Outside the U.S., and even in some circles inside the U.S., anti-Americanism is a popular and cheap status-signaling attitude. (Moldbug wrote a good analysis of the phenomenon a while ago.) Clearly, in more sophisticated circles it usually has subtler forms, but among the common folk it often has rather crude expressions such as this one.
Similarity to the Reichstag Fire and the subsequent Enabling Act perhaps? The Reichstag fire probably wasn’t laid by the Nazis themselves either, but since they enormously profited from it politically many people believed (and I guess still believe) that they did it.
Interestingly two of Servant’s examples aren’t so much about finding an out-group to blame as deflecting blame from an in-group.
After his death, JFK became a martyr for a lot of people on the anti-war left. As such his having been assassinated by a communist sympathizer and former defector to the USSR was rather inconvenient.
In the case of 9/11 especially in a number of the countries mentioned, the need to deflect blame is even more obvious.
Why do you think so many Germans (25%!) think the US Government is responsible for the 9/11 attacks?
Outside the U.S., and even in some circles inside the U.S., anti-Americanism is a popular and cheap status-signaling attitude. (Moldbug wrote a good analysis of the phenomenon a while ago.) Clearly, in more sophisticated circles it usually has subtler forms, but among the common folk it often has rather crude expressions such as this one.
Similarity to the Reichstag Fire and the subsequent Enabling Act perhaps? The Reichstag fire probably wasn’t laid by the Nazis themselves either, but since they enormously profited from it politically many people believed (and I guess still believe) that they did it.