So, you once again refuse to even read the evidence and try to change the subject to why I criticize you. Typical. And by typical, I mean a typical response by a conspiracy theorist when presented with evidence.
I don't object to you believing in whatever you believe. I object to you promoting conspiracy theories based on false and misleading characterizations of the evidence. And we saw on Wednesday exactly where that leads. That's why I say you are part of the problem. You're a consistent conspiracy monger as long as the narrative is consistent with your expressed hatred of establishment democrats in general, and the Clintons in particular. You hate Hillary so much that you go into attack mode at the mere suggestion that, given the closeness of the 2016 election, anything other than "Hillary sux" could have contributed to her loss to Trump.
You are so blinded by cognitive bias that you can't even recognize the glaring inconsistencies in your own posts. For example, you claim the simple concept of "Satan made me do it" is a powerful, effective propaganda tool when used on Americans. But these same poor, susceptible Americans are completely immune to an organized, sophisticated propaganda effort deployed by the Russian government in 2016. Pick a lane.
Propaganda isn't magic. It doesn't force people to do something against their will. It's degree of success is highly contingent. But it can be damn effective. Look at the number of people who believe that elite liberals drink the blood of children to prolong their lives. That's damn effective propaganda. Ditto for the belief that the election was stolen by voting machines designed to rig elections for Hugo Chavez that flipped votes by routing them to a secret server in Germany and then back to the machines in the U.S. Propaganda -- pure and simple. And that propaganda led to an attempt by members of Congress to rob the voters of certain states of their votes. But, oh no, we're completely immune to Russian propaganda.
You ask "where were the Russians this go around?" How many more votes did Trump get this election than last election? Lots. Why did he lose? Lots more voted for Biden. Where were the Russians? Ukrainegate. Hunter Biden. Feeding disinformation to Rudy Giuliani. What they were unable to do was split the left the way they did in 2016. I watched that crap happen to friends and acquaintances on the left. It was exactly the same experience that people describe when they talk about "losing" family members to Fox News. I had to finally unfriend a number of Bernie fanatics on Facebook because my feed would be filled every day with absolute crap. I'd click their links, and find a site that looked like it was some kind of local newspaper in the U.S., but when I Googled to look for the publication, it was clear that the publication didn't exist. Others would link to people's Facebook or Twitter accounts that consisted of mainly posting information and links to other people's accounts. When I tried to trace back and source evidence of the most extreme cases, I'd end up traveling through whole labyrinths of accounts, sometimes unable to find a source. Or the source would be an anonymous somebody who said something -- kind of like Sidney's Powell's "affidavits."
I finally concluded that there were a helluva lot of Bernie supporters who had drifted off into conspiracy land, and just ignored the river of crap. Only after the election, when I saw lists of accounts that Facebook and Twitter had determined to be "fake." And I recognized several sites that my leftist friends and acquaintances had been sending me to. Those sites for unverifiable newspapers? Gone. I can't recall if I had an opinion on who had set up the accounts at that time. There were lots of claims being made about the (then) wonder boy Brad Parscale, Cambridge Analytica, and Steve Bannon.
I was persuaded that the effort came from Russia after reading the indictments in the Muller investigation. Now, indictments are only claims, but they are claims based on evidence. And the indictments included detailed descriptions of what the Russians did in 2016 and how they did it. The Bi-Partisan Senate Intelligence Report Volumes 1 and 2 convinced me. Volume 1 evaluates the extent to which Russian military hackers were hacking sources in the U.S., including voter registration bases and political campaigns. Volume 2 extensively details the propaganda campaign, which was far more extensive than the purchase of $150 of ads on Facebook that you false have claimed as the extent of the campaign.
Had you read the evidence, you would understand why your comparison with lobbying efforts by Israel is nonsensical. We know that lobbying for BDS sanctions is being conducted by Israel. During the Russia campaign, the extent to which the disinformation arm of the Russian government was pretending to be ordinary, patriotic Americans was not known. Neither was the extent to which the Russian agency had set up bot networks that could be activated to amplify certain messages. So, during and after the Democratic Primary, Russians who appeared to be members of the American left spread discord that drove a huge wedge between Clinton and Sanders supporters.
So, what was different this time around? Well, we had four years of experience of Trump as President. Biden didn't have as much pre-existing baggage as Clinton. The left concluded that rejecting Biden was not worth four more years of Trump. Trump and Giuliani sabotaged their own attempt to manufacture a scandal in the Ukraine. Facebook and Twitter looked for and actively removed suspect accounts. And more people on the left paid attention to where disinformation was coming from. Different election, different candidate, different set of knowledge, different set of facts on the ground.
