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America has a long history of anti-intellectualism.Anti-intellectualism is at the heart of the American spirit. America has always been more focused on practicalities, enterprise, making money and imperialism than pondering the abstract. That has always been a European focus, particularly in France. France is one of the few nations that has public celebrity intellectuals, such as Sartre and Camus.The avatar of the average American is Andrew Jackson, famous for his pride in terrorizing Native Americans and being rough and tough. No surprise then, that Donald Trump would become President. A man that elevates lowbrow to the next level.The American Right is especially uneasy with intellectuals. Sarah Palin played on these sentiments during the 2008 election as she referred to the rural, “real Americans,” the ones from “flyover states,” who spoke simply, loved their guns and Bibles, and represented the “true spirit of America.”The Scopes “Monkey” Trial was symbolic of the clash between fundamentalism and modernism in America. A teacher was fined for teaching evolution. A prominent atheist attorney, Clarence Darrow, assisted in the defense. William Jennings Bryan, a Christian politician and three time Presidential candidate, represented the prosecution. People came from all over to watch the trial, and the journalist H.L. Mencken covered the event, which was broadcast on the radio. Tensions were high, as was national interest. This would become an epic battle for the soul of America.Darrow (on left), and Bryan (right)Bryan distributed his final words to reporters:“Science is a magnificent force, but it is not a teacher of morals. It can perfect machinery, but it adds no moral restraints to protect society from the misuse of the machine. It can also build gigantic intellectual ships, but it constructs no moral rudders for the control of storm-tossed human vessel. It not only fails to supply the spiritual element needed but some of its unproven hypotheses rob the ship of its compass and thus endanger its cargo. In war, science has proven itself an evil genius; it has made war more terrible than it ever was before. Man used to be content to slaughter his fellowmen on a single plane, the earth's surface. Science has taught him to go down into the water and shoot up from below and to go up into the clouds and shoot down from above, thus making the battlefield three times as bloody as it was before; but science does not teach brotherly love. Science has made war so hellish that civilization was about to commit suicide; and now we are told that newly discovered instruments of destruction will make the cruelties of the late war seem trivial in comparison with the cruelties of wars that may come in the future. If civilization is to be saved from the wreckage threatened by intelligence not consecrated by love, it must be saved by the moral code of the meek and lowly Nazarene. His teachings, and His teachings alone, can solve the problems that vex the heart and perplex the world.”The end of the trial was only the beginning of the Creationism vs. evolution debate that would continue for decades in America, particularly the South.During the 2000 election George W. Bush won the election against Al Gore, primarily because Bush was someone “that you would want to have a beer with,” compared to Gore, a man that appeared too smart for most Americans, especially with his support for environmental protection. If you are going to have someone run the nation and have access to the nuclear launch codes, it might as well be someone who doesn’t have the intellectual firepower to cover his head in the rain.Intellectuals in America are seen as living in ivory towers, effete, latte drinking, Volvo driving, Bernie Sanders supporting socialists, pretentious, and removed from the realities of being a “real American.”Anti-intellectualism and racism in AmericaThe tragedy in Charleston last week will no doubt lead to more discussion of several important and recurring issues in American culture—particularly racism and gun violence—but these dialogues are unlikely to bear much fruit until the nation undertakes a serious self-examination. Decrying racism and gun violence is fine, but for too long America’s social dysfunction has continued to intensify as the nation has ignored a key underlying pathology: anti-intellectualism.America is killing itself through its embrace and exaltation of ignorance, and the evidence is all around us. Dylann Roof, the Charleston shooter who used race as a basis for hate and mass murder, is just the latest horrific example. Many will correctly blame Roof's actions on America's culture of racism and gun violence, but it's time to realize that such phenomena are directly tied to the nation's culture of ignorance.In a country where a sitting congressman told a crowd that evolution and the Big Bang are “lies straight from the pit of hell,” where the chairman of a Senate environmental panel brought a snowball into the chamber as evidence that climate change is a hoax, where almost one in three citizens can’t name the vice president, it is beyond dispute that critical thinking has been abandoned as a cultural value. Our failure as a society to connect the dots, to see that such anti-intellectualism comes with a huge price, could eventually be our downfall.In considering the senseless loss of nine lives in Charleston, of course racism jumps out as the main issue. But isn’t ignorance at the root of racism? And it’s true that the bloodshed is a reflection of America's violent, gun-crazed culture, but it is only our aversion to reason as a society that has allowed violence to define the culture. Rational public policy, including policies that allow reasonable restraints on gun access, simply isn't possible without an informed, engaged, and rationally thinking public.Some will point out, correctly, that even educated people can still be racists, but this shouldn’t remove the spotlight from anti-intellectualism. Yes, even intelligent and educated individuals, often due to cultural and institutional influences, can sometimes carry racist biases. But critically thinking individuals recognize racism as wrong and undesirable, even if they aren’t yet able to eliminate every morsel of bias from their own psyches or from social institutions. An anti-intellectual society, however, will have large swaths of people who are motivated by fear, susceptible to tribalism and simplistic explanations, incapable of emotional maturity, and prone to violent solutions. Sound familiar?And even though it may seem counter-intuitive, anti-intellectualism has little to do with intelligence. We know little about the raw intellectual abilities of Dylann Roof, but we do know that he is an ignorant racist who willfully allowed irrational hatred of an entire demographic to dictate his actions. Whatever his IQ, to some extent he is a product of a culture driven by fear and emotion, not rational thinking, and his actions reflect the paranoid mentality of one who fails to grasp basic notions of what it means to be human.What Americans rarely acknowledge is that many of their social problems are rooted in the rejection of critical thinking or, conversely, the glorification of the emotional and irrational. What else could explain the hyper-patriotism that has many accepting an outlandish notion that America is far superior to the rest of the world? Love of one’s country is fine, but many Americans seem to honestly believe that their country both invented and perfected the idea of freedom, that the quality of life here far surpasses everywhere else in the world.But it doesn’t. International quality of life rankings place America far from the top, at sixteenth. America’s rates of murder and other violent crimedwarf most of the rest of the developed world, as does its incarceration rate, while its rates of education and scientific literacy are embarrassingly low. American schools, claiming to uphold “traditional values,” avoid fact-based sex education, and thus we have the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the industrialized world. And those rates are notably highest where so-called “biblical values” are prominent. Go outside the Bible belt, and the rates generally trend downward. As this suggests, the impact of fundamentalist religion in driving American anti-intellectualism has been, and continues to be, immense. Old-fashioned notions of sex education may seem like a relatively minor issue to many, but taking old-time religion too seriously can be extremely dangerous in the modern era. High-ranking individuals, even in the military, see a confrontation between good and evil as biblically predicted and therefore inevitable. They relish the thought of being a righteous part of the final days.Fundamentalist religion is also a major force in denying human-caused climate change, a phenomenon that the scientific community has accepted for years. Interestingly, anti-intellectual fundamentalists are joined in their climate change denial with unusual bedfellows: corporate interests that stand to gain from the rejection of sound science on climate.Corporate influence on climate and environmental policy, meanwhile, is simply more evidence of anti-intellectualism in action, for corporate domination of American society is another result of a public that is not thinking critically. Americans have allowed their democracy to slip away, their culture overtaken by enormous corporations that effectively control both the governmental apparatus and the media, thus shaping life around materialism and consumption.Indeed, these corporate interests encourage anti-intellectualism, conditioning Americans into conformity and passive acceptance of institutional dominance. They are the ones who stand to gain from the excessive fear and nationalism that result in militaristic foreign policy and absurdly high levels of military spending. They are the ones who stand to gain from consumers who spend money they don’t have on goods and services they don’t need. They are the ones who want a public that is largely uninformed and distracted, thus allowing government policy to be crafted by corporate lawyers and lobbyists. They are the ones who stand to gain from unregulated securities markets. And they are the ones who stand to gain from a prison-industrial complex that generates the highest rates of incarceration in the developed world.Source: Anti-intellectualism Is Killing AmericaAmericans prefer the tough guy that acts first. Too much analysis is frowned upon. That is weakness in the eyes of an American.The ascendancy of Donald Trump is nearly as bad as the election of George W. Bush. Nothing tops that.Uneducated voters are a core base for Trump, but Boot says that this group is being “taken for a ride” by the GOP nominee.