The Expressive Function of the Russia Freakout

[Landslide Lyndon]

That specific bill from 2017 you are talking about combined Russia sanctions with Iran sanctions. Bernie Sanders was for the Russian sanctions but did not want additional sanctions imposed on Iran. You can view his statement here

He also tweeted this right after

https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/890703532973862912

Tweets don't count, votes do.

[Panda Express]

That specific bill from 2017 you are talking about combined Russia sanctions with Iran sanctions. Bernie Sanders was for the Russian sanctions but did not want additional sanctions imposed on Iran. You can view his statement here

Tweets don't count, votes do.

Ok, you're not behaving any better than jfern at this point. You were already told why Sanders voted against that sanctions bill - it wasn't because he was pro-Russia, it was because he didn't want sanctions on Iran, which is valid. They never should have been lumped together on the same bill in the first place tbh.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Bernie bros defending murderous foreign dictator.
In other news, water is wet.

Don't bring Bernie Sanders into this - he's been very vocal about the Russia investigation, protecting Mueller, being tough on Russia etc. As has Elizabeth Warren. Same with the vast majority of Sanders voters. Don't let chronic whiners like jfern poison Sanders.

Here is Bernie Sanders after Helsinki

 

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I'm not sure what the point of these random opinion articles are. Should the Democrats running across the country run on "Russia"? Of course not - words like "bots", "hacking", "collusion", "FISA" documents" etc are abstract words that don't resonate with your average ill-informed American and aren't issues you can grasp, especially if you're  53 year old living in ruralish Wisconsin or whatever. But are they running on this? Most of the ads I've seen have involved the corruption, tax cuts of the GOP/Trump administration. So what exactly is the problem? That *we* shouldn't be talking about it? Those of us who are more politically inclined, should be talking about this. These are issues that are serious and expansive and confusing and need to be discussed in order to combat misinformation what is going on. Any reasonable person should be very concerned about this.

Sanders voted against Russia sanctions.

As he should have (even if he did it to block the Iran sanctions). The Russian sanctions are bad policy that punish the Russian people and haven't hurt or dislodge the regime.

[Calthrina950]

I fully agree with the introductory posts. While I think Russia continues to remain a major national security threat, and while I believe the Mueller investigation must be pursued with all necessary vigor, I also think that a lot of the language and hype concerning these affairs has been overblown.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The main reason I hate articles like this is because a significant portion of the left is literally pro-Putin.

Go check out Left Twitter and Snowstalker's very posts in 2014 and look at how many on the left slobbered over Putin and went to levels to defend Russia invading Crimea and Ukraine. It was sickening.

[136or142]

The main reason I hate articles like this is because a significant portion of the left is literally pro-Putin.

Go check out Left Twitter and Snowstalker's very posts in 2014 and look at how many on the left slobbered over Putin and went to levels to defend Russia invading Crimea and Ukraine. It was sickening.

I remember it quite differently, that it was Republicans who were slobbering over Putin, not the left and that this was even before Trump.  I remember listening to Coast to Coast with George Noory at the time.  Noory lies that he is 'nonpartisan' and 'down the middle' but he is a largely mainstream extreme right conservative with a conspiracy bent similar to Alex Jones that leads him to adopt some positions like opposition to GMOs that are usually held by some on the left.

In this case, during 2014 Noory and many of his political guests (I can't remember if this included Alex Jones himself) slobbered that 'unlike our President, at least Putin is a real man.'  I wouldn't say that was a majority view of Republican opinion prior to Trump, but it was certainly widespread.

In regards to what Trump and Putin are now doing, it's important to remember that in regards to anything with what happened in 2016, what is occurring now doesn't really matter.  To argue on the basis of current events back on 2016 is known as the 'Historian's fallacy.'  What happened subsequently, unless a chain of events between 2016 and now can be put together (I.E the Trump campaign was duping Putin) is actually mostly irrelevant.  

Of course, what has come out between the Trump campaign and the Putin was largely unknown except for mostly vague inferences, and what was believed was false: that the FBI was not investigating the Trump campaign, which was a false 'leak.'

