Preface: if this does not belong in c/main, I'll gladly move it elsewhere. It's not exactly "theory" however, so I don't want to post it in a serious channel.

The mask-off fashies have it easy; they don't have to hide their lust for American hegemony and their belief that white people should subjugate the Global South. So how do liberals maintain their facade of compassion while still advocating for largely the same policies as their pseudo-opposition? Just say that you're actually helping the inhabitants of whatever country you're trying to strangle.

When the military sanctions the population into starvation, murders civilians en masse, and bombs huge swaths of the country back into the stone age, it is hard to completely deny material conditions. The media does its best to obscure the extent to which America destroys nations, but in this day and age it is nigh-impossible to fully suppress news of a major military action in real time. The solution? Exploit nationalism to convince Americans that the target country wants to be more American, or that they just don't know what's good for them and that they should be more American.

How is this done? Well, this is where the concept of "freedom" comes into play. America exists in such a state of capitalist realism that our bourgeois democracy is seen not only as the pinnacle of democracy, but also the highest level of freedom. Thus, by twisting the subjective definition of "freedom" into whatever suits their momentary needs, the media turns every country resisting the neoliberal model into a tortured populace crying out for a savior to liberate them from some heinous oppressors, thereby manufacturing consent. Freedom becomes your ability to be screwed over by the Fortune 500, and it is America's duty to dole out freedom to all nations, consensual or otherwise.

Postface: if you live in the UK or some other non-America imperialist hellhole, the above applies to your country as well I'd imagine.