“They’re not necessarily stupid, but they’re not very knowledgeable,” he says. “[Trump] claims that he can solve all their problems when he can’t. He can’t even begin to solve their problems, and in fact he’ll make their problems a lot worse with his policies on protectionism, isolationism, nativism and xenophobia. All of these things will make America much poorer and much less safe, but I think he’s gulled a lot of people into thinking that ‘I alone can solve’ — his mantra.”Boot argues that far-right populists within the Republican Party feed off of Trump’s anti-intellectualism because they believe elite intellectuals are to blame for their problems to begin with. Meanwhile, Trump is working to directly appeal to white working-class communities that have a “long tradition of hostility towards knowledge.”“That is the core constituency that Trump is appealing to,” he says. “He’s not just ignorant, he’s proudly ignorant — he brags about how he doesn’t read books. For him, this is a point of pride, and unfortunately it is for a lot of his followers as well.”Trump’s disdain for knowledge, Boot says, is dangerous. The Republican nominee has said he knows more about the terrorist group ISIS than American generals do, and has suggested that the US should use torture during interrogation, even though the director of the CIA has said he’ll resign if such practices were brought back. Over the weekend, Trump appeared confused during an interview after he suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not send troops into Ukraine when, in fact, they have been there for years.Source: A policy expert explains how anti-intellectualism gave rise to Donald TrumpAmericans know that communism is evil, even though they don’t know what communism actually is. Whatever it may be, it is bad, according to Americans.On my arrival in the United States I was surprised to find so much distinguished talent among the subjects, and so little among the heads of the Government.” Alexis de Tocqueville, 1835.We may fairly assume that Tocqueville, the famous French historian, would be even more surprised if he were to visit America today. The 45th President, Donald Trump, has made no secret of his disdain for learning and specialized knowledge, sneering at a campaign rally in 2016, “You know, I’ve always wanted to say this—I’ve never said this before with all the talking we all do, all of these experts, ‘Oh we need an expert’—the experts are terrible!”Such comments provide ample fodder for Tom Nichols’ topical and engaging new book, The Death of Expertise. For Nichols, the anti-intellectual strain in the U.S. has transmuted into an arrogant contempt for intellectual authority due to major shifts in education, journalism, and the media and political environments. Taken together, he claims, these shifts have driven American democracy to the brink of authoritarian populism.A professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and a former political adviser, Nichols argues that the country has shifted from a healthy skepticism of accepted knowledge to a proud, self-satisfied ignorance and active hostility to the very idea of expertise. Across American society, intellectual authority is resented, resisted and disregarded, with every opinion ostensibly holding equal weight.This leveling of viewpoints has been accelerated by digital technologies and platforms, which have further lowered the barriers to participation, opening the floodgates to those without the requisite educational backgrounds and professional credentials. As Nichols puts it:“I fear we are witnessing […] a Google-fueled, Wikipedia-based, blog-sodden collapse of any division between professionals and laypeople, students and teachers, knowers and wonderers—in other words, between those of any achievement in an area and those with none at all.”In the absence of these crucial distinctions, Nichols asserts, public discourse has become degraded by unquestioned cognitive biases and a dearth of informed, evidence-based argumentation.Referencing recent commentaries such as Susan Jacoby’s “The Dumbing of America,” Nichols vividly sketches the denigration of expertise in key areas of society. Institutions of higher education have lowered their standards, providing affirmative “safe spaces” rather than necessarily uncomfortable intellectual challenges. No longer a time of disciplined learning and personal growth, college has become what Nichols describes as “a consumer-oriented experience in which students learn, above all else, that the customer is always right.”Consumer rankings and ratings are also ubiquitous in cyberspace, where every buyer is now a critic and an opinion maker on websites like Amazon and Yelp. Drowning out expert perspectives, the Internet offers quick facts and views without the guarantee of accuracy, consistency, or disinterested, non-partisan oversight. Finally, contemporary journalism has adopted an open-ended and participatory format that caters primarily to customer interests, blends news with punditry and entertainment, and perpetuates both ideological segregation and distrust in government, the media, and other democratic institutions.In addressing the depreciation of established knowledge, The Death of Expertise joins a tradition of writing that extends back to Richard Hofstadter’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Anti-intellectualism in American Life,published in 1963. Yet Nichols’ analysis fails to assimilate Hofstadter’s account of the “cyclical fluctuations” of anti-intellectualism that have rippled across all spheres of U.S. society for centuries, often rising in periods of complex and bewildering global change. On what basis, then, can one contend that American anti-intellectualism has become more pervasive over the past half-century and is now, in Jacoby’s words, “less a cycle than a flood”?Positing a qualitative shift, Nichols often makes recourse to lapsarian, technological-determinist arguments that attribute the decline of critical intelligence in large measure to digital culture. Ironically, such claims reactivate familiar tropes in the history of media, issuing pessimistic diagnoses of mass manipulation and stupefaction that can be traced back to previous historical junctures, when older technologies were likewise new. Writing after the first televised presidential debates in 1960, Hofstadter himself noted that twentieth-century politics had been shaped by “the American mania for publicity and the development of the mass media.”At the same time, Nichols misses a crucial opportunity to revisit Hofstadter’s work in light of the economic and social transformations of the past half-century. Noting the ubiquity of the business paradigm in American culture, Hofstadter wrote:“Business not only appealed to vigorous and ambitious men but set the dominant standards for the rest of society, so that members of the professions—law, medicine, schoolteaching, even the ministry—aped businessmen and adapted the standards of their own crafts to those of business.”The hegemony of business logic has significantly expanded over the last three decades, as Wendy Brown argues in Undoing the Demos. Neoliberal rationality has subjected all spheres of human existence to economic metrics, such that even non-monetized domains of action are now framed and measured according to a market model. Privatizing public goods and thinking only in terms of capital enhancement, neoliberalism has undermined the necessary conditions of democratic citizenship, leading to a situation in which, as Brown writes:“politics [is] peculiarly unappealing and toxic—full of ranting and posturing, emptied of intellectual seriousness, pandering to an uneducated and manipulable electorate and a celebrity-and-scandal-hungry corporate media.”Insofar as Brown contends that “smugness in ignorance” has supplanted a Socratic sense of humility, she shares Nichols’ view of contemporary American political discourse. Yet whereas she stresses the ominous threat posed to democracy by neoliberal capitalism, Nichols sees the nation’s fate hinging on individual action:“There is plenty of blame to go around for the parlous state of the role of expertise in American life […]. Experts themselves, as well as educators, journalists, corporate entertainment media, and others have all played their part. In the end, however, there is only one group of people who must bear the ultimate responsibility for this current state of affairs, and only they can change any of it: the citizens.”While this behaviorist approach prompts readers to contemplate what actions are within their immediate control, it remains fixed on the level of cultural symptoms or epiphenomena, without regard for pathologies or underlying forces.In a troubling passage from the Introduction to The Death of Expertise, Nichols reflects on the massive social transformations since the 1960s:“Social changes only in the past half century finally broke down old barriers of race, class, and sex not only between Americans in general but also between uneducated citizens and elite experts in particular. A wider circle of debate meant more knowledge but more social friction. Universal education, the greater empowerment of women and minorities, the growth of a middle class, and increased social mobility all threw a minority of experts and the majority of citizens into direct contact, after nearly two centuries in which they rarely had to interact with each other. And yet the result has not been a greater respect for knowledge, but the growth of an irrational conviction among Americans that everyone is as smart as everyone else.”Filled with ambivalence, Nichols thus recognizes the crucial significance of expanding access