I personally expected a fallout between Trump and Putin following the election (I would have expected a bigger fallout by now) largely on the basis of the Elvis Costello song "Two Little Hitlers."

"Two little Hitlers will fight it out until
one little Hitler does the other one's will"

https://genius.com/Elvis-costello-and-the-attractions-two-little-hitlers-lyrics

So, since we're dealing with two tin pot psychopathic dictators, I expected they would not get along with each other for long.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

I fully agree with the introductory posts. While I think Russia continues to remain a major national security threat, and while I believe the Mueller investigation must be pursued with all necessary vigor, I also think that a lot of the language and hype concerning these affairs has been overblown.

See, posts like this are why there are a lot of people on this board who don't take you seriously as a poster. And I don't mean that as a personal attack -- I genuinely mean it so that you can have some self-awareness and reflection. Not that you will read my post anyway, because you ignored me because one time I wrote a post that had the phrase "shut up" in it.

This thread and some of the posts in it are a painful attempt at equivocating brought up by people who have a compulsive need to bash the Democratic Party establishment (for whatever reason). Posts like this that acknowledge this is a serious issue but then try to downplay it by calling the discussion over it "hysterical" are trying to have it both ways -- saying the Russia investigation has merit but also tilting at some windmill in the Democratic Party apparatus. It's as if acknowledging there is a single position where the Ds have any moral authority will burn you people's flesh off.

Posts that say "The Russia hack is real but the language the Democrats use is a problem" are as useful as posts that say "The Russia hack is real, but the tie Mark Warner was wearing the last time he was on TV to talk about it is a problem."

[super6646]

Love the hypocrisy of Americans in regards to this whole interference thing. America is well known to have screwed in the internal affairs of other nations (to a far greater extent than any "influence" could have had), but now they complain when a foreign power tries to undermine their democracy (which has already been  undermined in numerous other ways that people have spoken of here)? What a joke...

Putin has done a great job dividing America internally and weakening it as a result... hmmm, almost like he wanted this whole thing to blow up in the first place.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Bernie bros defending murderous foreign dictator.
In other news, water is wet.

Absolute bull. In 2000, Putin was simply a new leader. As Secretary of State, I presume a certain amount of cordiality is expected of oneself.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Absolute bull. In 2000, Putin was simply a new leader. As Secretary of State, I presume a certain amount of cordiality is expected of oneself.

[All Along The Watchtower]

We have states actively purging voters from voting rolls, yet paranoid and frequently incomprehensible nonsense about our elections having been infiltrated by wily ex-Soviets dominates our conversations.

Democracy in the United States is dysfunctional in many ways. Dubious accounts of foreign interference, mostly put forward by the kind of person who uses "cyber" as a noun, rank low on any reasonable list of those concerns. Nothing has come to light so far that materially affected the outcome of the 2016 presidential election or that even approaches a level of malfeasance that would justify hysterical cries of "treason."

This is what comes of watching too much television.

Sorry for the PowerPoint-esque bullet points, but I had a lot of thoughts about your post, a few critical, some less so, but I wanted to probe you on some things and add to other points of yours that I 100% agree with.

a) Dubious accounts? Which ones? How are they so dubious?

b) Why does foreign electoral and political interference (however extensive or negligible) from countries like Russia, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Israel, and their lobbyists and operatives (many of whom are in fact elite, well-connected and well-compensated Americans - and I'm not just talking about the Trump campaign, by any means), etc. rank low on "any reasonable list" of election-integrity (and "democracy-integrity", I guess) concerns within the US?

c) If anything, the above, as manifested in the Trump 2016 campaign and his election, should be properly understood as but one real-life example of just how easy it is (to oversimplify) for an "open" system of legalized/quasi-legal corruption and elite malfeasance (the US political system) to be exploited by any number of transparently illiberal, undemocratic foreign powers (not just Putin and Russian oligarchs and spooks and paid trolls or whatever), but also including, say, Saudi Arabia (have they ever been held accountable for 9/11 btw? ), the United Arab Emirates, hell even Israel (the Netanyahu-Kushner axis with the Crown Princes of Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi is a critical yet curiously underreported or not-as-much talked about part of the "Collusion" story re: Trump compared to Russia...I guess they have better lobbyists and more access to the Beltway-sanctioned Bubble.

