Institutional Independence
Trust in Institutions - How Much Does it Make Sense?
In this article, we are taking a bit of a different approach. Instead of focusing on one theme, we have a couple of themes that we want to delve into. But they are not directly related — at least not on the surface. Those themes are Nazi finger-pointing and institutions of power.
What do we mean by institutional power? We are referring to institutions like the media, academia, religion, corporate America, Big Tech, the pharmaceutical industry, Big Agricultural and the food industry, the military industrial complex, government agencies, the U.S. Congress, and, of course, the presidency. Independent thinkers innately have some level of skepticism about all institutions, and it is a sign of intelligence to question the powerful — especially with respect to their motives, their competence, and their integrity.
In this article, we shine a light on a bit of the claims about Nazis and white nationalists, hopefully representative of the truth, and we tie that into a wariness of institutional power. Bear with us while we make these connections! Here we go…
Very Fine People on Both Sides
In August 2020, Joe Biden explained that his decision to run for the Office of the President of the United States of America was cemented by a “Moment I knew I had to run,” which was when he heard comments from President Donald Trump following a neo-Nazi march and subsequent violent clashes with protestors in Charlottesville, Virginia. He urged Americans to recall the white supremacists who spewed “the same anti-Semitic bile heard across Europe in the 30’s,” referring to the Nazi movement that fueled World War II. He encouraged us to, “Remember the violent clash that ensued between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it.” Biden continued, “Remember what the president said? He said, ‘there were very fine people on both sides.’ That was a wake up call for us as a country and, for me, a call to action. At that moment, I knew I had to run.”
We have heard this rhetoric repeated for years across much of the media landscape — especially among the liberal media. We still hear it. Liberals continue to this day to point to “very fine people on both sides” as some kind of example of how Trump is a white supremacist or a racist or a Nazi. Biden brought it up in the June 27, 2024, debate with Trump, using almost the exact same phrasing as in he did in August 2020. But how many people among those who have allowed the corporate/mainstream media to convince them that this is true have heard the entirety of Trump’s statements on Charlottesville? We are talking about the very statements that were so extremely evil that Biden immediately knew he must run for President. Those statements must have been pretty severe, right?
But what if the media, Joe Biden, and all of the Trump haters got it wrong? Snopes, in an article they published on June 20, 2024, finally said, “No, Trump Did Not Call Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists ‘Very Fine People.’” What if Biden and the institutions he serves got it wrong intentionally? What if the clips and the message they presented to the world were intentionally deceitful? If you don’t believe us, and you don’t believe Snopes, and you don’t believe the dozens (maybe hundreds) of independent media sources that have exposed this lie, we recommend everyone take a look at the transcript (compliments of Talking Points Memo).
To provide a little context, people gathered in Charlottesville to protest the removal of some historic monuments and end up clashing with anti-protesters. Chaos ensued and a person died. The Trump controversy emerged from his responses during a press conference following the violence in Charlottesville, President Trump was asked the following question: “Mr. President, are you putting what you’re calling the alt-left and white supremacists on the same moral plane?” Trump began answering and describing the situation: “You had a group on one side and you had a group on the other, and they came at each other with clubs — and it was vicious and it was horrible.” The interviewer interjected, looking for clarification about the the violence being perpetrated by “both sides.” Trump acknowledged, “Yes, I think there’s blame on both sides.” The interviewer pressed with, “The neo-Nazis started this. They showed up in Charlottesville to protest…” At that point, Trump interrupted to say, “Excuse me, excuse me. They didn’t put themselves — and you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.” Moments later, Trump said, “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists — because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. Okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.”
This is all publicly available information, but you will not find it in the mainstream media that continues to perpetuate the deceit about this story.
Hate Trump if you feel you must. He has done and said some loathsome things. But please recognize in hindsight that much of the rhetoric about him is deceitful. This is another example of the media’s deceit by omission (and we have previously highlighted how omissions amount to damaging and dangerous lies). If you do hate Trump, does the idea that the media and your current president spread misinformation about Trump make you wonder how much of the other messages conveyed about him might have been crafted to induce that hate? Are you open to the idea that people who hate Trump tend to get their information about Trump from the same sources that propagated the “very fine people on both sides” misinformation? Are you open to the idea that some of the hate you feel for him is a product of that messaging? And do you want to allow these institutions to manipulate you into having more hate in your heart?
