The Expressive Function of the Russia Freakout

[JA]

Putin and Trump Couldn’t Make the Relationship Work

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Bulletin: The Expressive Function of the Russia Freakout (Subscribers Only)

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Russiagate Can't End Well for the Left

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tl;dr the collective Russia freakout is largely ridiculous because (a) Trump has ceded nothing of substance to Putin or Russia, (b) practical legislation aimed at curbing foreign interference in American elections has been signed into law already, (c) many states simply aren't following through with enforcement of practical steps to safeguard elections, (d) Americans don't consider Russiagate a top priority, (e) Liberals and the Establishment are using it in a politically charged manner to whip up nationalist fervor and demonize those they deem insufficiently anti-Russian, (f) all of this is echoing the same fanaticism and paranoia of the Second Red Scare, (g) and Democrats risk self-harm by some elements trying to use the Russian meddling issue to protect and promote Establishment candidates at the expense of Leftist insurgents. Don't buy the bs. You can believe Russia meddled without becoming a paranoid hack about it.

[7,052,770]

k.

[Yank2133]

You guys really want to die on this hill?

[All Along The Watchtower]

Look, I am suspicious at best of the US "Intelligence Community" and Beltway Foreign Policy Blob as much as anyone, but I find any attempt to minimize the seriousness of Russia's mendacity under the Putin regime as dangerously naive at best.

[Hindsight was 2020]

You guys really want to die on this hill?

[Landslide Lyndon]

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

[QAnonKelly]

It’s not impossible to be highly critical of both US Foreign Policy and what Putin is doing.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'm of two minds about this. I'd say the evidence that T***p is in Putin's pocket is some form or other is pretty overwhelming at this point, and yes, I'm starting to buy into the horror stories about Russian meddling costing Democrats seats in the midterms, but at the same time, yeah, this is not a kitchen-table issue that actually makes a concrete difference in people's everyday life, and therefore it shouldn't take precedence in our concerns.

[JA]

I love how almost everyone here missed the point. Trump hasn’t given anything of substance to Russia, there has been substantive legislation passed to tackle the foreign meddling in elections issue, and  nobody is denying the possibility (or probability) that Trump & Co. collaborated with Russia to some extent in the 2016 election. The issues are (a) how fanatical Democrats are getting about this and particularly as a campaign issue, (b) that fanaticism could have dangerous long-term consequences to global politics and international relations, (c) it’s the state’s that are failing to act to safeguard our elections and Democrats are focused more on the rhetoric of this issue than substantively addressing it, and (d) this is not a winning issue that Democrats think it is.

Of course, the standard Liberals on this site will automatically turn to the bs you’d expect, like: “you’re defending a dictator,” “you’re secretly defending Trump,” “you don’t care about America,” blah blah blah. It’s the same nationalistic schtick roles out every time a group wants to beat the drums and create an “us vs them” situation. Now that they think this is a winning issue, Liberals are perfectly happy to play the same card just a decade ago they bashed the Neoconservatives in the Bush Administration and GOP for doing.

[Hindsight was 2020]

I love how almost everyone here missed the point. Trump hasn’t given anything of substance to Russia, there has been substantive legislation passed to tackle the foreign meddling in elections issue, and  nobody is denying the possibility (or probability) that Trump & Co. collaborated with Russia to some extent in the 2016 election. The issues are (a) how fanatical Democrats are getting about this and particularly as a campaign issue, (b) that fanaticism could have dangerous long-term consequences to global politics and international relations, (c) it’s the state’s that are failing to act to safeguard our elections and Democrats are focused more on the rhetoric of this issue than substantively addressing it, and (d) this is not a winning issue that Democrats think it is.

Of course, the standard Liberals on this site will automatically turn to the bs you’d expect, like: “you’re defending a dictator,” “you’re secretly defending Trump,” “you don’t care about America,” blah blah blah. It’s the same nationalistic schtick roles out every time a group wants to beat the drums and create an “us vs them” situation. Now that they think this is a winning issue, Liberals are perfectly happy to play the same card just a decade ago they bashed the Neoconservatives in the Bush Administration and GOP for doing.

So Dems are doing long term damage to global politics for being upset over Russia did not not Russia for doing said thing in the first place? Also we have no idea what Trump gave Russia because they had a secret meeting

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Look, I am suspicious at best of the US "Intelligence Community" and Beltway Foreign Policy Blob as much as anyone, but I find any attempt to minimize the seriousness of Russia's mendacity under the Putin regime as dangerously naive at best.

Despite ample public evidence of penetrated election systems there have been no serious public questions raised about the legitimacy of Trump's election.

Despite a seemingly endless series of lies and evasions from Trump and his campaign about ongoing contacts with intelligence agents of an unfriendly foreign power the worst he is facing is due process.