Oh, while we're at it, how about the wealthy "MEK" (an actual State Department-listed terrorist group) that consists of Iranian exiles, who have Congresspeople from both parties on their payroll? Might the US government's dangerously insane policy toward Iran not be so insane if they treated such people (or agents of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates and yes, Israel) and their friends in power within the US like they (rightly) treat agents of Russia or China?

d) To wrap this admittedly meandering post up, I agree with you that the "Russia Freakout" is a distraction as it stands, if only because it's almost completely treated in isolation, rather than as an all-too-easy-to-"call out" example of a much, much larger phenomenon of corruption, mendacity, and - dare I say it - collusion with agents and oligarchs connected to all manner of oligarchs and criminals both foreign and domestic (how's THAT for "globalism?"). And that much larger conversation is something that scarcely anyone close to any elite, "mainstream" center of power in the US - private or public, government or media - wants to touch with a 10,000 foot-pole.

[Crumpets]

Yeah, I can understand the argument that Democrats shouldn't rely on Putin-Trump bromance anger to deliver them seats in November, but I absolutely cannot buy the argument that the campaign against Russian interference cannot be part of a larger economic populist argument when the entire Russian interference story is, at its heart, a story of two of the richest men in the world attempting to disenfranchise millions of Americans for their own benefit.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Yeah, I can understand the argument that Democrats shouldn't rely on Putin-Trump bromance anger to deliver them seats in November, but I absolutely cannot buy the argument that the campaign against Russian interference cannot be part of a larger economic populist argument when the entire Russian interference story is, at its heart, a story of two of the richest men in the world attempting to disenfranchise millions of Americans for their own benefit.

The bolded is Fake News.

Trump is not that rich.

[DrScholl]

Russia did meddle in the election and is determined to do so again as evidenced by the hacking attempt on McCaskill's campaign. Russia attempted to do the same thing in France's election, but it failed there. You can have any campaign platform you want, but if there are people determined to cheat and you ignore that fact then your platform means zero. I don't think the Democrats have to really campaign on Russia for it to be an issue since it is clearly in the news and people have formed opinions about it.

[Yank2133]

Yeah, I can understand the argument that Democrats shouldn't rely on Putin-Trump bromance anger to deliver them seats in November, but I absolutely cannot buy the argument that the campaign against Russian interference cannot be part of a larger economic populist argument when the entire Russian interference story is, at its heart, a story of two of the richest men in the world attempting to disenfranchise millions of Americans for their own benefit.

It is funny, Noah Berlatsky was just pointing this out on twitter. He argued that the Russia was an opening that the left could use to liberals and centrist on board about dealing with international kleptocracy.

[IceSpear]

You guys really want to die on this hill?

The far left has a vested interest in dismissing Russia's meddling. They don't want to admit they got played like a fiddle by Putin, who used them as useful idiots in their character assassination of Hillary. I can't blame them, it is indeed quite embarrassing for them.

[JA]

You guys really want to die on this hill?

The far left has a vested interest in dismissing Russia's meddling. They don't want to admit they got played like a fiddle by Putin, who used them as useful idiots in their character assassination of Hillary. I can't blame them, it is indeed quite embarrassing for them.

The degree to which your viewpoints expressed in your posts are detached from reality have ceased to surprise me anymore. I mean, I voted for Clinton and, in an election between any Republican and her, would do so again.

[Landslide Lyndon]

You guys really want to die on this hill?

The far left has a vested interest in dismissing Russia's meddling. They don't want to admit they got played like a fiddle by Putin, who used them as useful idiots in their character assassination of Hillary. I can't blame them, it is indeed quite embarrassing for them.

The degree to which your viewpoints expressed in your posts are detached from reality have ceased to surprise me anymore. I mean, I voted for Clinton and, in an election between any Republican and her, would do so again.

