Greenwald is a devious person with the mentality and behaviour of a cult leader: he is under attack from dark, evil, outside forces, he is fighting for good, he tolerates no criticism. No deviations from his views are allowed - until he changes his views.

Seriously, this sort of thinking is a mental scourge. It is terrible. It is the opposite of critical thinking. Rather than asking, “could I be wrong on this?”, his reflexive response to criticism is, “you are wrong, I am right, and not only that, but you are evil, and are motivated by that evil.”

Orwell’s Notes on Nationalism describes this thinking nicely. These people will do all sorts of mental tricks to maintain adherence to their ideologies. Just like when British communists (living in the UK) who despised Churchill and the conservatives, prattled on about Germany and Russia being partners in a new prolaterian, pro-socialist kinship, and said that Britain should have never sent troops to attack Hitler, nor should they have resisted Operation Sea Lion…..

…then Germany attacked Russia, and literally in hours, these communists had to change their propaganda: now Germany was evil, fascist, a dictatorship, and Britain was right to have resisted the invasion, and to have sent troops to Europe.

They went from one position, to the exact opposite, in an hour, without asking, “were we right?” That didn’t matter. It was right because Stalin said it was right.

Unfortunately, that meant they took their ideological cues from a sociopath, who stood for nothing but self-preservation, despised sentiment, and worshipped only power. (Not too different from the current Russian leader.) Nothing WRONG with that necessarily, I’m sure Putin would see “opportunist” as “pragmatist” and ultimately an accurate label, just like Stalin (if they ever wasted time on such trivial thoughts, which I doubt).

But Greenwald and his ilk are sanctimonious. They would be insulted if they were called double-talkers or even pragmatists, just like the British commies of the 1930s and 40s. They think they are idealists, that they stand for the just, the right, the good. In reality, they idolise whatever and whomever makes the US look bad. Just like the GOP when they’re in opposition. Putin, with his thumb in the eye of the US and the EU, is perfect for them, because he is a wrecker, like them, with no constructive solutions, like them.

Greenwald et al. have this down to a pathetic sort of arithmetic, where US = bad, and anyone else = good.