Trump defenders, please recognize that Trump did not immediately follow the “very fine people” line with a condemnation, as is routinely conveyed in conservative commentary. Trump spoke over 150 words after he said there “were very fine people, on both sides,” before he condemned the neo-Nazis and white nationalists. On the other hand, an interviewer sidetracked the conversation with four interruptions before he had the chance to condemn the extremists. On the other other hand, President Trump was not asked any other questions between his “very fine people” comment and his condemnation.
The bottom line: The “very fine people” narrative is a lie. Biden has been lying about it since he decided to run for president (again). Obama had this to say about the election following the June 27th debate:
“But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself. Between someone who tells the truth; who knows right from wrong and will give it to the American people straight — and someone who lies through his teeth for his own benefit.”
— Barack Obama
Between someone who tells the truth and someone who lies through his teeth? Which one tells the truth and which one is the liar, President Obama? Biden ran because of what we now know is a lie. We have said it before, but every scary claim about Trump turns out to be true of Biden! Let’s explore that a little further…
Trump is Hitler! But Biden Has His Own Nazi Problem
If reelected, Trump will put an end to democracy, the liberal pundits warn us. Trump says dangerous things that sound exactly like Hitler, they tell us. He uses Nazi imagery in his campaign ads, they say. Trump has a history of making references, intentionally or otherwise, to Nazis and Hitler. Don’t believe it? Forward.com has compiled all the examples they can find! It seems rather banal at this point. But the liberal media is doing its duty to make sure Trump scares the hell out of everyone.
The mainstream media sees its duty as covering for liberal ideologues and their primary political organization, the Democrat Party. The leader of the Democrat Party is current President Joe Biden, who has dismissed opportunities to negotiate the end of the Ukraine-Russia war in its infancy, who has committed billions of US taxpayer dollars to fund the Ukrainian war effort, and who has supplied mountains of weaponry to Ukraine. Why are we shifting the Nazi conversation to Ukraine? Well…
Have you heard of the Azov Battalion? It is a “far-right” Ukrainian infantry regiment that began as a volunteer, self-funded neo-Nazi paramilitary group in 2014. This group has been accused of abuse, torture, and rape. The Azov Battalion is no secret to American lawmakers — there was a 2016 amendment to a House Defense Appropriations bill (HR2685) to ensure there were specific limits in military assistance to the group (you know, because they are a bunch of Nazis). The battalion was again banned from receiving U.S. aid in legislation passed in 2018 (again, Nazis). Now, the group (of Nazis) has grown into a brigade — meaning this group of neo-Nazis is larger and more powerful than when they were previously banned.
This group does not sound so good, do they? So, we want to make sure we keep that ban in place, right? Not if you are asleep-at-the-wheel Joe Biden! His administration, specifically the Department of State, just lifted a ban on providing American weapons and training to the Azov Brigade! The Biden administration made the conscious decision to literally arm Nazis… sounds like something Hitler would do!
In a previous article, we made the case that the version of “President Biden” we have in office looks an awful lot like the version of “President Trump” we were warned we would get (but did not truly see in his four years in office). This is another very fine example — we are being warned of Trump being Hitler; meanwhile, Biden is putting weapons in the hands of Nazis! By the way, that’s the same thing his old boss, President Obama, sneakily did in 2016! Democrats fund Nazis! At least, the last two Democrat presidents have. Meanwhile, the liberal media downplays the significance of the U.S. funding Nazis and somehow uses the Azov story to discredit Russian President Vladimir Putin, who pointed to the Ukrainian Nazis as a reason for invading Ukraine in the first place. We were told there were no Nazis and Putin was making stuff up. Does that still hold water?
Let’s be honest. The attacks on Trump don’t pack the same punch when you know the whole story — when you recognize that Biden is spending your tax dollars to fund Nazi rapists. But that is exactly why the loyal liberal media omits so much. It is difficult to stay perched on a moral high ground, looking down on all those ignorant Trump supporters, when the truth is revealed.
Nazis Everywhere
In September 2023, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Canadian parliament hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota presented a special guest, a World War II survivor from Ukraine who the speaker described as a hero. The 98-year-old man, named Yaroslav Hunka, received a standing ovation from everyone in attendance, including Trudeau and Zelenskyy. However, there was one itsy-bitsy problem — Hunka turned out to be a frikkin’ Nazi! And not just a guy who served in the German military. This man was part of Hitler’s Waffen-SS, the combat branch of the Nazi Party’s Schutzstaffel (SS) organization. None of the politicians who stood and clapped for the Nazi had any idea. Trudeau later apologized.