The fact that you voted Clinton doesn't mean that people like Susan Sarandon, Jimmy Dore, or Nina Turner don't exist.

[The Mikado]

(d) this is not a winning issue that Democrats think it is.

I'm going to not address the rest of your points right now, but I wanted to tackle this one. Why the hell should I, a private citizen, give a s**t in terms of what I think is important or interesting or worth discussing based on whether or not "swing voters" care about it? Why should any of us here?

I hate this insane "this isn't what voters care about, therefore you shouldn't talk about it" thought policing nonsense on online political forums. We're supposed to be here to discuss what we care about and think is important. If people here want to talk about health care reform or tax policy or tariffs or Russian collusion, that's all fine. Please don't tell users that certain topics are just off limits for discussion here because they're not hot-button enough political issues.

Why the hell should I care if what I talk about is an issue that gets Democrats elected or not? I'm not an employee of the Democratic Party, nor are most people here.

[TarHeelDem]

The reaction here when Kushner and Junior go down in 2019 is going to be hilarious. Hell, I'm just excited for Cohen/Stone/Assange's falls coming later this year (next month?).

This issue isn't an effing hoax, people. America was attacked and it's likely Trump himself knew and possibly assisted the effort. It's a matter of grave concern and should be considered with utmost seriousness.

[136or142]

In terms of it being a 'winning issue.'  Most voters didn't care about Watergate during the 1972 Presidential election, but it was by far the dominant issue in the 1974 midterms and had an overhang onto 1976.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

[Virginiá]

In terms of it being a 'winning issue.'  Most voters didn't care about Watergate during the 1972 Presidential election, but it was by far the dominant issue in the 1974 midterms and had an overhang onto 1976.

Yes but Watergate had developed into a much bigger issue between June 1972 and November 1974

[mvd10]

You guys really want to die on this hill?

The far left has a vested interest in dismissing Russia's meddling. They don't want to admit they got played like a fiddle by Putin, who used them as useful idiots in their character assassination of Hillary. I can't blame them, it is indeed quite embarrassing for them.

Nah, the far-left is soliciting for Kremlin support in 2020. They can't take money from muh evil Joos Wall Street bankers so they'll get support from anti-neoconservative hero Putin. Putin opposed the Iraq War. GUESS WHO DIDN'T?

[Crumpets]

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No one can explain what Russia did or why I should care. Why is it so difficult to put this in clear language? Maybe I'm just not smart enough to understand what has happened.  Most of your post went over my head.

Here's a pretty straightforward video from the Washington Post explaining what Russia's interference campaign consisted of, without much in the way of partisan posturing (note that it's from last November, so a couple more details are known now):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F08_88JPy2Q

As for why you should care, I'm not sure if I can speak to your personal interests, since I don't know much about you, but here are some big reasons:

- Attacks like this tend to not be a one-and-done kind of thing. If Russia can hack into state election systems and not get any pushback except from a small group of anti-Trumpers, they will absolutely feel emboldened to do it again, and next time, they probably won't stick to just getting info on voters and trying to make wait times at polls longer in more Democratic districts.

- The false identities created by Russian military intelligence were based on information obtained on social media. One of the profile pictures or names used might have been yours. Maybe a future employer will dig up the time that "you" called on people to hunt down cops or black people.

- When foreign governments can organize both protests and counter-protests, it gives them essentially a remote control to cause instability, however minor, anywhere and anytime they feel like. Maybe next time, they'll pick your hometown as the place to hold a white supremacist rally if they think your congressional candidate is holding too hard of a line against them.

- If we establish the precedent that contributions in the form of advertising, propaganda, and organizing rallies are not subject to the prohibition on foreign campaign contributions, you can expect our future elections to take place in an atmosphere of Citizens United on steroids, with China, Saudi Arabia, and probably some of our allies as well pushing their candidates without any expectation of blowback. That goes for the US too, which will feel emboldened to do the same on the international stage.

- And of course there's the possibility that the sitting president has to run everything by a foreign power before making a decision. Just a chance.