A rant on Russia: the Republican adversarial relationship with reality

[Bacon King]

Did you hear the full text of the FISA warrant against Carter Page was released today? IT'S 412 PAGES LONG. There is so much ing evidence against him that ties him to Russia and to the Trump campaign as an obvious middleman. I'm barely getting into this document but there's SO MUCH STUFF in there. Not sure I'm going to read every page but I'm reading a lot of the important bits as I find them.

What pisses me off so much is that Devin Nunes HAD FULL ACCESS TO THIS immediately after it was approved by the FISA court, since he's the chairman of the intelligence committee. He went on and on, saying the investigation against Carter Page was a political hit job, and was based on nothing but the "discredited" Steele Dossier, it was just an example of Manafort and his goons being OUT OF CONTROL UNDERMINING THE PRESIDENT. Well it turns out he ing knew none of that was true! It's not like he was just ignorant or whatever, didn't know the details, and made assumptions about it in the way that was most beneficial for his argument. HE WAS SHAMELESSLY LYING. He had read this, knew its contents, and trust me so far I haven't seen a single reference to the Steele Dossier at all, but I do see lots of evidence from real sources backed by proof (even setting aside the lie about the Steele Dossier, which so far has proven to be mostly accurate, but that doesn't even matter for this argument). I'm looking at four hundred pages of proof that Trump's key foreign policy guy was a known Russian agent at the time of his appointment to the Trump campaign and acted quite obviously as an intermediary between certain Russians and people on Trump's campaign.

But the House Intelligence Committee Chairman LIES THROUGH HIS TEETH, knowingly speaking bullsh*t, knowingly suppressing documents that prove guilt and suspicious activity from Team Trump, and hyping up bullsh*t arguments about the Clintons as a distraction. Keep in mind he and Chaffetz were the ones who leaked Comey's report about "possible evidence in the hillary investigation found on Huma Abedins laptop acquired during the investigation of Anthony Weiner, and selectively edited it to seem worse than it actually was, goaded Comey into saying exactly what they wanted him to say with loaded questions, and released it merely a week before the election. HE WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP'S PRESIDENCY and now he's keeping the truth from the American people and preventing people from facing legal consequences of actively conspiring with a foreign power to influence the American election.

Our very institutions of government have been captured. The Intelligence committee is supposed to oversee the "intelligence community" and make sure they're all doing their jobs and not, you know, working against the interests of the American people. But instead it's controlled by someone actively supporting a foreign power and openly hindering the efforts of the FBI, CIA, and etc to protect our country! It's absolutely disgusting. The GOP is sick and completely shameless. We can't play fair against and enemy like this. And yes, enemy -- they aren't a competing party in our democracy, they're a political front for a foreign backed movement to sabotage and undermine the country at the expense of Russian oligarchs + a few domestic wannabe-oligarchs who value money over their own country. Sure, a lot of the GOP are useful idiots who think they're just a party with a respectable agenda, but the people in charge know what's actually happening and they play their parts loyally to ruin our democracy, and our very foundation as a country, just for selfish short-term gains. It utterly sickens me and if we can't win in 2018 and/or 2020 the only solution is to take to the streets. Goddamn I hope it doesn't come to that but especially with the ongoing efforts to rig the census I'm worried now more than ever we need to take office now and undo their damage before it becomes irreparable and we're ed for generations

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4614708/Carter-Page-FISA-Application.pdf

[Virginiá]

The GOP is going to have a lot to reckon with post-Trump. Their party has a sickness spreading within, whether they want to admit it or not. They can continue to justify this behavior by saying "both sides do it!", but this level of partisanship and obstruction of a legitimate criminal investigation is blazing new trails in the modern era. I get that the fact that almost 90% of Republican voters are in love with Trump, but they aren't being forced to abuse their Congressional power like this. This is all them, with some of them blatantly and shamelessly trying to establish profiles for themselves while sucking up to Trump in front of the voters.

[The Mikado]

The GOP is going to have a lot to reckon with post-Trump. Their party has a sickness spreading within, whether they want to admit it or not. They can continue to justify this behavior by saying "both sides do it!", but this level of partisanship and obstruction of a legitimate criminal investigation is blazing new trails in the modern era. I get that the fact that almost 90% of Republican voters are in love with Trump, but they aren't being forced to abuse their Congressional power like this. This is all them, with some of them blatantly and shamelessly trying to establish profiles for themselves while sucking up to Trump in front of the voters.

The trickiest thing is any incoming freshmen they get in the Trump years are going to be especially Trumpish Republicans and a lot of long-time people are retiring.

I don't think people realize just how little institutional memory there is in the Senate especially right now. People see someone like Leahy or Grassley or McConnell and assume the same cohort that's been dominating the Senate for decades is still there.