to education and widening the parameters of participation in the American public sphere, even as he links advances in sociopolitical equality with the rise of epistemological relativism such that expert knowledge is no longer revered.Identifying the Vietnam War and Watergate as key causes of declining trust in political elites and institutions, Nichols fails to mention the longstanding abuses of expert truth-claims such as scientific racism and sexism, as well as subsequent efforts to challenge, redefine, and broaden the figure of the ‘expert’—who historically was assumed to be both white and male. Moreover, in citing “increased social mobility” as a contributing factor, Nichols obscures the conservative measures of recent decades that have restricted, and even reversed, democratizing reforms, attacking the diversified middle class and contributing to our present situation of economic polarization and intensified social inequality.Not only has the dismantling of the American welfare state perpetuated disenfranchisement and increased wealth disparities along racial lines; the liberal arts curriculum has come to be seen as antiquated amidst the utilitarian, market-driven regime of neoliberalism. If, as Nichols correctly argues, college is now perceived as a commodity—with students treated as clients and instructors regarded as service providers who are evaluated based on customer satisfaction—this has emerged in tandem with the precarization of teaching positions and the implementation of corporate logic, personnel and funding models in institutions of higher education—with Trump University as the reductio ad absurdum.Exacerbating these trends, the President and his administration have proposed unconscionable budget cuts to educational programs, financial aid initiatives, and medical and scientific research, seeking to restructure the entire system with an eye to school choice and privatization. Though Nichols’ book is an important plea for renewing our intellectual climate, it neglects the material bases of education and informed, functional citizenship—as well as the inextricable linkages between economic forces, knowledge production, and social justice.Source: American Idiot: Rethinking Anti-Intellectualism in the Age of TrumpConclusionAnti-intellectualism has a reactive, aggressive element to it. It tends to rely on force before dialogue. U.S. aggression around the world is well known to be a major force threatening peace.2. The U.S. has the largest military in the world, and spending on the military is by far the most in the world.3. Anti-intellectualism is as American as apple pie.4. Much of it is rooted in a fundamental distrust of of anything that threatens the cultural core of Biblical fundamentalism. Intellectualism is considered an embrace of modernity, and a surrender of one’s most precious religious sentiments. This is not due to religion itself, but due to the unique character of American fundamentalist Christianity, which relies upon a plain reading of the Bible, combined with a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as one’s Savior, the direct role of self-interpretation of the Bible instead of relying upon a religious tradition (as seen in the Catholic Church), a fierce independence of spirit (compared to more communal religious traditions), and rooted in the practicality of the American enterprising spirit, which has always been in love with the Puritan work ethic.5. Another important element of American society is authoritarianism. In the American South corporal punishment, submission to authority, obedience, conformity to those in power, and politeness of speech rule supreme. Challenging these with intellectual dissent is considered anathema.

Yeah, I know, stow the TLDR comments. I’m not an expert on pharmaceuticals but I do know a thing or two about politics and more than a thing or two about political history. So my take isn’t short because it’s based on facts and I’m not going to state facts here or anywhere else out of context.So this is a long one. You have been warned.They knew opioids were dangerous.Five and a half thousand years ago somewhere in lower Mesopotamia, human beings began to cultivate opium. The Sumerians named it Hul Gil, the "joy plant”, and they shared its properties with the Assyrians. The Assyrians shared it with the Egyptians, and on it spread. The Opium Poppy -- flourishing as it does in hot dry climates – made its way to China via that, 4,500-mile stretch of mountains that extends across central Asia from Turkey through Pakistan and Burma. The very same real estate it inhabits to this day.Opium's properties bordered on the divine. In Crete, the Minoan goddess of narcotics was adorned with a crown of poppies. In Egypt legend told of Isis offering opium to the sun God Ra to relieve the pain of a headache; bookish deity Thoth was said to have invented it. The Graco- Roman god of sleep Hypnos and his necrophile brother Thanatos were often depicted holding the flowers aloft. Across the ancient world, it was used as a symbol of sweet, nocturnal oblivion.Its earthly properties were no less impressive. It was occasionally mixed with hemlock to euthanize the suffering and more often used as an anesthetic to ease the agony of surgery. By the ninth century A.D., the Persian Doctor Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyyā al-Rāzī recommended its use for the treatment of melancholy in what must have been one of the earliest examples of mental health advice known to man.There was just one catch.It’s hellishly addictive.Habit PawningIn 2016, in the U.S. alone, one person died from opioid abuse every 14 minutes. That comes to a total of 42,249 deaths a frightening number that even eclipses breast cancer fatalities. Some 11.5 million people misused prescription opioids during that same period and close to a million more-used heroin, (one hundred and seventy thousand of whom were using it for the first time). The total cost to the economy stands at around 504 billion dollars per annum or around $32 per week for every American man, woman, and child.The problem is quintessentially American.Not in the sense that other nations are spared the indignities of opioid abuse. Few places remain untouched. But in terms of sheer scale, America has positioned itself as the homecoming opioid queen. In 2015, U.S. consumption of Oxycodone stood at 194 mg/capita bucking the global mean of 11.4 mg/capita by several magnitudes. The explosion of misuse is no mystery; indeed, it can be traced back to a single metric; ubiquity normalizes that which is otherwise abnormal.Direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical drug advertising became a thing in 1997 when the toothless shill that is the Food and Drug Administration greenlit such marketing. Patients -- we were told -- have a right to know their options. The dangled carrot of ‘choice’ -- that darling watchword of high paid sophists and shit-shoveling marketing folk world over -- was ferried from talking point to talking point and reiterated ad nauseam. Experts nodded, journalists, prevaricated.The FDA caved.Commodity FetishThe drug companies hit the ground running. The first year spend on TV adverts of $664 million was merely an hors-d'oeuvre. According to Kantar, pharma is now the 7th largest ad category in the U.S. in terms of total spending. Said spending hit $6.4 billion last year – a growth of 64% since 2012. Budgets – unmindful of the damage they have wrought -- continue to grow. The number of brands spending at least $50 and $100 million annually has more than doubled since 2012. The Corporate cash injection reaped predictable dividends. Among the top 10 prescription drug brands ranked via 2016 ad investment levels, eight had double-digit growth rates year-over-year and all of them spent over $100 million.The commodification of health became a fetish like any other. Whilst opioids represent a relatively small subset of big pharma ad spending, they knew full well that long-standing taboos can so easily become the new normal if enough money was thrown at them.Got a health condition?There’s an ‘app’, for that; just ask your pharmacist.(As a side note, there is no point in blaming conservatism for the damage that has been wrought. Bill Clinton laid the groundwork as he masqueraded as a conservative pretending to be a progressive who occasionally caved into the Realpolitik machinations of a mischievous GOP. Democratic short-termism was rarely more self-evident than in the 90’s. Clinton abandoned the blue-collar base and laid the groundwork for Trump in a thousand shitty ways. This was just one of them. )Still, the growth of Big Pharma ad spending was only part of the equation. The root cause of the epidemic lay in a concerted attempt by the pharmaceutical companies to allay the fears of doctors and patients alike. They knew two things. First, that irrespective of how it is packaged, an opiate is an opiate is an opiate and second, that to most people’s minds, that means one thing and one thing only.Addiction.It’s not like we had no prior warning.Royal BlackmailIn 1839, Lin Zexu – a Chinese scholar and official of the Qing (Manchu) dynasty, penned a letter to Queen Victoria, a 20-year-old woman recently come to the British throne. He began his ‘letter of advice’, with both an assurance and a warning. Yes, the Emperor of China understood the benefit of trade with so ‘great’ a nation but no, his munificence was not without limit:“If there is profit, then he shares it with the peoples of the world; if there is harm, then he removes it on behalf of the world.”The harm in question was a familiar concern since-- according to Zexu -- mixed in with those engaging in trade with China were those who:“Smuggle opium to seduce the Chinese people and so cause the spread of the poison to all provinces".Such persons he added:“Care to profit themselves, and disregard their harm to others, are not tolerated by the laws of heaven and are unanimously hated by human beings".What right did the United Kingdom have to inflict such indignities upon China? For Zexu knew full well that the smoking of Opium was illegal in Britain and knew too that access was restricted:“Because the harm caused by opium is clearly understood”.Zexu spoke from experience.Tea For