Yes, of course every nation of any significance tries to interfere with every other nation of any significance. That’s not the issue here. The issue here is who was trying to help other nations to interfere with our nation.
Jesus Christ. You really don’t get it, do you?
True, but I specified proceedings, not actual impeachment.
The thing is, that even before the Russian interference came to light, Trump seemed to be suspiciously cozy with Putin.
A list of Trumps (mostly) praising quotes about Putin, most of them before becoming president:
Including making sure that support for Ukraine against Russia was removed from the Republican platform.
If he’s not involved with Russia he is sure doing a good job of pretending he is.
I’m sure other countries have offered illegal assistance to plenty of presidential candidates. But have any previous candidates accepted it?
I’m not saying we should impeach Putin for offering bribes. I’m saying we should impeach Trump for taking bribes.
FYI, here is the 2017 thread on exactly this (dumb ass) topic: Russian Foes of Putin to US Liberals: “STOP Making Putin Out to Be a Mastermind!!!”
Yeah, I’ll stop right there. :rolleyes:
If the president is cleared then no damage. Indeed I think it will help him since he has said all along this is a witch hunt. If there is no evidence of wrong doing he will be pointing to it at every opportunity to show that he was right and his supporters will feel emboldened whereas his opponents will have had the wind taken out of their sails.
QFT. After the U.S. interfered with elections in Latin America, South America and elsewhere in the Cold War, it should be the last nation to ever cry about its elections having been interfered with.
Changing the strategic balance makes Russia’s threats to nations in it’s traditional security zone carry more weight. Trump could be making it much easier for Russia to subvert and coerce to achieve its way into accomplishing its objectives than he is. Swinging that balance also allows Russia to be more aggressive when employing its armed forces as a hybrid threat like they have in Ukraine.
There’s a difference between saying “Putin is a genius and smarter than all of us!” and saying “Putin has malign intent.” The OP seems to be objecting to people saying the latter.
Did you miss this?
Nah.
It is like spies. Everyone does it but the thing is everyone gets indignant when they find one.
The difference here is who it is you are fucking with. It is one thing to poke a kitten, another to poke a tiger.
A superpower overtly manipulating an election of another superpower is inherently dangerous to the whole world. Not so when they mess with an election in Belize.
Yes, my cynical Scottish friend. The problem is that this time Kremlin succeeded in putting in the Oval Office someone who sees modern history through Kremlin’s eyes, and is adversarial toward the country he is constitutionally & by oath supposed to protect.
Turnabout may be fair play, but the USA is the world’s major naval power, and it’s incredibly dangerous for it to be run by someone who sees it as a foreign enemy.
Trump—a pretend international businessman, whose mother was a foreigner, whose father’s parents became American largely to escape the Great War, who has married two foreign women from non-NATO countries—is the least American American ever to serve in his present post. If he is also anti-American—and his “we’re no better than them” rhetoric implies that he is, and that the nationalist stuff is just what he expects to sell well in a country he sees as murderous imperialists—then he is going to govern like he is a foreign agent.
There’s a reason the US President is supposed to be an American, with no loyalty to any foreign prince. Trump lacks loyalty to the USA, and adores Putin; he’s the wrong man for this job.
ISTM that those people who complain about the US interfering in other countries’ elections, and say that this is a Very Bad Thing are usually those on the lefter side of politics.
People who complain about Russia interfering in US elections, and saying that it’s a Very Bad Thing also seem to be on the lefter side of politics.
This seems pretty consistent to me. We think interfering in elections is bad all the time, no matter who’s doing it and who it gets done to. So we get to complain about it all the time, no matter who’s doing it and who it gets done to.
If you come across someone who thinks the US secretly muscling into the democratic process in South America or the Middle East or wherever is just fine and dandy, but that Russia doing the same to the US is terrible and wrong, by all means point out that person’s hypocrisy. I just don’t know that there are all that many of such people
Wait, what? The question isn’t “should we all have a good cry about Putin?” It’s “is Putin influencing the workings of our nation, and should we take action to stop that?”
If Trump was compromised by Russian connections, do you think the appropriate response of the US government and populace is just, “Well, fair cop, we’ve been asses ourselves plenty?”
There are those of the left, like Katrina Vanden Heuvel and Bob Scheer, who argued Putin’s corner during the invasion of Ukraine. I’m not sure what they’re saying about collusion, I stopped paying attention in disgust. I am on the left btw.
Americans aren’t going to be judging what Putin did. We’re going to be judging what Trump did.
Trying to make this about Putin and what he did right or wrong means Trump supporters are approaching their last lines of defense.
Don’t think so, chief. Not unless “let’s do sanctions instead of war” is what you’re talking about, which is a totally reasonable way to approach a superpower.
Sanctions which, by the way, Trump is trying to undo.