Yes comparisons of all sorts are called “whataboutism”
The point was that the paltry Russian influence campaign was a drop in the ocean of political influence peddling. I don’t know how you missed it as it was very clear.
Not “missed it” so much as not agreeing with your point.
No, that’s not 'whataboutism", whataboutism is a varient of the *tu quoque *logical fallacy. It doesn’t address the issue at all. The issue is Kremlin manipulation of the American voter, not who got what in the way of legal campaign donations.
It was **ILLEGAL **political influence peddling.
I don’t know how you missed it as it was very clear.
Whataboutism (also known as whataboutery) is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent’s position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument,[1][2][3] which in the United States is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda.
Oddly, in your attempt to defend the Russians, you are using their very propaganda tool. or maybe not so oddly.
Omg your use of red lettering has triggered me into realizing my error. I should ignore when people buy off politicians to do things against my interest because it is legal. Scary stuff.
You want to throw on blinders and ignore influence peddling in general while focusing on the paltry Russian effort. I suggest taking a wider view. You decide to throw out mindless rhetorical neologisms, have fun bud.
Can we agree that Will believes the Russian meddling was paltry? Good. There’s a starting point. Paltry. Why Will thinks that is cool is beyond me, but it seems that the important thing here is adjectives. Paltry. Word for the day.
Man, I want me some KFC right now!
Not poultry, man. But now that you mention it…
I think it’s a misdirection to talk about what the Russians did. We should focus on what Americans did. It’s illegal to receive unreported aid from foreign countries, regardless of whether or not it works. So if Trump received Russian aid, he broke the law. And if Trump’s claims are true and Hillary Clinton received Russian aid, she broke the law.
I don’t care about which foreign governments offered bribes. I care about which American politicians accepted bribes.
The Mueller report has a summary of Russia’s actions in the first 20 pages or so, read it and then read it to him.
Who’s paying for repetitive nonsense, and how can I get in on it?
Here’s a real life example of people I know.
I have a couple of friends. They are conspiracy theorists. They’re also sort of new age hippies and talk a lot about things like “vibrational energy” and “what the universe wants”.
When Trump first announced his candidacy, they hated him. They thought it was an outrage that he was running and that he must be defeated at all costs.
But then they “read some stuff on-line”. They still were anti-Trump because he’s about hate and they’re about love. But their Facebook feeds became full of stuff about Hillary being a murderer and a con artist and a child molester and how they would NOT vote for her. Instead, they started promoting Gary Johnson as a solution for those who felt as they did about an election with two equally horrid candidates.
So that’s how it worked in one case.
To answer the OP, nobody said that every Trump voter was influenced by Russia. Some were.
Ever have a phony friend in high school or college that just thrives on drama? You break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend and it seems like the end of the world. And your so-called friend keeps ripping the wound open by telling you they saw your ex with someone else.
That’s kinda what the Russians did. ‘Pssst, Bernie got screwed by the DNC!’ If you’re a 19 year old at the University of Wisconsin and fell in love with Bernie and this is your first time paying attention to politics, the constant noise about Bernie getting screwed might be enough to convince you to stay home, cast a protest third party vote or write in Bernie.
So, no, the Russians didn’t need to convince those who vote R no matter what. At the very least, the Russians wanted a very crippled Hillary who would constantly have to watch her left flank.
Yeah, it was all “thumb on the scale” stuff. But in a close election, which this one was in the only way that mattered, that can and did make a difference.
Oh, you could also go into the NRA serving as a conduit for Russian money to trump.
Gosh, now I’m wondering if the Russians have their hands in the evangelical movement.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they do have their hands in the Evangelical movement. It’s utterly sickening to see how many of them have become Trump toadies. And, of course, churches aren’t subject to taxes. Remember the extreme whining they did under Obama about being persecuted? Russia is nothing but a money laundering machine for oligarchs and the mob.
There was once an episode of Leave It to Beaver, where Beaver was caddying for someone who was cheating at golf. Beaver talked it over with his buddy Gilbert (the sneaky one.)
BEAVER: He didn’t cheat much, just enough to win.
GILBERT: That’s all you gotta cheat, just enough to win.
I just don’t think that’s relevant, unless people are making a VERY strong claim about Russian interference. Here are four claims, in decreasing order of likelihood:
(1) Russia attempted to interfere in the election, to help Trump, which is illegal and important
(2) Russia’s efforts to interfere in the election were substantial enough that it’s plausible that they accounted for the very narrow margin of victory in several key states
(3) Russia’s efforts to interfere in the election were substantial enough that they accounted for the very narrow margin of victory in several key states
(4) Russia’s efforts to interfere in the election were the only (or the predominant) factor that determined the outcome of the election
Of those four, your nattering on about how much money Clinton had is only relevant to someone making claim (4). And few, if any, people are making that claim. Sure, we FOCUS on Russian interference a lot, because it was CRIMINAL and THREATENED THE VERY FOUNDATIONS OF OUR DEMOCRACY. We don’t focus on the terrible decisions Clinton made about where to focus her electoral efforts because, well, they were stupid and it’s depressing and what is there to learn from that?
That is what I was going to say.
If advertising did not work, companies would spend a large portion of their budget on it. In the USA, companies spent $104,000,000,000 on advertising - they do it for a reason.
The most successful companies (Google, Apple, AT&T, McDonalds, IMB, Marlboro, Facebook, Microsoft) all have very large advertising budgets.
An advert does not make you go out straight away and buy a product or service - but it plants a seed.
One is legal, the other is illegal.
Even if he didn’t hear it from Russia directly, Fox News had no problem repeating the junk that came up for the Russian Fake News. Find out what stuff he believes that first came from Russian propaganda.
Also, did he care about Hillary’s Emails? Russia is the one that hacked them. So if he was influenced by that at all, he was influenced by what Russia did.
If people knew they were getting information from Russia, it wouldn’t have been as useful as propaganda.