This obviously has little to do with the presidential race in the U.S. We bring it up because it is a relevant example of institutions in service of one another. In this case, it is the Canadian government attempting to justify the laundering of money from taxpayers to weapons manufacturers. Did they ever goof on this one!
What’s the Point?
We here at Meet Me in the Middle have explained repeatedly that we do not see Trump as a meet-me-in-the-middle kind of guy. So, why are we writing about this?
Well, hopefully you realize by now that it is not really about Trump. This is not at all about defending Trump. It is not about either condemning or exonerating Trump for any of his past actions. It is not about illuminating Obama’s and Biden’s support for Nazis. It is about the institutions of power and influence. And the Nazi conversation is indicative of how the institutions of power (in this case, the President, the media, and military industry) are corrupt, in cahoots, and intent on deception to achieve their goals. They want you to believe Trump is the next Hitler. He is a lot of things, but do any of us believe in our hearts that he is on the same level as Hitler? Meanwhile liberal leaders are so intent (if not desperate) to serve the institutions of power that they unwittingly celebrate Nazi war veterans and wittingly use taxpayer dollars to fund a brigade of Nazis.
And so, we here at Meet Me in the Middle go after the liberals, the leftists, the progressives, and the Democrats very simply because they are the group with the greatest institutional power. It is the abuse of that power that is most concerning. These institutions work in conjunction to deceive us, and the Democrat Party is a tool of deception (not that the Republican Party is not). Progressives have a stranglehold on academia in America and they are influencing generations of American professionals — and supercharging their progressivism. Liberals control much of the media (at least the portion that is not independent). Democrats are using the fervor fueled by academia and the media to funnel our money to weapons manufacturers, the health “care” industry, and the “green” energy industry. It is the liberal media and the Democrats promoting the Nazi claims, reminiscent of McCarthyism, but they also are the ones helping the Nazis in Ukraine. If we keep supporting the Democrats, we keep supporting the abuse of institutional power to the benefit of only one group (and we’re not talking about Nazis). That group is the wealthy elite.
This is the point: We all should challenge the institutions of power when they are so blatantly doing harm to our people.
Challenging Institutions
A difficult-to-deny example of an institutional problem that affects all Americans is the pharmaceutical industry, which spends billions annually on both marketing and lobbying while also spending billions every year in lawsuit settlements. Is it healthy to be skeptical of an industry that spends so much to convince us that we need their products, that spends so much to gain influence among lawmakers, and that pays so much to the victims of their products? We want to trust our doctors, but they also benefit from the success of pharmaceutical companies. We want to believe that drug producers are looking for ways to make us healthy, but how do they make money if everyone is healthy? With the billions they are spending on marketing, lobbying, and lawsuits, they need people to be sick to make the enormous profits that their shareholders expect. It is profit that motivates those companies. The success of pharmaceutical companies depends greatly on legislation and policy, which is why the industry is so completely interwoven with the institutions of government and health insurance (recall from Part II of our Obama deep-dive that much of the ObamaCare policies were written by the health insurance industry) . That is what we mean when we talk about Big Pharma.
Did you know that over 25% of the currently announced members of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, mostly from academia, have previously been directly paid by manufacturers of diet medications such as Ozempic? Why on earth are pharmaceutical companies funding the group that establishes Dietary Guidelines for Americans? Because as Americans get fatter and sicker, these companies profit more. And once someone is on Ozempic (at a rate of over $1,000 per month), they are pretty much locked in for life. Now Ozempic is being recommended for American teenagers, 50% of whom are obese. Follow those connections and you will see that pharmaceutical companies pay the dietary guidelines committee, the committee makes guidelines that keep making Americans fatter, those fat Americans are put on diet pills, and the pharmaceutical companies make billions. That is the academia, the food industry, and the pharmaceutical industry working together to get rich while making America less healthy.
And there are plenty of examples for other institutions. When an institution earns the title of “Big” (Big Tech/Censorship Industrial Complex, Big Ag/Food Industrial Complex, Big Pharma/Medical Industrial Complex), it is a sign they should be scrutinized.
Can We Meet in the Middle on Powerful Institutions?
“Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.” – Barry Goldwater
Let us start with this notion: There is good to come from institutions, else they would not exist. Whether you are more or less trusting of powerful institutions, enormous corporations, or government agencies, we should all agree that most institutions have something to offer.
