-knuckled grip on power and abuse his people with impunity rested solely on the billions of dollars of annual aid and consistent political support from the United States Government. And all we get are complacent nods.

(Note that similar cases exist throughout the Middle East, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. But I shall not digress here.)

For conservatives, and especially Tea Partiers, who almost reflexively revert to Constitution-talk when faced with government policy they don’t like, I’m disappointed I haven’t heard “where in the Constitution is the government granted the power to prop up dictators across the globe!?” (Similarly for this group, the deficit certainly hasn’t been helped by our vast cache of green backs dolled out annually.) And for liberals, say, those who voted for Barack Obama, I feel I should have been hearing screams of betrayal and criminality for the Beacon of Hope’s continuation of America’s foundational foreign policy of maintaining despotism, cruelty, and oppression. But no. Just nods.

The crimes of the people we openly and consistently support are our crimes too. But to suggest that Congress or the administration should be held to account for the suffering and captivity of the Egyptian people is foul to most Americans. Amazing, how quick they are to condemn others for every transgression, so long as they’re waving a different flag. And, apparently, so long as they’re not on our payroll.