TwoBritain’s love of tea was – and remains -- a bottomless cave of indiscriminate consumption. The same could not be said for a Chinese obsession with the fruits of English labor. China had little need -- and even less interest in procuring -- British goods. They refused to exchange tea for anything other than silver and silver was the one thing that the British were loath to part with.The opium trade offered a way out.The unfortunate combination of a porous border and widespread demand supercharged the trade. By the 1820s China was importing close to 1000 tons of opium annually despite the fact that the Emperor Jiaqing had banned the substance some twenty years prior. The drug was sold at market in Calcutta to accredited brokers, who transported it to British-owned warehouses in the free trade area of Canton. From here, it was smuggled by Chinese merchants – aided by corrupt customs officers – out of the British zone.But the British monopoly –which began in 1773 – ended in 1820 and as a consequence, the value plummeted. Expressed in Spanish silver dollars, the price of a chest of opium from Patna (Bihar) fell from $2,500 in 1822 to $585 in 1838. The increased demand was also expressed in terms of the area under opium poppy agriculture. In India, for example, cultivation increased from about 36,400 hectares in 1830 to 71,200 hectares in 1840. By 1900 it had peaked at 200,000 hectares.The War For DrugsThe effect of plentitude on the price of any given product is well understood but the cultural impact of a product rendered suddenly ubiquitous is always much harder to assess. Certainly in China levels of addiction soared as Britain monopolized and then flooded the market. Family patriarchs ate through savings at a rapid pace and then hawked their worldly possessions. Once denuded of valuables, they forced wives and daughters into prostitution.Two wars were fought by the Chinese to end the trade, the somewhat appropriately titled ‘Opium Wars’. The first of these began in 1839 as a response to Chinese authorities’ seizure of Canton’s opium reserve. The government's assertion of their own sovereignty saw British traders lose some 1,300 mt of the valuable drug; outrage followed. Britain declared war and -- after soundly defeating China's hopelessly outclassed navy -- forced them to cede Hong Kong in lieu of compensation.The second took place in 1856 as the British sought to force China into legalization of the trade. The result – predictably enough – was a second Chinese defeat. In both instances, Opium imports from India rose from some 2,500 mt at the time of the outbreak of the first opium war (1839) to 6,500 mt by 1880. In despair, the Chinese government opted for full legalization, and opium production in China exploded. It peaked in 1906 at a record high of more than 35,000 mt.Legally BlandLessons should have been learned. Ubiquity – indexed primarily by cost — creates a ‘culture of use’ that results in a never-ending feedback loop. The link between legality and use is a well-understood association. The net effect is always the same; it leads to permissiveness. Today, a drunk passed out on a bench is an object of ridicule at worst. The same man passed out with a needle in his arm is viewed with considerable less mirth.The daily consumption of legal drugs would be described as epidemic were they illicit. Tobacco use remains the single largest preventable cause of death in the United States killing more than 480,000 Americans each year, 41,000 of whom die from exposure to secondhand smoke. Smoking-related illness in the United States costs more than $300 billion a year, including nearly $170 billion in direct medical care and $156 billion in lost productivity. The figures for alcohol abuse are no less sobering.Of course, not all drugs are equal. Some 85% of the U.S. population consumes at least one caffeinated beverage per day. The mean (±SE) daily caffeine intake from all beverages was 165 ± 1 mg for all ages combined. Caffeine is hardly good for us, but it’s not liable to see us fall into prostitution for want of a soy latte.Not even a pumpkin spice one.Studies that have examined the effect of legalized marijuana use suggest that legalization increases overall pot use and dependence for adults 21 and older. The findings suggest that allowing businesses to sell marijuana leads to more access and use, particularly for adults. Whether that’s a good thing or not depends mostly on individual persuasion but the word ‘dependency’, carries with it negative connotations, health risks, and societal cost.Opioids: Opium ReduxNot that Opioids are legal.The necessarily brief history explored within this answer focused on the Chinese use of raw opium by way of example only. Synthetic opioids such as Morphine and later Heroin and Fentanyl are many times stronger and as a consequence, far more dangerous both in terms of potential overdose and near-inevitable addiction.And yet, there is one more way to normalize the use of a drug, especially one that has a legitimate medicinal use. Anyone who has ever undergone a serious medical procedure is likely to have been given morphine or even the more potent diamorphine, a drug that those of us lucky enough to die quietly in a bed surrounded by loved ones will be almost certainly be given to ease our passing. Few of us come out the other side of a hospital stay with an eventual Heroin addiction.Because although addiction is complex and the human brain is more so by many magnitudes, one thing is clear: recreational use and the art of self-medication is a very definite factor in the spiral into dependence. Recent studies have even managed to index the euphoria of certain narcotics to specific environmental conditions.One does not simply decide to self-medicate with Heroin though.The decision to normalize opioid use – for a decision it was—came from a pharmaceutical industry who — I have little doubt — saw themselves as crusaders of a sort. The mustache-twirling villain of the popular refrain is often in reality little more than the intersection between loose morals and the desire to make a quick buck. The British did not necessarily want to position themselves as peddlers of misery in China; they sold Opium because it was lucrative. The big pharmaceutical companies were no different. A medicalized society represents near endless opportunity.Even Stranger DangerStill. they knew better than most that their product was dangerous. American medicine cabinets became overstuffed with prescription strength medication and generic names such as Vicodin, Percocet, Oxycontin and so on became as recognizable as any other brands: McDonald's. Snickers. Mickey Mouse. Xanax, you name it. Drug companies that don’t name the drug in question aren’t even required to list its potential side effects such as with the mesmerizing Lunesta commercials that showcase:An entire nation… on drugs as butterflies, indicated with thousands of illuminated specks, glow across a map of the United States as a voice softly coos, 'Join us'.Ermm, no thanks, I’m British.And yet, even though side effects are required by law to be explained to the consumer, medical professionals themselves are expected to use only their best judgment when prescribing. And their best judgment is often clouded by the pharmaceutical representatives who in turn rely on data provided by their own employers. The FDA approves medication, yes, but it doesn’t conduct its own studies.It can’t afford to.No prizes for guessing who can.The Integral AccidentThe question then is whether or not Big Pharma knew that the product they were peddling was harmful. There is a concept in political science known as the integral accident. An invention – any invention—brings with it unintended consequences. The Wright brothers invented the airplane and in doing so also invented the plane crash.Dick move Wilbur.But hardly malicious. Because they weren’t trying to sell a product with a faulty steering mechanism. They built the best vehicle they could and made clear via the example of gravity that a certain amount of jeopardy was included in its remit. Crashes happened; they did not insult anyone's intelligence by insisting that they had no prior knowledge of the damage falling from the sky might cause.Such was the tactic of the big tobacco companies who scoffed at links between smoking and cancer by utilizing tactics that fossil fuel lobbyists now employ to deny anthropogenic climate change. Jeffery Wigand’s damning deposition in a Mississippi courtroom that eventually led to the tobacco industry’s $246 billion litigation settlement is a case in point. His name – forever to be associated with whistleblowing –is a stark reminder of the depths to which corporations are willing to sink in the pursuit of profit. That they also sought to make their product more addictive and to market nicotine to an ever-younger audience is really just one of those accidents of history. A posteriori ‘fuck you’, to ordinary people whose lives were cut short by merchants of poison.They learned nothing from their time spent blinking back faux tears in the spotlight of corporate mass-murder. When the golden goose of cancer sticks was quietly euthanized via government efforts to curtail tobacco use they simply shifted focus towards peddling death to developing nations.Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical companies targeted the vulnerabilities of doctors who were simply looking for ways to ease the pain of their patients. Hard-working, well-meaning practitioners were inundated with:“Research that showed the drugs were safe and effective for short-term pain, such as after surgery, as well as cancer and end-of-life pain”.Which then led without rigorous research, to their application to a:“Much larger population with long-term pain, such as low back pain and fibromyalgia”.The Big Lie DownIt was as the LA Times later reported the ‘Big Lie’ noting that OxyContin -- America’s bestselling painkiller, and one that has brought in over $31 billion in revenue for its manufacturer Purdue Pharma – was administered as the result of faulty data adding that:“The Federal Food and Drug Administration approved OxyContin based on evidence that the two-pills-per-day regimen worked for half or more of the patients in a test group. But sealed court records and internal company documents… showed that the company knew that the relief wore off for many patients well before 12 hours.”A chemical cousin of Heroin, excruciating symptoms of withdrawal, coupled with an intense craving for the drug was the inevitable result.In the face of mounting evidence, Purdue advised that Doctors stick to the dosing schedule but prescribe higher-strength pills. The result was ever more profound pain relief, tempered by the fact that cravings, pain, and withdrawal would still occur before the 12-hour cycle was up. And yet it was the 12-hour cycle that was the drugs single unique selling point. Without it, Oxy offers little advantage over less expensive painkillers.Some patients burned through supplies that were supposed to last months in a matter of weeks. Adding to the problem was the fact that the very presence of such strong narcotics was an inevitable temptation. A few pills were stolen from the medicine cabinet here and there could lead to an addiction that spiraled out of control with frightening rapidity. A black market in prescription pills sprang up almost overnight. Those not caught in the grips of dependence soon found that pills sold for $20 a pop. The numbers of people arrested for selling on prescription medications increased at an alarming rate.Pharmer’s MarketConvincing medical practitioners who saw opioids as best reserved for the relief of the terminally ill did not come cheap.Purdue alone spent $207 million.Sales representatives were sent out in force to push the message. The drug was safe, the addiction problem had been solved. Opioids – doctors were told – were reliable and effective treatments of some of the most common pains known to man; muscle strain, abdominal issues, swollen joints and problems with the back. They were relentless.Indeed, according to the LA Times:“Sales reps showered prescribers with clocks and fishing hats embossed with Q12h. The company invited doctors to dinner seminars and flew them to weekend junkets at resort hotels, where they were encouraged to prescribe OxyContin and promote it to colleagues back home.”It worked of course. Marketing spends that approach the quarter billion mark usually do.That quarter of a billion brought in many billions more. Other drug companies desperate for cash cows of their own fast-tracked versions of opioid hell that had been wallowing around in corporate bilge tanks for years.By 2010, according to a Johns Hopkins University, 1 in 5 trips to see a Doctor in matters relating to pain resulted in narcotic painkiller prescriptions.The eventual criminal investigation of Purdue saw three top executives plead guilty to fraud for downplaying OxyContin’s risk of addiction. Purdue and the executives were ordered to pay a grand total of $635 million. A little more than a half-billion dollar fine for creating a problem that costs half a trillion per annum. It was akin to fining a billionaire arsonist $1000 for burning down the Amazon rainforest.Election FeverBy the time the 2016 election rolled around, it was clear that government responses were proving to be woefully inadequate. Then-candidate Donald Trump promised to tackle the crisis and indeed, won big in those areas where prescription abuse rates were highest. But less than a year on and even his own voters were split over the way he was handling the epidemic. In a Gallop poll, only 38% indicated that his public health emergency order has been sufficient; 36% said that it was insufficient to the task of combating the crisis.Coupled with subsequent revelations that President Trump’s personal attorney took money from Swiss drug giant Novartis -- a major player in the opioid market and the recent subject of an investigation over allegations of corruption and bribery – and Trump’s promises of action began to look ever more dilute. Indeed, executives from Novartis were forced to hand over documents detailing the payment of bribes to thousands of doctors in exchange for them boosting prescription numbers.Meanwhile back in March, Reuters was reporting that at least one U.S. lawmaker had had enough.Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill’s call for an investigation was motivated at least in part by the unequivocal fact that:"This epidemic is the direct result of a calculated sales and marketing strategy major opioid manufacturers have allegedly pursued over the past 20 years to expand their market share."Because – you know – they knew it was dangerous.Mother’s Little HelperThe actions of Purdue and others are no different from those of Big Tobacco.Actually, scratch that. They are worse.The smoking gun has been found. The documents released by the LA. Times demonstrate the promotion of sloppy, inconclusive clinical trials. They illustrate a deliberate attempt to propagandize pharmaceutical benefits. And worse, they show a willingness to obfuscate the one basic flaw in the premise of treating pain with substances that are basically heroin.Few people in the pharmaceutical industry can wallow in protestations of innocence. Knowing – as they most assuredly must know – the history of past abuses they were culpable. The monstrously addictive Diazepam -- better known as Valium -- was introduced in 1963 and marketed in much the same way as latter opioids would be. Between 1969 and 1982, Valium was the most prescribed drug in the U.S. Sales peaked in 1978 with more than 2.3 billion pills sold. In 2011 treatment facility admissions for Valium or Valium like tranquilizers stood at 58,953. The number of people in America that have used Valium during their lifetime for non-medical reasons alone stands close to 24 million.Fines registering in the tens of millions for Big Pharma drug pushing is no punishment at all. Trump’s public health disorder proclamations have laughable quantities of money attached to them. Just as one cannot turn the ocean brown by adding a thimble of iodine, cash-starved initiatives promising to tackle the crisis are doomed to abject failure.The problem is just too big.Following SuitWhat to do then?Companies like Purdue would do well to not only read up on Lin Zexu’s warning but to pay more heed than Queen Victoria ever did. They should also foot the bill for the cleanup operation. The cheque they are going to have to write is going to be truly horrendous to their bottom line. The prospect of criminal prosecutions should also be investigated.And therein lies a potential silver lining. Since the damage that was done outweighs the profits made by many magnitudes they might be faced with the prospect of negative equity. Only by rendering their work ultimately profitless will such companies take pause. On May 15th, attorneys general in six states filed lawsuits on Tuesday against the maker of OxyContin and other pain medicines, for pushing what the Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton described as:“Misleading marketing tactics that are fueling the nation's opioid epidemic.”Fueling. Not fueled.Because yes, they are still at it.The suit claims:"Misrepresentation or failing to disclose the risk of addiction of opioids. Misrepresenting the notion that there is no “ceiling dose” of their opioid drugs. The false representation that doctors and patients could increase opioid doses indefinitely without risk. This was coupled with unsubstantiated representations about pseudoaddiction. The states also took issue the idea that signs of addiction in patients signaled a need to up the dosage. And lastly that Purdue made false claims that their abuse-deterrent formulation of OxyContin reduced the drug's risks".In 2007, Purdue Pharma admitted:“No wrongdoing when it paid $19.5 million to settle lawsuits with 26 states and the District of Columbia after being accused of aggressively marketing OxyContin to doctors while downplaying the risk of addiction”.This time neither the absolving of guilt nor the paltry sums of money are sufficient.Because they knew opioids were dangerous.But not even that will be enough. America is a wonderful country and it is entitled to its own culture but the idea that business is the business of America has to stop. It’s great to see a healthy economy but 4% growth figures require context. There’s profit to be made in deregulation. It’s easier to make money in a country without labor laws, easier to make a buck if you’re allowed to let someone else deal with toxic by-products. Fast food, pharmaceuticals, tobacco you name it, they all have advertising money to burn and without specific restrictions burn it they shall.It is to Congress that America should look. Yes, vested interests will argue their case and yes, media networks will bemoan the loss of revenue but those challenges have to be offset by the potential harm to society. We no longer allow advertisers to promote smoking in the way they once did. The USA is the most medicalized society in the world and perhaps they aren’t aware that in most places companies are not allowed to advertise prescription medicine in any way shape or form. The reasoning is simple. Brand awareness is not necessarily a good thing when it comes to human health. Adverts are the product of propaganda and listing side effects does little to offset that fact.It’s time America followed suit with the rest of the developed world.For general musings or indeed if you want to contact me / yell at me or ask for my phone number, you can contact me via Twitter. If you just want to enjoy my accent— I host a regular podcast called the Sanfu Revue where I discuss having forced myself to watch terrible movies so that you don’t have to.