However, the challenge for any institution is to advance/grow/succeed while adhering to foundational principles. In business, we tend to measure advancement by revenue and stock price. In media, we evaluate success by the number of minds reached. In academia, enrollment indicates growth. In politics, the big indicator of success is the percentage of public offices held by one party, their number of supporters, and the money they raise. All of these yardsticks are a measure of growth. With any of these and other examples, growth is seen as a reflection of relevance, and perhaps rightly so. At any given time, relevance of any institution is either expanding or shrinking — it is never really static or unchanging. And it is a constant battle to stay relevant.
And so, there is a natural transition of any institution away from its foundation and towards something greater. Any institution that reaches a certain threshold becomes valuable to other institutions and they become interconnected through investments, alliances, or mergers and acquisitions. If a media personality, for instance, increases viewership and starts reaching millions of people, then the pharmaceutical industry is going to want to start reaching those millions with advertising — and, once Pharma begins lining the pockets of that media personality, the media personality is going to be more likely to work in service to the industry and corporations that are making them wealthier and fueling the expansion of their own influence (i.e., power).
And there it is: Power. There is a point at which an institution demonstrates that it has power and that it is willing to exploit that power — it is at that point that we should be watchful and aware. Ultimately, money is power, and it is the wealthiest who are the most powerful. And how do we recognize the institutionally powerful? They are the corporations and individuals who continue to get wealthy regardless of how terrible conditions are for the rest of the world. As an example, take a look at how Democrat lawmaker investments (up 31%) outperform Wall Street (the S&P 500 was up 24%) in 2023. Nancy Pelosi outperformed the best investors in the world with a portfolio that was up 65% in 2023!!
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” – Abraham Lincoln
We propose that every institution should be recognized for their contributions but should be scrutinized for their actions. Some institutions may stay true to their mission. Their leaders may not sacrifice their character and their integrity. And, thus, their power and influence will reach a ceiling. It is those institutions for which we see power and influence continue to grow that “must be suspect.” And, we believe, most rational people will recognize that any such institution will reveal itself in time to be corrupt on some level. If they want to avoid descending into irrelevance, each institution must grow and advance, which means they will compromise more of the principles on which they were founded.
Democracy, as we are meant to understand it, is itself an institution, but sadly our “democracy” is one that is no longer democratic. The idea of democracy is that “the people” own their country. The idea behind the “representative democracy” that our Founding Fathers intended is that the people elect individuals to represent their interests. The nature of our election process is such that the powerful/wealthy elite and their corporate interests fund the candidates who rise to elected office. We would like to pose to our readers that this process has co-opted the representative democracy to the extent that “our representatives” are no longer concerned with the interests of the people. Further, we pose that a lot of the divisive social issues are generated (COVID vaccines and the “pandemic of the unvaccinated” narrative, book bans, LGBTQ “rights”), are reignited (abortion), or simply remain perpetually unresolved (immigration, racism) because they serve as such provocative and extremely effective distractions from the wealthy elite continuing to grow their power.
We want to ponder the following: Where does that institutional power come from? The concept that “money is power” is foundational to understanding the answer to this question. Where is that money coming from? It comes from the earners. It comes from the people. It comes from us. The workforce of America toils in service (or servitude) to the elite — it would be heavy-handed to suggest that it is a form of slavery, but there is certainly a suppression of freedom that results from this model. A company like Amazon makes nothing if not for the forklift drivers in their warehouses — take those workers away and the company fails, which is why the institution that is Amazon fought so hard against unionization.
For institutions that have grown beyond their ability to have a purely market-driven growth, their connection with government enables their continued growth and expansion (as an example, NPR explains how the food stamp program funnels tax money to soda manufacturers, helping boost sales and profits). Government is structured so politicians may help install policy that facilitates institutional growth and corporate profit.
The wealthy fund the politicians. The politicians drive the policy. The policy benefits the corporations. The corporations pay a little to the workforce so that the wealthy can earn more. And they pour some of that money back into funding politicians. That is what we mean by institutional power. When that system fails to make the wealthy even wealthier? Then we “print money” (weakening the value of the dollar) or our debt grows and grows.
So, to meet in the middle on powerful institutions, it seems we need honest politicians to create policies that limit power, that help the working class, and that build toward a positive vision for the future. We need to elect individuals who would give up the kind of wealth that Nancy Pelosi enjoys to do the right thing for the people. Let us know if you come across any honest politicians! We believe we have found the closest thing — and he is running for president as an independent.