Despite constant attempts by Trump and his proxies to interfere in an ongoing investigation overseen by his own appointee, the worst Trump has faced from his political opponents is biting criticism and non-violent protest.

Despite abandoning long-held tenents of geopolitical security and conducting relentless political attacks on our alliances, the most Trump faces is criticism from politicians and professionals.

If anything, the establishment reaction (including the " Deep State" and "fake news media")  has been sober, reasonable, and erring on the side of caution and restraint.

[Sumner 1868]

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

[mvd10]

The Kremlin has duly noted your annoyance about Russiagate hysteria. Quick Aleksandr and Anastasia, make some far-left Twitter accounts! They also like us! Let's make some very fine people on both sides .

[JA]

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.

^^ Amen.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

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.

^^ Amen.

Exactly. If we want more secure elections, we should support Tulsi Gabbard's  "Securing America’s Elections Act" rather than just yelling about Russia.

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https://gabbard.house.gov/secureelections

[AtorBoltox]

Useful idiots out in full force again

[dead0man]

I hate Putin/Russians like all good hearted Americans should, think Trump has been as horrible as we all thought he would be (worse actually), but I agree with Averroes and Jacobin here.

[PSOL]

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

The Berniebros and Bernie Sanders are not collectively ignoring these events and giving kudos to Russia. This is just rude. Besides JAmerican is a socialist that is concerned that with all the examples of voter surpression in this environment of a society in crisis that the Democratic Party establishment isn’t caring about other things of note. I think that it is wrong thinking but attacking him like this is not helping

Useful idiots out in full force again

You have to at least try to show him the evidence before you attack.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Yes, obviously the real problem with this whole situation is how the Democrats are talking about it.  

tl;dr the collective Russia freakout is largely ridiculous because (a) Trump has ceded nothing of substance to Putin or Russia,

?? If this is even true, it's true only in a dumb and pedantic way. Through actively undermining NATO and undermining the work of the whole of the US intelligence community, he is more or less acting on the weakening of Western (in the sense of NATO) democratic institutions. Whether or not that is a "concession" is beside the point.

(b) practical legislation aimed at curbing foreign interference in American elections has been signed into law already,

Okay? There are serious legislative efforts (that are bipartisan, FTR) to further secure voting, and people in the intelligence community (most notably/recently Dan Coats) have said that we are still incredibly exposed in our election system. By your logic it's ridiculous to freak out about systemic issues in the health care system because we have the Affordable Care Act, or to try to tighten regulation on Wall Street because we have Dodd-Frank.

(c) many states simply aren't following through with enforcement of practical steps to safeguard elections,

Okay? How does that mean that worrying about election interference is unwarranted? Nobody denies that election security is flawed at several levels of government; there should be and is pressure at all of these levels to take these threats more seriously. Some states are taking those threats more seriously than others; those that aren't taking them as seriously need to be held to task to do so.

(d) Americans don't consider Russiagate a top priority,

This is a stupid argument for several reasons I won't enumerate because they are obvious.

(e) Liberals and the Establishment are using it in a politically charged manner to whip up nationalist fervor and demonize those they deem insufficiently anti-Russian,

This is hyperbolic. Claiming that a foreign country shouldn't be interfering in your internal affairs isn't nationalistic, nor is it "demonizing". Undermining our elections literally poses a threat to our sovereignty; you can believe that your sovereignty is being threatened without having "nationalistic fervor" or (as other people on this board have suggested) thinking that war is a viable option here. This is nothing more than tone policing.

(f) all of this is echoing the same fanaticism and paranoia of the Second Red Scare,

Go read a history book. When we have anything approaching HUAC that purges people from government positions (and, for that matter, private sector positions) then you'll be on to something; until then this is more ridiculous hyperbole.

(g) and Democrats risk self-harm by some elements trying to use the Russian meddling issue to protect and promote Establishment candidates at the expense of Leftist insurgents.

Examples?

[Panda Express]

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.

[Virginiá]

tl;dr the collective Russia freakout is largely ridiculous because (a) Trump has ceded nothing of substance to Putin or Russia, (b) practical legislation aimed at curbing foreign interference in American elections has been signed into law already, (c) many states simply aren't following through with enforcement of practical steps to safeguard elections, (d) Americans don't consider Russiagate a top priority, (e) Liberals and the Establishment are using it in a politically charged manner to whip up nationalist fervor and demonize those they deem insufficiently anti-Russian, (f) all of this is echoing the same fanaticism and paranoia of the Second Red Scare, (g) and Democrats risk self-harm by some elements trying to use the Russian meddling issue to protect and promote Establishment candidates at the expense of Leftist insurgents. Don't buy the bs. You can believe Russia meddled without becoming a paranoid hack about it.

