Right. What’s particularly outrageous this time is that the guy who’s our President encouraged them, didn’t report their efforts to authorities, did a wink and a nod has they openly helped each other, and something like 35% of the population think he’s doing a fine job.
“If?” Has there been anything more carefully examined and proven in literally all of history?
I accept the reality that hostile countries like Russia are going to make attempts to weaken America. But Putin is not subject to American laws and we’re not responsible for Putin’s actions.
The crime is not that Putin offered aid to Trump. The crime is that Trump accepted that aid.
Let’s not give Putin too much credit. Most of the people who voted for Trump were already fools.
Propaganda wouldn’t have worked if there weren’t people dumb enough to be influenced by it.
Oh sure. Toxic conservatism already laid a lot of the groundwork that Putin just hijacked. The schisms were there. The propaganda outlets (Fox News, conservative radio, chain e-mails your grandma sends, etc.) were already there. The hatred, the “party over country” values were already there. The “as long as my enemies seem like they’re upset, I must be winning” retardation was there.
Conservatives were using hateful dog whistles to rile up their base for a long time now. All Trump did was come along and stop masking it. Stop making it subtle or a hidden message. Just flat out come out and be hateful. This appealed to their voters even more than dog whistles, this was a guy who “tells it like it is.” Of course he doesn’t tell it like it is. He’s a pathological liar, he lies about easily, obviously provable things constantly. What they mean is “he’s willing to say the things I want to say but feel like I’d be socially punished for it” - he tapped into all that hate that the Republicans were encouraging and exploiting and just was willing to do it in a much more direct way than them, and their voters responded to it.
If you remember, it wasn’t clear that this was going to work at first. A lot of Republicans were “never Trumpers” - they thought this blatantly anti-Christian, racist, hateful, stupid, senile man was going to make a mockery of their party, that people would see through it and it was going to blow back on the Republican party.
And then it didn’t. Sure, they lost a tiny slice of their supporters who hadn’t already been driven out by their actions over recent years, but the Fox News, “he tells it like it is” base developed a fucking cult of personality over Trump. Most perverse, Evangelical Christians decided that one of the least Christ-like men on Earth was God’s chosen to lead them.
Once it was clear that the republican base had turned into this cult that would support him literally no matter what, they all fell in line. Famous anti-Trumpers became his biggest cheerleaders, purely out of opportunism. Absolutely disgusting.
Additionally, Russia hacked both the DNC and the RNC. But they only leaked the DNC information. This was because the DNC information was far less damaging and therefore less valuable for blackmail. They used both sides of that information - they used the RNC information to blackmail Republicans in power, threatening to release their secrets - and then they leaked the DNC information, changing the election in favor of the Republicans. This both makes good on their mob-style threat - “we could do to you way worse than what we just did to the democrats” and also puts the people who they now have blackmail leverage over into power.
It’s not just Trump-Russia. It’s not Republicans-Russia. They’re all in. Russia is illegally funding Republicans through the NRA, and who knows what other methods. Republicans were proudly posing with a Russian spy as part of that operation, and no one seems to give a shit. It’s basically right here in front of us, and only thing stopping us from admitting is:
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It is a news media that presents false balance to us - the idea that both sides are always just as bad, so if we correctly and accurately go after one side for being basically traitors, then we’ll be accused of being left-leaning, so we better just completely abandon our jobs and pretend like this is just normal politics.
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We simply don’t want to believe this to be the case. We’ve all got friends or relatives or whatever that are Republican, and they’re good people, aren’t they? They don’t openly support the racist or misogynistic stuff. And they love their country, surely they wouldn’t support a guy that was installed by a foreign enemy, would they? No, this is just politics. They’re misguided but this must all just fall within the realm of normal politics. I’m uncomfortable with the idea that we’re in the middle of a soft, slow coup, so I’m going to pretend it’s not happening.
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The most hateful, most partisan, most shitty people honestly don’t even care if they are being used as tools in this way. They can see what they’re doing is leading to their hated enemy being upset, and losing, and they relish in that victory. Even if they’re hurting themselves in the process. As long as those they see as their enemy are suffering, they are happy. They’d burn this country to the ground if it would elicit one more “librul tear.”
In retrospect, people in the future are going to look back at this particular period of American history as a bizarre mass insanity. They won’t be able to understand how we let this happen to ourselves. But the people who are in it - both the people who are actively making this happen, and the people who refuse to see it for what it is and truly fight for it - can’t see it. Refuse to see it.
43%. If you’re this far off on basic numerical facts, it doesn’t bode well for the accuracy of the rest of your post.