60 current Senators have come into office 2009 or later. 52 (over half) from 2011 or later (counting Manchin and Coons as the start of that cohort). This number is only going to grow with things like Hatch's retirement and McCain's departure from office (morbid, I know) coming up. The old cliche about the Senate was that it was a bunch of lifers who were there long before a President got there and would remain there long after he left. A big, big, big chunk of the Senate doesn't remember past the Obama years.

This means that there's more and more of a risk for the GOP of their recent bout of stupidity taking over the caucus long term.

[OSR stands with Israel]

If Rupert Murdoch realizes his mistakes and pushes Fox News from far right to Center-Right maybe then the GOP base can be sane again.

Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes are directly responsible for how far right wing the GOP base has moved since just 2008.

[7,052,770]

100% agree but his supporters will never care.

[Mike Thick]

And, even now, the Trumplicans are falsely claiming that the dossier is all that was used. The fact that this pick-your-own-facts thinking is probably going to shield the President from impeachment is mind-boggling.

[OSR stands with Israel]

100% agree but his supporters will never care.

Unless Rupert Murdoch decides to turn on Trump

[Badger]

If Rupert Murdoch realizes his mistakes and pushes Fox News from far right to Center-Right maybe then the GOP base can be sane again.

Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes are directly responsible for how far right wing the GOP base has moved since just 2008.

True, my friend. But what's the realistic likelihood of Murdoch doing so? Next to zilch, I'd say. The "best" we saw out of Fox in the last 25 years is they were initially anti-Trump while being just as hard right wing. Now they've of course abandoned that to fellate Trump against "the establishment" at every opportunity, and that's going to be damned difficult, if not impossible, to reverse without pissing off their viewership and not risking losing a not-insignificant number to ONE, Infowars, etc.

At the risk of sounding morbid, Murdoch is 87 and likely to pass within the next several yeas, leaving his empire to his children, most likely his eldest sons. I couldn't find much about them on-line, but possibly that might create some change. I emphasize possibly because: a) They would be going against the profit motive described above to keep business as usual; b) This assumes that the progeny of a far right wing media billionaire have fallen far enough from the tree to even want such changes, particularly at the potential loss of profits; and c) they'll still be only minority shareholders for Fox, and thus face opposition towards anything likely to harm profits (i.e. not continuing to shovel-feed more of bull$hit mountain to the near half of Americans with an appetite for more of same.

In all, I'm not optimistic.

[Confused Democrat]

If Rupert Murdoch realizes his mistakes and pushes Fox News from far right to Center-Right maybe then the GOP base can be sane again.

Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes are directly responsible for how far right wing the GOP base has moved since just 2008.

Preach it!

[OSR stands with Israel]

The funny thing is that even in 2008 , the GOP base you could argue was slightly to the left of the establishment as the person they selected to be their nominee that year was to the left of the candidate most of the Business Establishment Wanted that year(Romney).

Also Palin was originally pushed by establishment figures (Bill Kristol), not by the base.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

The GOP is going to have a lot to reckon with post-Trump. Their party has a sickness spreading within, whether they want to admit it or not. They can continue to justify this behavior by saying "both sides do it!", but this level of partisanship and obstruction of a legitimate criminal investigation is blazing new trails in the modern era. I get that the fact that almost 90% of Republican voters are in love with Trump, but they aren't being forced to abuse their Congressional power like this. This is all them, with some of them blatantly and shamelessly trying to establish profiles for themselves while sucking up to Trump in front of the voters.

No, they aren't. The parties won't have any reason to change until 1) they lose elections or 2) they face major pressure from within (usually a result of 1). Republicans have found a formula to win elections, and the Nunes memo (and countless other things we've seen in the last year) are cover-ass or power-grabs for maintaining the power they've won. Because they are winning elections and are effective at maintaining their power (through their messaging and use of media), they don't have a lot of external pressure to change course. So, the change must come from within. But as we have seen, GOP voters are not going to leave the party in large enough numbers to actually make a difference, and those that do want to make a difference are going to get swamped by the new Trumpist power structure. We have zero evidence at this point that Trump and other Republicans post-2010 are going to suffer any consequences with their base for trending further and further to the right, even if it violates the supposed ideological tenets of their base, because of the reinforcing effects of negative polarization, messaging, and tribalism.

