In a new episode of his RT show “Redacted Tonight,” host Lee Camp sits down with Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges to discuss the “collapse of the mainstream media and the continued rise of [the] deep state.”

The two examine recent headlines over alleged Russian hacks during the 2016 election. Hedges condemns the mainstream media for “hyperventilating” over the alleged hacks, adding that the media fervor about Russia has “insidious” roots.

“It’s about shutting down the voices of the dissidents,” Hedges says. He explains that America always needs an enemy and that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “easier to demonize” than someone like FBI Director James Comey, who was initially seen as the enemy when Hillary Clinton lost the presidential election.

Hedges notes that there are also economic factors at play. The “war machine,” he says, needs to “demonize Russia” because it “is earning billions of dollars in Eastern Europe with the expansion of NATO.”

Camp asks how Donald Trump, who presented himself as a political outsider, will handle these economic and political forces when he becomes president. Hedges responds:

I’m not sure Trump has any fixed beliefs. And it’s clear that the deep state—the security and surveillance apparatus, the war machine—all sectors of the deep state, Democrat and Republican, are going to put the screws on him to ratchet up or continue this aggressive posture towards Russia. Partly because there are large sections of the U.S. economy, i.e., the defense industry, for whom this is a huge profit-making venture.

The two also discuss how dissidents will be handled by the Trump administration and whether American society has anything to hope for.

Watch the full video below.

—Posted by Emma Niles

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