My question though: is it enough?

Congress passed <400 billion to help states secure their systems, which includes buying new voting equipment. This isn't nearly enough, and Congress refuses to do more, because Republicans are extremely cheap when it comes to anything but tax cuts. The House provided zero dollars for election security in the latest budget negotiations. The funny thing about the way we do elections is that everyone wants local (state) control, yet it's become painfully obvious that states can't be trusted nor relied on to run fair elections. The more localized power is over election, the more corrupt it seems to get. Congress didn't gerrymander the hell out the nation's maps, states controlled by Republicans after 2010 did. Congress didn't pass a raft of voter ID bills, states controlled by Republicans did. It goes on and on like this. I'd even be willing to bet that GOP opposition to more centralized control over elections isn't based on "states rights," but actually a deep anxiousness about losing the ability to game the rules in their favor.

Democrats aren't perfect on this either, but as seems to be the case with so much else, Republicans are infinitely worse. They seem to think that they can just kick back and make states/counties pay for everything and our elections will be just fine. This couldn't be further from the truth. What happens is that we have some counties/towns using voting equipment that is over a decade ago, half-broken and extremely vulnerable to hacking. This is the case all over the country. They can't afford to replace it, and Republicans are too cheap to allow any extra expenditures on elections, so states/counties are forced to use voting machines that hackers at conferences like DE FCON hacked in like less than 30 minutes-1 hour. How long do they think we can go on like this? We do they care so little for our elections?

Read: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/27/trump-election-security-2020-states-714777

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What about talks over a bill to force social media / internet companies to require disclosure over who is paying for digital ads? This seems so mindbogglingly basic that I'm surprised we don't have it already. The FEC is supposedly considering a new rule afik, but again, why is it taking so long? Why was this not a focus right after 2016? We're coming up on 2 years since 2016's election and the foot-dragging on election security is beginning to look more like a toxic combination of partisan obstruction and gross incompetence.

Also, Trump barely even acknowledges that Russia attacked us - he only seems to hint at it begrudgingly when under heavy criticism, and even then, he sows doubt, saying "or other people" like he did after the summit. Trump has also not ordered the US intelligence apparatus to strike back against hackers when they attack us. I mean, that makes sense, right? If the NSA detects Russians operating command and control servers that hackers are using to attack state-based election-related networks, doesn't it make sense for the NSA to attack those Russian hacking units and cut off their connections to America? There is no evidence that Trump is even implicitly allowing the govt to prepare for this. And before anyone says "but ww3 and escalation," we are not going to start a war by defending ourselves against hackers. Russia will not escalate that beyond hacking unless we ourselves escalate into something crazy like disabling Moscow's power grid or something absurd like that.

I just don't agree that we have done enough, and I don't trust Trump to protect this country. If anything, I'm worried that Republicans have been dragging their feet not only because they are cheap but because they secretly hope that foreign enemies help them win in a year that is otherwise looking bad for them. If you pay attention to what some of these craven politicians do at the state level to entrench their power, then it doesn't seem that far-fetched. They've done worse themselves.

-

But, nonetheless, I agree on some other points:

1. Russia scandal is not important to people, at least in the way the economy/healthcare is. I wish it was, I wish people cared about the this stuff more, but they don't. However I think it still hurts Trump with voters outside his base. All these indictments and blunders like the Russia summit reinforce the idea of him being corrupt, and it probably maintains the energy on the left to a degree. Democrats don't need to campaign on this, they just need to let it play out in the background, and once in a while highlight the parts that matter.

2. Among the activist class of the Democratic Party, the word 'treason' is being thrown around too liberally. I can't help but think like they are fostering an environment of blind rage where conspiracy theories thrive.

[Yank2133]

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Don't bother.

There is a segment of the left who just enjoy dunking on Democrats. They like to pretend what they see and hear on resistance twitter is really what is going with these campaigns.

[Koharu]

I agree with all of what Virginia had to say, but specifically these things, and very much point 2.

But, nonetheless, I agree on some other points:

1. Russia scandal is not important to people, at least in the way the economy/healthcare is. I wish it was, I wish people cared about the this stuff more, but they don't. However I think it still hurts Trump with voters outside his base. All these indictments and blunders like the Russia summit reinforce the idea of him being corrupt, and it probably maintains the energy on the left to a degree. Democrats don't need to campaign on this, they just need to let it play out in the background, and once in a while highlight the parts that matter.

2. Among the activist class of the Democratic Party, the word 'treason' is being thrown around too liberally. I can't help but think like they are fostering an environment of blind rage where conspiracy theories thrive.

[Landslide Lyndon]

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.

[Panda Express]

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

 

You must be logged in to read this quote.

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.

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