Declaring war wouldn’t even be in the picture. It’s not like Russia launched a nuke and killed a million Americans, or invaded NATO. At most, maybe some diplomatic sanctions.
Shoot, Russia aside from nukes is barely relevant. Chinese are a far greater threat and the powers that be have turned a blind eye, when they aren’t aiding, the transfer of knowledge that made Chinese ascension so rapid. That’s what’s insane. Not a bit of dirt on a few politicians.
And nothing going on nowadays compares with the pro-communist folks in the west who gave up nuclear secrets to Stalin.
That’s what’s so amazing about what Russia is doing. They are nearly irrelevant. They are not a world power politically, militarily (outside of nukes), or economically.
They are doing all of this through clever means. They’re good at espionage and propaganda. Finding and exploiting schisms. This is why I called it what may be the greatest espionage operation of all time. A relatively impotent Russia is going to take out arguably the most powerful empire in the history of the world simply through clever espionage. The vastly more powerful Soviet Union wasn’t able to do it. But now this minor player kleptocracy, with a very needed assist from toxic conservatism, is pulling it off. It’s incredible. We’re watching one of the all time great historical events and everyone refuses to see it.
I wouldn’t characterize it as toxic conservatism. I’d call it spoiled brat syndrome.
I don’t think they’re particularly clever or good at it, they’re just being credited with wild successes (like the above post) far beyond what they actually did. For example, they’re nowhere near “going to take out” the USA. We’ll still be here in two or six years, and we’ll still be the world’s superpower.
Oh sure, but this is the moment that history will look back upon as the point of clear decline of our empire. We are ceding the future of Asia and Africa to China. We are ceding leadership of the free world to Europe and Germany specifically. We have divided ourselves too deeply to remain a unified, powerful force indefinitely.
We are building an economy that is concentrating wealth in even higher levels than we did previous to the great depression, and such a model is unsustainable. It will weaken our economic power overall, and we’ll become more of a kleptocracy. We’re obviously already an oligarchy. Our military spending will become more and more burdensome with our relatively declining economic profile, but we will remain far too attached to it to do anything about that. But perhaps more importantly in terms of our status as a world power, we will use our military in more kleptocratic ways, to enrich a few people, rather than to improve American hegemony.
This is the beginning of the end.
Edit: Maybe some future digital archaelogist will see my post in the future and make note of how accurately I called it. Hi future people. Not all of us were blind or gleefully running down this path.
And on top of all of that, the sky is falling too :rolleyes:
I do wonder one day if you’ll ever realize and regret that you’re a #3. My gut says no, but people do sometimes change and mature.
I have no idea what “a #3” is (nor do I care), so I doubt it.
More likely outcome: some kids on the conservative blogosphere are going to find it and laugh about it with their friends, and then life, and America, will continue to muddle on without the bulk of your predictions coming true.
To paraphrase from MIB: There’s always an Russian bot, or a Chinese data infiltration, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out all life in this miserable country, but it’s only steely eyed visionaries like those who can make predictions that the end is nigh (or maybe that this is the beginning of the end, or the middle of the end, or the end of the beginning…or some sort of end) that keep this board spinning…
Seriously man, you need to take a deep breath. What Russia has or is doing (or even what China is or has done) isn’t some sort of signal that the US is going down for the count, or that dogs and cats are going to start living together…or even that Democrats and Republicans are going to start working together.
The funny thing is, I gather that the US is already, as in right now, already happened, on the historical record, taking massive hits in international relations, international agreements, balanced trade… it doesn’t feel like one has to be a prognositcator to sense the bridges burning; one can already smell the smoke.
Now does that mean that the we’re going to have an Even Greater Depression and break up into a bunch of warring city-states? Not so much. But the claim I’m hearing isn’t that we’re going to vanish or be obliterated by a piece of falling sky; it’s that we’ve cheerfully leapt off of our reigning seat on the international stage and ceded it to eastern powers. Which, honestly, doesn’t seem like that incredible of a claim.
That would be a valid comparison is Julius Rosenberg had been President of the United States.
Sure, lots of Americans have been willing to sell out their country. But Trump’s the first President who’s been willing to do it.
As I said, I do see this as different. I’m sure Russia and other countries have made offers to other candidates in the past. But this is the first time a candidate has said yes to the offer.
This is the post that lead to this line of discussion (I’ve highlighted the relevant bit):
I’d ask you if that’s the functional equivalent of “we’re going to vanish or be obliterated by a piece of falling sky”, but the question would appear to be entirely rhetorical.