I am sure nothing in that paragraph is new to you, but for some reason, people assume that if we wind the clock forward ten years that people on the right are going to be somehow ashamed of Trump. They aren't. Trumpism is defined by a lack of shame. Trumpism will still be around, much in the same way that even if George W. Bush is not popular on the right, most of what he stood for is. If there were any sense of long-term temporal consequences for ideological inconsistency (on the right at least), then we would see a Republican party terrified of expanding budget deficits, weary of saber-rattling diplomacy, strengthening regulation of the financial sector, and abandoning grievance politics. And yet, those things are just as big today as they were the last time Republicans were supposed to "learn their lesson" through electoral consequences. They will get away with electing Trump effectively scot-free, and no amount of highlighting the amount of damage he has done to the country will change that for most people.

I tend to get annoyed when smarmy people pull the "Democrats need to stop running on being anti-Trump" line, mostly because I think people aren't doing that. But, I think they are right when talking about communicating with Republicans. Republicans will not be convinced in any meaningful numbers to abandon Trump and Trumpism. There is no point in debating that with them. In that sense, I totally agree with the necessity of moving on and developing and communicating an effective societal vision, because we have years of evidence that trying to have good faith discussions with people who have already drank the red kool-aid is a waste of time.

[Virginiá]

-snip-

FTR I wasn't stating that they will feel this way, I was musing that they should, the same way one might say, "if you keep ignoring your credit card debt, you're going to have a massive amount of debt to pay off if you ever want to be solvent again." Just because they might not want to acknowledge that their party is rotting from the inside out due to a complete abandonment of ethics and morals doesn't mean it isn't still happening.

If Republicans don't want to address any of these issues, they are going to be the people that drive America's elections and institutions to ruin.

[gerritcole]

It utterly sickens me and if we can't win in 2018 and/or 2020 the only solution is to take to the streets. Goddamn I hope it doesn't come to that but especially with the ongoing efforts to rig the census I'm worried now more than ever we need to take office now and undo their damage before it becomes irreparable and we're ed for generations

The most ironic thing is how much you decry the GOP destroying American democracy and yet you are calling for violence and 'taking to the streets' if elections don't go your way. If Trump said the same, you'd call for impeachment. Dems want to have their cake and eat it to; our ideology is superior/demographics are destiny so GOP is doomed, but we also don't control the presidency/senate/house/ and only hold 16 governerships so everything is rigged

Overall ITT for other blue avatars: Libs complaining that conservatives do not think like and do not vote like them.

[Hindsight was 2020]

It utterly sickens me and if we can't win in 2018 and/or 2020 the only solution is to take to the streets. Goddamn I hope it doesn't come to that but especially with the ongoing efforts to rig the census I'm worried now more than ever we need to take office now and undo their damage before it becomes irreparable and we're ed for generations

The most ironic thing is how much you decry the GOP destroying American democracy and yet you are calling for violence and 'taking to the streets' if elections don't go your way. If Trump said the same, you'd call for impeachment. Dems want to have their cake and eat it to; our ideology is superior/demographics are destiny so GOP is doomed, but we also don't control the presidency/senate/house/ and only hold 16 governerships so everything is rigged

Overall ITT for other blue avatars: Libs complaining that conservatives do not think like and do not vote like them.

Trump has said that fwi

[7,052,770]

It utterly sickens me and if we can't win in 2018 and/or 2020 the only solution is to take to the streets. Goddamn I hope it doesn't come to that but especially with the ongoing efforts to rig the census I'm worried now more than ever we need to take office now and undo their damage before it becomes irreparable and we're ed for generations

The most ironic thing is how much you decry the GOP destroying American democracy and yet you are calling for violence and 'taking to the streets' if elections don't go your way. If Trump said the same, you'd call for impeachment. Dems want to have their cake and eat it to; our ideology is superior/demographics are destiny so GOP is doomed, but we also don't control the presidency/senate/house/ and only hold 16 governerships so everything is rigged

Overall ITT for other blue avatars: Libs complaining that conservatives do not think like and do not vote like them.

Can you imagine how hard Republicans would whine if they'd gotten more votes in the most recent presidential and House election, and overall across the most recent set of Senate elections, and yet still controlled 0 out of the presidency and houses of Congress? 0/3 despite going 3/3 in votes.

Republicans would know that there was something rotten about the whole system, and they would have a legitimate point.

[OSR stands with Israel]

It utterly sickens me and if we can't win in 2018 and/or 2020 the only solution is to take to the streets. Goddamn I hope it doesn't come to that but especially with the ongoing efforts to rig the census I'm worried now more than ever we need to take office now and undo their damage before it becomes irreparable and we're ed for generations

The most ironic thing is how much you decry the GOP destroying American democracy and yet you are calling for violence and 'taking to the streets' if elections don't go your way. If Trump said the same, you'd call for impeachment. Dems want to have their cake and eat it to; our ideology is superior/demographics are destiny so GOP is doomed, but we also don't control the presidency/senate/house/ and only hold 16 governerships so everything is rigged

Overall ITT for other blue avatars: Libs complaining that conservatives do not think like and do not vote like them.