Bringing It On Home
All of the institutions we described are interconnected on some level, and the thread that is common to all of them is the government and the politicians that keep the governmental gears turning. Just like the pharmaceutical companies, politicians have shareholders of a sort in the form of their donors (and pharmaceutical companies are typically among those donors). Just as shareholders expect something from the companies in which they invest, the donors supporting political candidates expect something in return if their candidate is elected to public office.
There are a number of detectable patterns to the political and cultural division among modern Americans. Pollsters, political scholars, and pundits track and discuss a lot of those patterns. But the pattern associated with trust/distrust in institutions seems to really drive a lot of the divide in our society. And that trust, or lack of trust, manifests in debates about various contentious issues, such as COVID-19 mandates, the COVID vaccine, the U.S. role in the Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Hamas wars, the benefits of gender transition among our youth, the mental condition of our president, what drives gas prices, voter fraud, and the border.
In past articles, we have tried to illuminate how the tactics of various institutions (especially the media) deceive the public. The more this is illuminated and people awaken to the truth (and refuse to deny the science, for instance), the more institutional mistrust grows. When the Biden administration was exposed for involving themselves in the censorship of Americans on social media platforms, it shattered trust in the presidency (at least for those that did not deny it happened). As more information about the COVID vaccine (including shocking excess death numbers, deadly blood clots, and vaccine injuries) comes out, the more people realize that “the science” did not have a chance to adequately evaluate the vaccines before they rolled out — as a result, the public did not have a chance to adequately understand the risks associated with the vaccine. When we hear that Biden refused to entertain an opportunity to end the Ukraine-Russia war two years ago, we question the motives behind condemning tens of thousands of young Ukrainians to their deaths. Or are we just supposed to blindly trust the institutions that have led us astray on these and other issues?
There is reason to have doubts about these institutions. There are reasons (so, so many reasons) to distrust the media. There are reasons to be skeptical about politicians. And there are reasons to be skeptical about the claims made to discredit those who stand up to the institutions and the powerful. We are not blind to the difference in the treatment of those who challenge the institutions and those who serve them. Biden serves the institutions, and the institutions defend him almost to no end (though his end may be near after the recent debate), but he does not get crucified for actually and factually funding a Nazi military organization. Trump challenges the institutions and is rewarded with prosecution and conviction while also having the “Hitler” label stamped on him. For years, the media, including the two CNN moderators at the recent debate, perpetuated the deceit behind Biden’s bogus claim that Trump called the Charlottesville neo-Nazi protestors “very fine people.” But we can see the truth and we can see reasons to mistrust these institutions.
People are shareholders in this institution of “representative democracy.” Over the course of time, we can see the pattern unfold before our eyes that our representatives are not truly serving those shareholders — in which case, it is no longer really a democracy, is it? When the media tells us that Trump is Hitler and that Trump is going to end democracy while simultaneously performing their job as “journalists” in service to Democrat presidents who actually fund Nazis, we can really start to see through the fog that they have created to confuse us. We can see that it is the institutional elites that are the threat to democracy and, perhaps, have already killed it.
So, please do not buy it when the media tells you Trump is a threat to democracy — he is no more a threat (maybe less of one) than the institutional puppet that we currently have in the White House. Consider that Trump is so viciously opposed by the institutions because he is a threat to the institutionally powerful, which is what draws the support of the “regular Joe.”
As we come off a holiday during which America celebrates its birth and its independence, we challenge you to consider the direction our country is going in terms of independence. Is our society growing more reliant on institutions, or less. Consider, for instance, how much you depend on your mobile device and the institutions that get it into your hands by exploiting child labor in distant lands while also exploiting more lax environmental regulations in foreign countries to pollute their cities instead of our own. Does more reliance on institutions make us more free and more independent? Does it make the world a better place.
These observations are not meant to be a definitive statement on any individual or group, but an opening to a conversation about what makes sense. It is an invitation to consider what makes sense to those with whom we tend to disagree (or with whom we think we disagree). It is that conversation and consideration that is going to help bring people back to a more unified place. Whether you are on the side of placing more trust in these institutions or on the side of mistrusting institutions, it is helpful to understand the perspective of the different sides.
We would like to close this message out by urging you not to allow the institutions of power to lull you into a false sense of independence. We urge you to BE independent!