If anyone doubts Russia is benefiting from the Trump presidency, they just haven’t thought about it enough. Russia benefits from the Trump presidency in any number of ways—at least 20 by my count.They would also unquestionably benefit even more if the hubbub caused by their interference with the American presidential election on Trump’s behalf hadn’t cast such a spotlight on the issue, which has produced continuing revelations about their connections to high level Trump staffers, basically every few days for the entire Trump presidency.Before getting into how Russia benefits, it’s important that we’re all aware of two established facts:The 17 agencies of the U.S. Intelligence Community unanimously concluded with high confidence that Russia ran a significant operation to interfere with the U.S. presidential election.The FBI Director recently confirmed under oath that Donald Trump and his campaign/administration are under active FBI investigation for colluding with Russia in this plot to affect the election.Without further ado, here are 20 ways Russia benefits from the Trump presidency so far, and how they may in the future:A President of the United States they can more easily manipulate. This seems like a logical place to start. Mikhail Fishman, the editor-in-chief of the Moscow Times, a paper critical of Putin (which has been attacked more than once), explained the Kremlin thinks of Trump as “a stupid, unstrategic politician.”“Putin is so much more experienced than Trump. He has more than 15 years of global political experience. He knows how to do things, how to work the system. He makes plenty of mistakes, but he knows how to think and act. Trump is a total neophyte. He has no experience and doesn't understand how global politics operates. He displays his ignorance every single day.”[We don’t have the space for all the examples of that ignorance so I’ll just mention that during the campaign, Trump wasn’t even aware that Russia had already invaded Crimea. See: George Stephanopoulos awkwardly corrects Donald Trump when he says Putin 'is not going into Ukraine' or Trump says Putin is 'not going to go into Ukraine,' despite Crimea or Trump tries to clean up on Crimea]“Trump is a posturing performer, full of idiotic narcissism. He appears to be a disorganized fool, to be honest. Putin, on the other hand, is calculating, organized, and he plans everything.”These quotes came from an interview published in this article: What does Russia want from the Trump administration? A Russian journalist tries to explain. As the writer summarized, “Fishman’s point is clear enough: Putin sees in Trump an opportunity to manipulate US-Russia relations.”No further response to their attack upon the United States of America. Let’s not be confused by the language being used, Russia’s cyber attack on American elections means Russia attacked America. The Obama administration put together some sanctions just before leaving office, but do you think it should end there? If another country attacked America, would Trump let it go and deny it even happened? He’s notorious for criticizing anyone and everyone, including our closest allies, and he likes to call himself a “counter-puncher.” Is it likely he would’ve been satisfied by the Obama administration’s actions if it were any other country that attacked us?The Trump administration has basically dropped the matter. The only reason it ever gets discussed comes from outside the administration, from Congress and the press. The administration has not taken a single proactive step on the topic or shown any interest in reacting to the attack. Attacking America without any reaction from the new administration obviously benefits Russia.No response—not even condemnation—to their more recent attack on the United States. Wikileaks just dumped a huge trove of supposed CIA documents purportedly detailing all of their cyber-war capabilities. George W. Bush’s CIA and NSA director, Michael Hayden, agrees with what many have been saying for some time now, that Wikileaks is acting as an arm of Russia. Any other administration would, at minimum, condemn the release, and quite possibly respond in kind, now that it’s become increasingly clear it’s Russia behind it. Still, not a single critical word or action from the administration.Appointment of inexperienced Putin friend to lead the State Department. Rex Tillerson, long time friend and oil partner of Putin, opposed US sanctions on Russia and is possibly the best they could’ve hoped for—a Secretary of State with no particular education or experience in diplomacy or international relations apart from a career at the helm of an oil company, forging partnerships with Russia and other corrupt governments. If you are Russia, what kind of SecState would you want? One with a pre-existing unusually friendly relationship with you, a history of opposing sanctions against you, and no education, experience, or expertise in government or foreign relations to speak of. They got their man. Even if Tillerson doesn’t do a thing to help Russia, that would be preferable to almost any other SecState they’ve faced or could expect to face as lack of action against their aggression on multiple fronts is a big win.Purging of the State Department’s most experienced people on Russia. One of the biggest American thorns in Russia’s side and checks on Russian aggression has been the State Department. This is who gets international cooperation in using America’s unparalleled “soft power” to build up alliances, block some of their hostile activities, and levy sanctions. Unlike Russia, the leaders of the US change frequently, so we are especially reliant on the expertise and institutional memory of our apolitical career civil servants at State. Along with the intelligence community, they’re the ones most likely to spot unseen Russian moves, understand hidden motives, and properly advise our top leaders so they can be effective, basically to prevent America from getting rolled by its counter-parts in Russia. We need this kind of expertise now more than ever with Russia’s years long crescendo of aggressive behavior reaching alarming heights, particularly since America’s new President, most of his White House staff, and Secretary of State, are all completely new to international relations.That’s why it’s pretty bad for America and beneficial to Russia when the Trump administration gets rid of our longest serving non-political employee at the State Department. And the second longest serving one. And the third… It’s actually a lot more than three highly experienced people, they’ve let a slew of them go. I’m not talking about “Obama people” but senior career professionals from the Foreign Service who have served under the past four, five, or in some cases, six presidents. Each person has decades of experience not easily replicated or replaced so there’s collectively centuries of experience walking out the door. That’s certainly not good for the USA, but it does benefit Russia when there’s a bunch of empty desks and newbies instead.[Given all that’s happening (or not happening) at State, it’s slightly less shocking that they went an unprecedented six and a half weeks without the “daily” press conference, or similarly that the new Secretary didn’t let the press corps join him on his first international trip, “breaking with decades of past practice.” Trump’s State Department Discovers That Press Briefings Aren’t Deadly]Slashing of the State Department’s budget. The initial Trump administration proposal would cut the State Dept budget by 37%. That kind of cut to the US’s envoys to the world and expertise at home would be devastating to our ability to project soft power abroad. A big cut in the U.S. State Department is good for Russia as it gives the U.S. fewer resources to push back on them with. You can’t slash their budget by 37% and think there wouldn’t be an effect. Most likely the cuts won’t be anything close to that (indeed, they’ve now revised it down to a still unthinkable 29%), at least not at first, but this is what the administration is pushing for. Even the military, who is getting a big budget boost, said this was an insanely bad idea.Not one word of criticism from the President of the United States. The U.S. is supposed to stand for freedom and speak out against tyranny and oppression. Throughout the campaign and administration Donald Trump has had very harsh words to say about congressmen, senators, judges, journalists, corporations, allies—basically everyone there is…except Vladimir Putin. It’s a deafening and noticeable silence from such a boisterous and pugnacious man, which speaks volumes. The U.S. has the loudest voice on the world stage and it seems clear it will no longer be using it to stand up to Russian misdeeds.Shortly before leaving office President Obama said of Putin, “This is somebody, the former head of the KGB, who is responsible for crushing democracy in Russia, muzzling the press, throwing political dissidents in jail, countering American efforts to expand freedom at every turn; is currently making decisions that’s leading to a slaughter in Syria.”When might we hear something like that from Trump? If the leader of the world’s most powerful country won’t stand up to Russia, who will? Trump is weak on Russia, and that is to their benefit.Not one word of criticism from the Secretary of State of the United States. In 2011, when Hillary Clinton was SecState, she said that Russia’s recent parliamentary elections were not free and fair (which the evidence shows they clearly were not). There were protests in Russia after the elections and Putin publicly blamed Clinton for it. Not having her in office means he no longer has to deal with someone unafraid to call him out on his dictatorial actions. We will see if the new Secreatry, Rex Tillerson, or his boss, Donald Trump, ever come close to being as critical of Putin’s tyranny as Hillary Clinton already has. So far we haven’t seen it. This is good for Russia (not the people, of course, but the current regime).Pro-Russia position in the Republican Party Platform regarding their invasion of Ukraine. At the RNC convention last summer when they were drawing up the party platform as they do before every election, they found that they had a freer hand than ever before. Unlike Romney and McCain who had their people moderate the platform so the hardliners of the party couldn’t go too far, Trump was completely hands off and let them do whatever they wanted with the platform—except when it came to its position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On that one issue, they got involved and had it softened (which they’ve been caught lying about repeatedly) to avoid any kind of pledge to give weapons to Ukraine. The watered-down language instead said the U.S. would provide “appropriate assistance.” Music to Russia’s ears.No real Russia policy is dangerous and may encourage major escalation in violence in Ukraine, the Baltics (NATO members), or