You heard me. It’s stupid that I’ve been trying to use two different terms for two identical groups. There’s been a bit of a shakeup in our vocabulary since the 2016 election cycle made the massive division on America’s political left clear, so we’ve been using terms like “establishment Democrats”, “corporate Democrats” and “corporate liberals” to differentiate the hawkish, corporatist Democrats from real progressives, but that’s dumb. We’ve already got a perfectly good label for these creatures. They are neoconservatives.

Yeah, I know neoconservativism is generally thought of as being the sole purview of the Republican party, but the only functional difference between the Democratic neocons and the Republican neocons is what groups they pander to to get elected. Once they’re in office they are allies with the same agenda: grind Americans to death with exploitative neoliberal policies and squeeze what little tax money they’ve got left to fund immensely profitable wars over strategic military locations and oil. One faction gets elected in the Bible belt by promising to take reproductive rights away from women, the other group gets elected by promising to take guns away from Republicans. And that is it, ladies and gentlemen. The difference ends there.

Just look at the way these two identical groups have been responding to the extremely suspicious narrative that Assad suddenly decided to provoke the wrath of NATO by using sarin gas on his own people right before scheduled peace talks and right after the Trump administration announced it had no intention of deposing him, when he was already winning the war against the jihadists trying to overthrow him. Neither the Republican neocons nor the Democratic neocons are questioning this profoundly unbelievable story, rather they are both beating the drums of war, as neocons do.

“While President Trump cozies up to Assad and the Russians, children and civilians have once again been gassed in Syria,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement condemning Trump’s previously stated agenda of staying the fuck out of another evil regime change war in the middle east.

“Sadly, the Assad regime is likely feeling empowered right now,” said Rep. Eliot Engel, the top Dem on the House Foreign Affairs panel who has been leading the charge to mandate sanctions on any country that supports Syria. “This week, the administration moved toward appeasing the butcher in Damascus and accepting how Moscow and Tehran have enabled and protected him.”

And who could forget Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer?

And how does this dance with the neocons of the GOP? Like Fred Astaire, of course.

*facepalm*

So if you’re not following, the neocons of the Democratic party and the neocons of the Republican party have formed a coalition to push Trump toward taking military action against the Assad government. They are making it abundantly clear that they will ratchet up their constant attacks on the administration even further if he does not play along, but if he falls in line he can expect to gain many powerful political allies as a reward. They’re using the carrot of a vastly more powerful presidency and the stick of greater opposition to push him into another corporatist child-slaughtering war. They want this man who they’ve spent the last year and a half telling us is a crazy and unstable monster to invade a sovereign nation and topple its government.

And the scary thing is it appears to be working.

So we’ve got a neoconservative bipartisan coalition driving us headlong toward a regime change war for highly suspicious reasons. Sound familiar? It shouldn’t; there wasn’t a nuclear superpower fighting on Iraq’s side.

What could go wrong? I mean, they handled Iraq so competently last time, right?

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