Can you imagine how hard Republicans would whine if they'd gotten more votes in the most recent presidential and House election, and overall across the most recent set of Senate elections, and yet still controlled 0 out of the presidency and houses of Congress? 0/3 despite going 3/3 in votes.

Republicans would know that there was something rotten about the whole system, and they would have a legitimate point.

Wrong:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2016

[Landslide Lyndon]

Republicans have an adversarial relationship with reality since the '80 (trickle-down economics).

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

-snip-

FTR I wasn't stating that they will feel this way, I was musing that they should, the same way one might say, "if you keep ignoring your credit card debt, you're going to have a massive amount of debt to pay off if you ever want to be solvent again." Just because they might not want to acknowledge that their party is rotting from the inside out due to a complete abandonment of ethics and morals doesn't mean it isn't still happening.

If Republicans don't want to address any of these issues, they are going to be the people that drive America's elections and institutions to ruin.

I mean, yes, from a moral perspective, they should. But there are a lot of things from a moral perspective that I am sure you and I think they should do, in addition to renouncing Trump and his style of politics and leadership.

But what is their incentive to? Your analogy about credit card debt is, I think, not totally correct. When you are on credit and owe a debt, people have the authority to apply pressure to you to pay. Republicans are facing no such pressure. There are no incentive structures for them to change. It'll be like this until they are facing consistent losses and I don't know when we can expect to see that.

[Mopsus]

If we grant that the Russian government is influencing the US government, I’d like to see how they’re using their influence. It’s not like they have any interest in oppressing the American people - which is more than you can say about the oligarchs who would rule us in lieu of Russian intervention.

[Alabama_Indy10]

It utterly sickens me and if we can't win in 2018 and/or 2020 the only solution is to take to the streets. Goddamn I hope it doesn't come to that but especially with the ongoing efforts to rig the census I'm worried now more than ever we need to take office now and undo their damage before it becomes irreparable and we're ed for generations

The most ironic thing is how much you decry the GOP destroying American democracy and yet you are calling for violence and 'taking to the streets' if elections don't go your way. If Trump said the same, you'd call for impeachment. Dems want to have their cake and eat it to; our ideology is superior/demographics are destiny so GOP is doomed, but we also don't control the presidency/senate/house/ and only hold 16 governerships so everything is rigged

Overall ITT for other blue avatars: Libs complaining that conservatives do not think like and do not vote like them.

Can you imagine how hard Republicans would whine if they'd gotten more votes in the most recent presidential and House election, and overall across the most recent set of Senate elections, and yet still controlled 0 out of the presidency and houses of Congress? 0/3 despite going 3/3 in votes.

Republicans would know that there was something rotten about the whole system, and they would have a legitimate point.

They did get the most votes in the house elections.

[Indy Texas 🇺🇦🇵🇸]

The funny thing is that even in 2008 , the GOP base you could argue was slightly to the left of the establishment as the person they selected to be their nominee that year was to the left of the candidate most of the Business Establishment Wanted that year(Romney).

Also Palin was originally pushed by establishment figures (Bill Kristol), not by the base.

The GOP base was always to the left of the establishment on economic/fiscal issues and to the right of the establishment on social/cultural issues (I'll lump immigration in with those).

For most of the '90s and '00s, those things balanced out, but as the Donor Class demanded more and more for themselves - more tax cuts, more deregulation that would put middle class whites out of work or into more economically precarious positions, more ways to buy influence, all paid for by taking retirement and healthcare benefits away from everyone else - they had to tilt further and further to the right on everything else to keep the actual warm bodies who have the votes happy.

Now they're trying to keep both sides happy with the worst possible combination of options. For the business elite, fiscally explosive tax cuts and a deregulatory binge that will make air and water dirtier than it has been in 40 years. For the rube base voters, throwing brown babies in cages, sending gangs of thugs to beat up liberal snowflakes in places like Charlottesville, and a disastrous tariff scheme that will force everyone to pay more for basic goods and put more people out of work.

[Progressive Pessimist]

If Rupert Murdoch realizes his mistakes and pushes Fox News from far right to Center-Right maybe then the GOP base can be sane again.

Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes are directly responsible for how far right wing the GOP base has moved since just 2008.

The correlation is undeniable. If you just look at when Fox News started in the 1990's and the level of polarization in the country, Ailes and Murdoch clearly are the forefathers of that trend.

[7,052,770]

Wrong:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2016

They did get the most votes in the house elections.

Fair enough, but you both completely missed the point, which is that the makeup of the federal government has a clear Republican slant in it, compared to the will of the voters in the most recent elections, and that if the tables were turned Republicans would act much worse about it than Democrats do now.