Do you think the Dems are focusing too much on the Russia narrative?

[ApatheticAustrian]

i can only speak for myself but i as a progressive leftist have always hated putin for different reasons since about 2005.

till 2013 i thought, cooperating on technocratic levels and treaties like START could be enough to wait until he is gone......which is why i supported obama's taunt regarding romney.

but ukraine 2013 and everything which followed changed the game in a fundamental way....putin is actively trying to kill liberal democracies and let them vote for the most radical elements, which today are always also funded and supported by the russian banks and information shadow empire.

russia stand against everything i believe in, on a global base and is as hostile as possible and the republicans have given in, like most far-right parties all over the world and feel more threatened by obama than by a russian autocrat.....

something happened during the election of 2016 and we could ofc just ignore it but that wouldn't make that truth go away. you could also call it bad politics but imho it's a question of principle.

[ApatheticAustrian]

in fact, this plays out like watergate...after all nixon WON that election.

biggest difference...imagine nixon would have won through information he got from the plumbers. that literally happened in 2016.

[ApatheticAustrian]

The thing is, Russia is such a paper tiger of a state. Its people are probably the unhealthiest in the developed world, its economy is nothing to brag about, it's largely disliked by its neighbours, its environment is wrecked, the population is stagnant and probably will start declining again and the whole system is kept afloat by increasingly cheap appeals to rabid nationalism and to the personality cult of Putin. I don't really see why people are so goddamned frightened of the country - unless you're from Latvia or something.

you are practically right...and i thought like that in the past.

but 2013 changed my mind...putin is holding all his neighbouring countries as hostages, if they are not atm part of bigger organizations or powerful enough not to fear it.

since i am not knowledgeable enough yet and many users here are using the avatar feature in cute ways, i don't know if you are really living in the UK ,......but it's one of the few european countries, thanks to the majority voting system, which is in less risk of a pro-russian power grab and thanks to brexit it still can't counter Moscow's plans.

All over western europe, Russia - through information, rumor, money and ideological networking - is playing as a hostile superpower, trying to undermine all trust in democracy, liberalism, capitalism and democracy.,...and keeps winning, winning, winning, even while it is in crisis and decline itself.

Wounded predators may be not taken literally...but it is deadly to ignore them, imho.

[ApatheticAustrian]

Of course. Is the goal to make the Republicans who yelled "BENGHAZI" seem sane in comparison? It's time to talk about the issues.

this is in fact one of the most important issues for anyone interested in liberalism but i guess, if you think foreign policy is only a method to ignore all possible conflict areas, one can easily ignore it.

[ApatheticAustrian]

No, it's not an important issue. Healthcare, the environment, and social security are important issues that the Democrats should be talking about.

they should and they are.

doesn't mean the undermining of all your liberal allies and trying to change your commitment to democracy is a good thing.

[ApatheticAustrian]

Yelling Russia to try to distract people from the Podesta e-mails is undermining progressives. The Democratic party needs to stop throwing progressives under the bus.

in fact the useless information inside the podesty nothingburgers was used to confuse people with the real actual critical missing hillary emails and obtained by a conspiracy of far-right or anarchistic groups, who try to undermine liberalism and democracy.

progressives are jumping themselves sometimes, cause they think more about their social-democratic "traitor" allies than their actual enemies.

[ApatheticAustrian]

Yes, Russia has conducted cyberattacks against the United States, but tbh the Democrats are using Russia as a perfect scapegoat because they are extremely embarrassed that they lost to Donald Trump of all people.

the risk putin symbolizes for liberalism in the classical and the modern sense is far bigger than any petty election.

that he invested in trump and trump's own lacking skills are horrifying is just a gruesome extra.

[ApatheticAustrian]

It's kind of taken a life of it's own.   I don't think the Democratic Party has as much control over this as you seem to think it does.

absolutely.

in fact obama made sure that the trail couldn't be hidden - and the story makes a new twist any other day.

the democrats could ignore the story...would make their base angry, deny it..would be even sillier...or endorse it in a soft way.


atm we know, like trump's "man in russia" confessed that trump himself lobbied for taking the ukraine passage out of the RNC platform, even while he denied it later.......and AFTER sessions met with the russian ambassador, funded through campaign money.

drip drip drip.

you won't win the WWC like that but it is going to fire up your own base, make trump go even more paranoid and could even bring home some scalps.

[ApatheticAustrian]

Yes, it's annoying. Very insincere political ploy on Democrats' part.

in fact, imho, playing nice with putin would be more insincere and masochistic for any modern liberal, in both meanings of the word.

[ApatheticAustrian]

Russia is the one thing that sticks to Telfon Trump.

for one simple strange reason:

he danced around EVERY topic, was always all over the place, runs his mouth faster than usain bolt  and ......always stayed the same on russia, defending putin hard even while denying him with some lip service could haven been the easy thing to do.

as far as i remember, he pushed pence under the bus, let himself get slaughtered in a debate with hillary on that topic, got crushed by both scarborough and O'Reilly through silly answers for easy questions and generally always sounds like he is willing to die on this hill.

if all your public life is made of jello, the moment you bite on steel you wonder why.

[ApatheticAustrian]

. And there was no genuine anti-Russia sentiment among the American people.

obviously - but that doesn't mean it didn't cost him votes. if you are - for a change - defending your position on something, you are finally also going to lose some people. trump's victory message was always being so wobbly that "the people" could project their dreams into his hollow dream.

[ApatheticAustrian]

The Russia issue lost Hillary votes, not Trump.

nah, calling a stone-cold killer like putin someone on the same level as US presidents is absolutely digusting for many americans.

closer to truth...both lost and won votes through this exchange, but like with all of trump's votes, maybe trump's votes were spread more successfully.

ofc the weakness of the US under trump is in fact going to create more wars, but that lesson everbody has to learn on his/herself.

[ApatheticAustrian]

imho the economy is going to become a bigger issue automatically as soon as either trump finally decides how to use his marbles, which is going to limit his possibilities and/or the never-ending growth cycle finally ends, which the current president is always blamed for.

ofc if trump really is able to push through his trillion dollar stimulus infrastructure thingie, a sugar high would boost the economy for some time, but i don't see a deal like that right now...especially since the "freedom caucus" is getting wary about the speed of the O-Care repeal.....how does one expect those guys to be silents about such a spending spree?

[ApatheticAustrian]

would have been a lot less questionable if trump would have published his tax returns like all other candidates have done for quite a long time.

donald hangs himself with his own golden string of question marks.

[ApatheticAustrian]

saudi-arabia is horrible in 100 of ways but with all their terror-funding, they are not nearly as dangerous for liberal values and liberal democracy as russia....in fact they don't care what we do, while moscow spends billions against the west.