even against the U.S. They’ve invaded neighbors, shot down airliners, bombed Syrian civilians and rebels backed by the US, cyber attacked America to influence our elections, likely published CIA secrets, defied an arms control treaty, harassed our diplomats, buzzed our ships—what’s next?They have elections of their own coming up in a couple years and that often means a ratcheting up of aggression. We need to get ahead of that. “In light of the dangers that the present Russian regime represents, however, what matters is deterrence, which always has a strong psychological element. Restraining the behavior of the Putin regime requires creating the impression in both word and deed that violations will meet with a serious response.” -National Review: Trump and Russia“The resignation of Michael Flynn, President Trump’s national security advisor, and the attendant stories about chaos and dysfunction in the White House, have highlighted the importance of personality and process in national security policymaking. But more important is the actual content of foreign policy — and it’s here that the Trump administration seems to be most seriously lacking. Unintentionally or not, the White House still appears to have no firm policy on the greatest threats facing the United States. In order of their priority they are: 1) Russia’s challenge to democracy in America and abroad…” -Foreign Policy magazine, Trump Needs a Russia Policy, or Putin Will Force One on Him”Supporting Russian propaganda: calling America’s election system rigged. One way to keep a corrupt dictator in power is to convince the people that there’s no such thing as a truly free and democratic government, that it’s all just as much a sham as theirs. Undermining western democracy and getting our own leaders to “confirm” that our system is rigged like theirs, plays right into their propaganda at home. When Russians accuse Putin of rigging elections, he couldn’t ask for a better set of ammunition than Trump has provided him.Putin wants to keep the Russian people cynically docile, overwhelmed by feelings of apathetic futility. Russians do protest and Russians do vote and Russians do try to speak out, but Putin jails and kills many that do, shuts down critical news outlets, rigs their elections, embezzles and allows his friends to as well, etc — getting the Russian people to believe there’s no such thing as a free country (so why even try?) makes it far easier to discourage opposition and keep his hold on power. Trump’s “rigged” narrative has been extremely beneficial to Putin in that regard.Supporting Russian propaganda: The President of the United States saying we’re just as bad as Putin when it comes to murder. When asked by Fox News Host Bill O’Reilly if Trump understood just how bad Putin is, calling him “a killer,” Trump said, “What, you think our country’s so innocent?” An unbelievable thing to hear from the President of the United States. [In March alone the lives of two Putin foes came to a violent end: the lawyer for a Russian whistleblower was thrown off the roof of his Moscow apartment and an outspoken former member of Russian parliament was gunned down in the street. See also: 10 critics of Vladimir Putin who wound up dead ]Fully unpacking Trump’s comment is beyond the scope of this post, but just as his “rigged” narrative is a lovely gift to Putin’s propaganda efforts, dismissing Putin’s actions as no worse than anything the U.S. does is a big, sloppy, wet, open-mouthed kiss for Putin.Masha Gessen, a journalist who has lived both here in the U.S. and in Russia under Putin, wrote a book on Putin’s rise to power. In a New York Times piece she explained that Trump’s response to that question is actually a technique straight out of the dictator’s handbook, an old Soviet technique called “whataboutism,’ the trick of turning any argument against the opponent.” Gessen explains how Putin and allies have renewed the use of it since coming to power, “They seem convinced that the entire world is driven solely by greed and hunger for power, and only the Western democracies continue to insist, hypocritically, that their politics are based on values and principles.”If it isn’t obvious that Trump’s statement was extraordinary, consider that “no American politician in living memory has advanced the idea that the entire world, including the United States, was rotten to the core,” Gessen noted. Vladimir Putin probably sent Donald Trump flowers and a singing telgram after that interview.Reduced American credibility. Of course having a president who says our government is just as bad as Russia’s is not good for American credibility but consider how many wildly untrue statements Donald Trump has made, even after taking office. Hell, pick just about any week of his presidency and he made one or more outrageous statements that were just incredible—as in not credible, unbelievable, and ultimately debunked. Put aside the idiotic assertions about the crowd size at his inauguration and other unimportant topics, he actually accused both the preceding American president, and our closest ally, of breaking laws to wiretap him. Both charges were baseless and rejected by all parties as utterly false, but now what happens when there’s a crisis and he needs some credibility to get something important to national security done? Will anyone believe him? How much more convincing and proof will be needed to get allies or others from the international community on board with America’s goals and plan of action? This terrible degradation of the American president’s credibility only benefits adversaries like Russia and China.Removal of sanctions. This has not happened yet—it’s only been two months and obviously there’s a lot of heat on them right now—but they’ve already admitted it was “under consideration” in the first week of the administration.When Mikhail Fishman, the Russian newspaper editor quoted above (#1) was asked why Putin feared a Clinton presidency more than Trump’s, Fishman answered “Because he knew that would mean an extension of Obama's harsh orientation to Russia, perhaps even more aggressive than Obama. Putin has experienced some difficult years since his 2014 invasion of Crimea, but he didn't expect this level of isolation.” (source: A Russian newspaper editor explains how Putin made Trump his puppet)Combined with falling oil prices, the sanctions have been painful to Russia’s economy; their GDP is down 3.7% and their currency is about a third less valuable than it used to be (see: Russia's GDP falls 3.7% as sanctions and low oil price take effect and Prolonged Sanctions Rip Into Russian Economy, Causing Angst For Putin).Lifting the sanctions is a major objective for Russia, Secretary Tillerson opposed the sanctions in the first place (certainly all his old friends and associates at Exxon want them lifted), and the Trump administration was already publicly floating the possibility of lifting them in their first week.Russia certainly thinks it’s a distinct possibility. “We don’t exclude the lifting of the sanctions after Trump enters office,” said a senior Kremlin official at the top of their information warfare food chain (we’ll get into that later).If there wasn’t an insane amount of Russia related heat on them right now—their National Security Advisor already had to resign and the administration is being questioned by the press every day and actively investigated by Congress and the FBI—it might’ve already happened.Trump’s new Secretary of Commerce is quite close with Putin associates. Secretary Wilbur Ross has major dealings with Russian oligarch and Putin friend, Viktor Vekselberg, as his business partner for the past two years. Much hay was made of a relatively small donation Vekselberg had made to the Clinton foundation, but this is an actual close relationship and billion dollar business partnership, so it ought to be much more concerning.Wilbur Ross has also served on the board of a bank with a former KGB official close to Putin, a bank saved by Russian money. We don’t yet know how this will benefit Russia, but it’s not the least bit hard to imagine how it might. What if career professionals in the American government recommend imposing more sanctions on Russia in retaliation for their attacks on us, perhaps targeting Russian financial institutions and oligarchs? Do you think this member of Trump’s cabinet might hesitate or argue against actions that harm his friends and business partners? We don’t know yet, and from the outside we may never have the full picture, but having a sympathetic senior member of the administration is obviously to Russia’s benefit.Weakening NATO, one of Russia’s greatest objectives, is clearly happening. NATO is the most important and successful military alliance since World War II. It helped keep the Soviets in check and it’s helping keep the Russians in check. Its strength is completely dependent on the confidence its members and adversaries have in the certainty that an attack on any member will be defended by all members, particularly its strongest member. Mr. Trump has undermined the NATO alliance at multiple junctures. Not only has Trump called it obsolete, questioned its validity, criticized its members, snubbed our allies, etc — but now the administration is truly weakening it with more than just portentous statements and symbolic snubs (refusing to shake the German chancellor’s hand) but serious actions.SecState Rex Tillerson is skipping the annual meeting of all the foreign ministers (his counterparts) of the 28 NATO member countries. This is the meeting where the policy and strategy to counter Russian aggression is discussed at the highest levels. It sets the strategy for the coming year. It’s always important but quite a bit more important when there’s a new president and doubly so when that president has made numerous alarming statements that cast doubt on whether the US would live up to its commitments. It’s far more than a diplomatic snub, it’s confirmation that the administration cannot be counted on, and it’s a signal to Russia that the U.S. might not step in if they attacked a NATO member. It’s hard to adequately characterize the magnitude of the situation.By the way, what’s Tillerson doing instead? He’s meeting with Russia. That seems a little like standing up your wife on your anniversary to go see your alleged mistress instead…except, ya know, with potentially billions of lives at stake. I haven’t really done the issue justice, I strongly recommend you read this article: Why experts think Rex Tillerson skipping a NATO summit is "an unmitigated disaster" I wanted to quote half and paraphrase the other half, but it’s better if you just read it.As ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff put it, “We’ve already sent a terrible message to NATO. The only message frankly that has gotten through of this administration to NATO is not that we support you, not that we value you, not that we thank our NATO allies for coming to our assistance in Afghanistan and Iraq where NATO soldiers have stood by, fought by and died with our own troops, but rather pay up. That’s the only message we’ve delivered.”About Tillerson skipping the NATO meeting to meet with Russia, Schiff added, “I hope the reason he’s going to Moscow is to hand back the Special Order Friendship medal he got from Putin because after what the Russians have done to us over the course of the last year, that’s the only reason Tillerson ought to be going to Russia.” Aside from the damage to NATO, it’s hard not to wonder what other benefits Putin might be getting from his meeting with Tillerson.