But, the real answer to what was different this time, in terms of outcome, is very little. Change the right 77,000 votes in 2016 and we would have had President Clinton. Change the right
45,000 votes in 2020, and Trump would have four more years.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... than-2016/ Had Trump not been so stupid to make that phone call to the Ukraine. Had the whistleblower not come forward. Had Giuliani been remotely competent. Had the disgruntled left stayed home or voted for third party candidates. Had any of these things happened, we could very easily had four more years of President Trump. The fact that Trump narrowly lost under different factual conditions is not evidence that Russian propaganda had no effect.
Conspiracy mongers pride themselves on being independent thinkers. That's a delusion. Conspiracy mongers are as much sheep as anyone else. They'll swallow any claim that supports the narrative that they want to be true with zero skepticism. Having a minority opinion does not make one right. A minority of Americans think the election was stolen, that the liberal elite kidnap and molest children, that the earth is flat, that the cabal that runs the world is composed of alien reptiles, that Joseph Smith was a prophet, that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery, that climate change is fake, that Trump has already been deposed under the 25th amendment and is being held prisoner in a secret location, that Trump conceded only because he wanted to flush out the traitors, that the rioters that stormed the Capitol Wednesday were ANTIFA in disguise, that the earth is 6000 years old, and on and on. In fact, given the sheer number of false things believed by groups who are not the majority, I'd say reflexively rejecting a majority view is generally consistent with being wrong, not right. Yet, conspiracy mongers constantly claim that their rejection of majority positions in and of itself is evidence they are right. It's nonsense.
Let's look at the theory expressed in your last paragraph. You've gone from Russiagate being manufactured to cover up the fact that Clinton was a poor candidate to Russiagate was manufactured to appeal to the religious right. Have you actually seen the religious right's reaction to Russiagate? All the possible ways that one could think of to appeal to the religious right and you pick Russiagate? C'mon.
I understand where you are coming from. It's Bernie Sanders theory that the most, or perhaps even the only, important issues are economic. Fix our problems with economic inequality and our other problems will be fixed or will much more easily be fixed. I don't think that's an unreasonable view. I think there are inherent problems with capitalism as it works in the real world that need to be addressed. Access to health care is an example. But I've watched too many people in too many states vote against their own economic interests to buy in to the notion that electing a Bernie or an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will get us to Medicare for all or some similar system where we socialize health insurance. Politically, we need the minimum of half the house and 60% of the Senate plus the President. Practically speaking, unless we want it to be sabotaged or dismantled by the next change of the party in power, we need a broad buy in by the public. With 40% of Americans rejecting any attempt to socialize anything as COMMUNISM, we don't have enough consensus to enact a stable system of socialized health insurance. Hell, it's been rough trying to hold onto the Medicare we have, let alone expanding it to everyone.
There is also a huge structural problem that I haven't seen any of my fellow leftists address other than through handwaving. Millions of Americans get their health insurance through their employers, with employers paying a substantial portion of the premium. When I was self employed and the only employed member of my family, my monthly bill for health insurance was around $3,000. When my wife went back to work, we insured through her employer. The plan was with the same insurer with better benefits. Our monthly out of pocket fell to $100. If we change to medicare for all, we have to raise taxes to pay for it. And we'll have to raise mine by a helluva lot more than the $100 I'm out of pocket now. And there are millions of Americans in the same position as I am. This problem was the one I saw being dodged time and time again during the democratic debates. The candidates promoting Medicare for All all knew how the numbers penciled out in terms of the required tax increases. But they didn't want to talk about it.
And this is what drives me nuts about what I'll call the "ideological economic left." They act as if Bernie or Elizabeth can wave a wand and make these things happen. And then they rant about the "donor class" and spend their time vilifying "establishment" democrats, as if their rhetoric stands a snowball's chance of getting anything actually done. What we need is to form a broad coalition that supports these reforms, as opposed to pissing all over the folks who are closest to us on the political spectrum. Promoting conspiracy theories like the Seth Rich murder, Uranium One, Ukraine, Hunter Biden, etc., let alone denying clear evidence of how our enemies are trying to damage us, for the purpose of vilifying the people we need to persuade and narrowing our coalition does more damage to progressive causes than Trump ever will.
And that's probably my biggest problem with your posts. When you promote baseless conspiracy theories and ignore or misrepresent evidence, you take us backwards. You both feed the narrative of the "looney left" and you alienate the people that we need as allies to get the job done. We need less purity ranting and more pragmatism. I'm as ideologically left as you -- maybe farther left. But I am sick and tired of seeing the left shoot itself in the foot time after time after time by throwing out simplistic "solutions" and pissing needed allies off. Did you sleep through how easily Republicans sabotaged Obamacare once they became the majority? If you want MFA, you need not only the centrist Democrats you despise, you also need centrist Relief Society.
So, you're not helping. You're hurting. And by promoting baseless conspiracy theories and misrepresenting facts, you're using exactly the same playbook that resulted in Wednesday's tragedy.
That's what I object to. Next time, you could just try asking.
