What does it look like actually happened? Who does it look like the major players and what does it appear they did?
Could you please explain what you mean by “Trump’s Russian Hoax”? It would be helpful to understand that.
Turns out the whole thing was made up so who did what to convince the voters that it was all real?
Have you read the Mueller report?
Are you relying on Bill Barr’s “summary”?
Read the report.
I’m out of this one.
Please elaborate.
This is gonna be fun.
We seem to have different understandings of what happened. Why do you think it was all made up?
Well, trump gave a lot of speeches telling people the election was stolen when it wasn’t so I’d guess trump made it up and did a bunch to convince the voters it was real so I’m going with trump.
Does it matter, now that Trump has admitted he lost, and that Biden is the real President?
Aye. Trump finally admitted he lost; now we can all move on.
If you ignore all the evidence for it, there’s no evidence for it!
Is this the conspiracy theory that Trump, while President, was receiving orders from Putin? If so, that was always nonsense but some people on the left with Trump Derangement Syndrome had fun making up stories about how Trump was being blackmailed.
No, this is the reality in which there was extensive close coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign, and in which Russia acted in multiple material ways (legal and illegal) to aid Trump and various other Republicans to get elected, and in which the Trump campaign and administration went to great lengths (legal and illegal) to conceal this.
The hyperbolic strawman you mention was never directly investigated and is usually trotted out these days by those with an interest in distracting from the now-well-evidenced efforts of a foreign power to weaken American democracy by supporting the more malign efforts of the right-wing.
Russia may or may not have had kompromat on Trump and other key Republicans but there’s no sign they ever needed to use it - Trump and the Republicans appeared perfectly fine to act against America’s interests all on their own.
Does it really matter, now that Trump has conceded that the election was not rigged and that Biden won?
Since nobody has actually established which Russia[n] hoax, the OP is referring to, it’s a quite presumptive of you to throw out a baseless accusation of strawmanning. But then, that seems to be the favourite SDMB insult, and one usually made without back-up, and often without the accuser even understanding what a strawman is. I guess mud-slinging is low effort.
If you think the OP is discussing the 2016 Presidential election, the best assessment is that Russia was trying to cause chaos in the US electoral process, they preferred Trump over Clinton, and some members of the Trump campaign were willing to accept Russian help. It’s been a while, but I don’t remember any serious activities I would accept as “extensive close coordination”. The biggest accusation I recall being made against Russia was that they attempted to exploit social media to reinforce the preferences of Trump supporters. I don’t remember any verified accusations of the Trump campaign directing that exploitation.
Didn’t stop you from filling in the blanks, did it?
I don’t know. It was quite obvious that Hilary Clinton lost the 2016 election, and she conceded, but accusations that the election was stolen still continued for years.
Indeed. That’s why I framed my initial response to the OP as a question.
If Dodgy_Dude wants to narrow the topic to a specific Russia Hoax, I’m happy to discuss that limited topic.
Meanwhile, Trump lost in 2020, and still hasn’t conceded.