Republicans and Democrats: The Hypocritical Team

Since its beginnings, Wikileaks has aroused both hatred and veneration among its followers and detractors as much as any other worldwide organization. However, what is most striking is that a large number of these people, including Donald Trump and the U.S. Democratic Party, have changed their opinions about Wikileaks several times over the last few years, revealing a high degree of hypocrisy.

In 2010, after Wikileaks published hundreds of thousands of classified documents and videos provided by Chelsea Manning, President Trump said:

“WikiLeaks is disgraceful, there should be like the death penalty or something.”

At the time of the above statement, Trump was often criticizing Wikileaks and its staffers. However, during the last Presidential campaign, Trump changed his mind, and started to praise Wikileaks’ work while encouraging the group to continue disclosing secrets related to John Podesta and Hillary Clinton. He also suggested that Wikileaks was the most reliable media organization in the world.

On Tuesday, Wikileaks disclosed the largest leak of classified CIA documents to date, exposing that the CIA had been hacking electronic devices for surveillance in mass, even abroad  (including the techniques used to break said electronic devices).

On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said:

“While I don’t want to get into confirming or denying this particular thing, I think it is interesting that — how different subjects are approached. People immediately began rushing to question this, and expressed that there should be a lot more coverage going on.This alleged leak should concern every single American in terms of the impact it has on our national security.”

“It’s interesting how there’s sort of a double standard with when the leaks occur, how much outrage there is,” Spicer observed, referring to internal leaks which have plagued the Trump campaign in the media.

“The idea that we are having these ongoing disclosures of national security and classified information should be something that everybody is outraged over in this country,” he added.

About the specific WikiLeaks accusations, he said: “You know all of these occurred under the last administration. That is important. All of these alleged issues.”

“There’s a big difference between disclosing John Podesta’s Gmail accounts, about a back and forth and his undermining of Hillary Clinton, and his thoughts of her on a personal nature and the leaking of classified information.”

Spicer also suggested that the U.S. will prosecute all those who are behind the latest disclosures, including any Wikileaks staffers. He added that Trump’s concerns likely stem from the threats that the information could pose to national security.

Spicer’s statements revealed that President Trump has changed his opinion about Wikileaks again, demonstrating that the President only considers his personal interest. When Wikileaks was revealing secrets favorable to his campaign, it was the best journalistic organization ever, but when it does the same to governmental institutions during his term, the group suddenly turns into a criminal organization.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Democratic Party and its supporters have gone through the same mental gymnastics. During Manning’s disclosures, most liberals and Democrats officials supported Wikileaks amidst Manning’s leaks, because they saw the organization as one exposing the truth of government corruption. However, during the last presidential campaign, most of the Democrats decided to change their opinion about Wikileaks and its founder, alleging that they were colluding with Russia to help Trump win the election.

As if that were not enough, after the last Wikileaks disclosure, a large number of Democrats (including those who suggested that Wikileaks was colluding with Russia) have changed their minds again and now think that Wikileaks is a reliable and honorable organization.

These extreme changes expose how a large number of people easily change their minds in relation to their own interests. Most of them lack critical thinking and are susceptible to being manipulated by both political parties and the media, though the end is the same: none of them are able to stand by either their convictions or their words.

The truth is that Wikileaks has published several countries’ governmental secrets for a decade. During all this time, it has never changed its editorial staff (most of the editors have been working at the organization for years), and it operates in the same exact way.

Wikileaks has allowed people from all over the world to know about governmental corruption, and that the CIA has conducted surveillance programs to spy on everyone all the worldwide. Thanks to that, people now have the opportunity to act in order to protect their privacy against these governmental threats. 

Wikileaks is not the real problem in our society; governments and politicians who manipulate their citizens on a regular basis are. In addition, the American political system is completely obsolete and should change to make it harder for politicians to adopt megalomaniac behaviors. The system should allow organizations such as Wikileaks to freely operate because it just exposes the truth about governmental corruption. Those who are not corrupt do not have to fear anything from Wikileaks.

The lack of critical thinking in a global society is troubling since it makes it harder for people to know what is real or not. Instead, it pushes them to blindly believe what their governments say to them. For that reason, we can observe sudden changes in people’s minds in short periods of time. In order to prevent this, the education system should change by teaching students how to think critically.

When people try to change the education system to develop critical thinking skills, both Republicans and Democrats will strongly oppose it to continue manipulating their citizens, which guarantees the continued  misconduct and political corruption in all layers of government.