The Neocon Meltdown Over Trump Calling Zelensky A Dictator, Explained

In case you’re wondering why Trump calling Zelensky a dictator resulted in a Category 5 neocon meltdown, it’s because the neocon brain cannot reason beyond “icky dictator must be removed from power.”

If Zelensky, who cancelled elections and banned opposition political parties and media, is a dictator (and by all definitions of that word, he clearly is), then he must be removed from power, according to the one-dimensional neocon framework for understanding international affairs. But they don’t want Zelensky removed from power, which means he can’t be a dictator.

That’s why they’re all out there right now venting their spleens and screaming that NO, Putin is the real dictator! Again, they can’t both be dictators, because dictators are icky, and icky people have to be removed from power. So when it comes to Putin and Zelensky, there can only be one dictator at a time. Putin is the ickiest, which means only he can be a dictator. If you try to tell a neocon that the world is 1) full of dictators, and 2) it’s not America’s job to remove all of them, the neocon brain will short-circuit and immediately return to the only routine it knows how to run: but so-and-so is an icky dictator and we can’t just let an icky dictator stay in power!

If you think I’m exaggerating, go back and review the last 20+ years of neocons demanding regime change. Every single argument begins and ends with the claim that this or that leader is an icky dictator and therefore must be removed.

Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Assad in Syria. Gaddafi in Libya. Putin in Russia. Liz Cheney even used it on Trump! Their playbook only has one page, and that page only has one play: call someone a dictator and then demand regime change.

At no point will they ever grapple with whether it’s in America’s interest to violently overthrow another government. They are incapable of even considering the notion that whoever or whatever replaces the icky dictator might actually be worse.

Like communists who rationalize away discrete communist failures by saying no, that doesn’t count, because that wasn’t really communism because true communism has never really been tried, the neocon brain will look at Iraq and and swear it doesn’t indict their ideology, because it would’ve worked out if we just stayed there another 50 years and spent another $5 trillion on it.

The idea that the costs might outweigh the benefits of policing every nation and icky dictator on earth is utterly foreign to them. There are no neocon failures, only failures to properly implement true neoconnery. The neocon cannot fail, he can only be failed.

And that is why the neocons melt down if you suggest that hey, maybe Zelensky and Putin both suck, and maybe we shouldn’t be funding that war any longer, because we can’t afford it, it’s not in our national interest, and it’s not our business.

So keep that in mind as you watch them continue to freak out over Trump calling Zelensky a dictator and trying to end the war. Their brains are simply incapable of grasping that multiple foreign leaders can be icky and America doesn’t have to remove every icky leader on earth.