[Following some backlash, Trump has announced he will meet with NATO allies in May instead. Some damage is already done but time will tell what actually happens from here. It’s been an eventful couple months and who knows what lies ahead…]Europe moving closer to Russia and more distant from America. When America elects a leader who can’t be counted on, Europe hedges its bets and gets closer to Russia. This clearly hurts us and is to Russia’s benefit. There are far right candidates and political parties in Europe that see Trump has both an inspiration and compadre, as well as an excuse to establish stronger ties with Russia.Some favor lifting European sanctions on Russia, which weakens America’s hand when trying to disincentivize further aggression, since those sanctions were punishment for previous aggression. The less likely Putin is to be hurt by future aggression (such as invading Latvia—a NATO ally we’ve pledged to defend), the more willing he will be to take the risk and put the world on the brink of war. How did WWI start? It started when one country’s heir to the throne was assassinated by a terrorist group (supposedly funded by Russia, as it happens) and triggered a chain reaction of war declarations on both sides based on a web of entangling alliances. NATO is a 28 country all-for-one-and-one-for-all defensive pact that Putin might just want to test now that it’s approaching its nadir. He’s already invaded multiple other neighbors that used to be under Russian dominance and he’s also already staged troops at the Latvian border not long ago. The threat is serious.[Some articles about “little Trumps” and would-be leaders in Europe wanting to move closer to Russia: Trump: The View From Europe, French Election Hints at a European Shift Toward Russia, Why France's Marine Le Pen Is Doubling Down on Russia Support, In France, ‘Independence’ Means Closer to Russia (WSJ pay wall), Citizens for Europe, Populismus und die Folgen: Die Donald Trumps sind überall - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Wirtschaft]Who does it benefit for Europe to have a widening rift with America? Who would benefit from Europe seeking closer ties with Russia? That’s right, it’s Comrade Putin!Weakening the EU. Trump has made many anti-EU comments, gleeful about Brexit and predicting/encouraging others to do the same. He and his chief strategy advisor, Steve Bannon, think the world (or at least the US) is better off with no multilateral cornerstone alliances like NATO or EU. They prefer only bilateral agreements. Sometimes they’ve walked back these kinds of statements, only to repeat them or make similar ones later, sending at best mixed messages. Trump has even explicitly said that he considers our relationship and level of trust with EU/NATO countries no different than the Russia relationship.As the Washington Post helpfully explains, this “president is the first American leader since World War II not to support European integration. The European Union has long been considered to be in the U.S. interest, since it created a unified market for U.S. businesses, provided a bulwark against communism during the Cold War and helped quell the bloody slaughter that cost U.S. lives, among others, in the first half of the 20th century. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the European Union expanded eastward into formerly communist nations, a development that leaders there say helped bring rule of law and stability as they modernized their economies.” European leaders shocked as Trump slams NATO and E.U., raising fears of transatlantic splitIf you’re Putin, would you prefer opposition by unified adversaries or something less? Cracks in US-Europe solidarity and weakening of the European Union are the stuff of Putin’s dreams.Pride at Home and Respect Internationally. A top Russian military officer and Kremlin advisor spoke at a Russian convention early last year, well before the US election or any hacking was exposed, and openly said that they now have capabilities that will allow them to deal with the U.S. on equal terms, hinting at something big on the horizon. He said that we’re not in 2016 (it was when he said it), we’re in 1948, the year before Russia revealed it too had an atomic bomb to rival the U.S. as equally powerful. The translation was literally that in 1949 “everything changed and they started talking to us on an equal footing.”If it wasn’t clear enough, he went ahead and spelled it out as much as he could, short of mentioning a date, time, and target, “I’m warning you: We are at the verge of having ‘something’ in the information arena, which will allow us to talk to the Americans as equals.” The cyber advisor made it clear that once Russia “becomes strong, it will dictate to the Western partners [the United States and its allies] from the position of power.” Russia’s radical new strategy for information warfareThey are now putting a much larger fraction of their military efforts into information warfare. In fact, quite ominously, he said that for information warfare to be effective, it can’t just be employed during wartime, it must be deployed during peace time as well. The fact that one of their top military officers openly said this is extremely scary, but it speaks to the fact that they are proud of this capability and pride is a major motivation and benefit they receive from using it. They’ve now used it successfully and the Trump administration is their evidence of it (whether or not their operation was why he won).They’ve put the world on notice. One of the questions in the recent House Intelligence Committee hearing asked FBI Director Comey why the Russians didn’t try to cover their tracks better, why they seemed to have acted in the loudest possible way so it was clear that the hacking was done by them.Comey’s response: “I think part, their number one mission is to undermine the credibility of our entire democracy enterprise of this nation. And so, it might be that they wanted us to help them by telling people what they were doing. Their loudness in a way would be counting on us to amplify it by telling the American people what we saw and freaking people out about how the Russians might be undermining our elections successfully.” They’re proud of it. They want everyone in the world to know they are once again a major power in the world, a force to be reckoned with, not some regional power but a world power that should not be trifled with.The loss of stature they’ve suffered since the end of the Cold War is very embarrassing to Russians and this is their new way to balance the scales, to proudly exert influence and compete with the western powers on equal terms (and for far less money than conventional military buildup requires). The very existence of the Trump presidency is proof to them that they are powerful forces to be feared and taken seriously, which they obviously consider beneficial.Other untold benefits we’re still discovering, since we just learned Trump’s campaign chairman was essentially on Putin’s payroll. New information is coming out every week. We recently learned that Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was paid $10 Million/year by one of Vladimir Putin’s closest friends, specifically to influence American policy at the highest levels, for the benefit of Putin (Paul Manafort’s plan to ‘greatly benefit Putin government’). The administration has tried to say Manafort played a “limited role” in the campaign. That’s true if by limited they mean he only ran the campaign for a while, not the entire time. He replaced the guy that left after being arrested for assaulting a reporter (Corey Lewandowski) and was brought in to bring order to the very chaotic, unprofessionally run campaign, which he somewhat did, hard to believe as that may be, and Trump’s polling went up noticeably after he took over. He ran the campaign until he had to resign following some other mid-campaign Russia revelations. Also of note, he owns an apartment in Trump Tower.We can stop at 20 major benefits Russia gets from a Trump presidency, that’s a nice round number.Any two of these would’ve made this whole enterprise worth it, but all of them and potentially more? It’s expected they’re going to do a lot more “information warfare” going forward. European democracies with upcoming elections are worried they’ll pull the same thing there. The FBI Director recently said he expects Russia will try to meddle in future American elections again, too. We simply can’t fully comprehend the total benefit Russia gets from a Trump presidency. It has already gotten plenty, is still getting plenty, and looks likely to get more well into the future.To sum up, the ultimate goal of Russia is to strengthen itself and to weaken and undermine the West as much as possible, by diminishing its leadership, credibility, unity, and resolve, and especially its institutions and alliances. Russia certainly got their money’s worth with Donald J. Trump.