I mean can't you guys get the herd to buy Russian iPhones or line up for Russian super hero movies or something?
I really can't understand what the Russians have gained here. If Mueller's final report says the Russians had a major influence on the election, then what happens? I can't imagine it being good for anyone.
But mostly Donald wasn't hilary. Putin HATED Hilary for complex reasons linked to 1. bill clinton's expansion of NATO 2. What putin perceived as american support for violent regime change i.e. which he viewed as an existential threat. This included Hilary speaking in public in support of Russian dissidents and her exulting in the overthrow and execution of gaddafi (while she was secretary of state) 3. Hilary was basically an anti-russia hawk in general.
It seems the active measures campaign was never expected to result in Donald winning. I think the reasonable expectation was that hilary would be discredited and ineffective after winning with no clear mandate and intense resistance by the right. It was by no means random. It is intensely idiotic to think a nation state ruled by a canny, KBG trained, dictator would invest substantial resources and risk American retaliation to cause 'randomness'. His actions had chaotic results to be sure...but he had clear goals.
"If Mueller's final report says the Russians had a major influence on the election then what happens? I can't imagine it being good for anyone."
and the alternative being we close our eyes and pretend not to see? hopefully it would result in a return to paper ballots and hardened cyber security all across the Western world.
At this point though, we all know what the Mueller report will say in its generality. YES the russians had major influence on the election. Denying that at this point is delusional! Mueller is more about what role auspices of the trump campaign violated the law in their acceptance of russian aid...that is still somewhat of an open question as to degree and the level of criminality but it is quite clear that the Trump campaign had some amount of communication and coordination with agents of the Russian government.
What is proved so far is attempted Russian influence on elections. This has been the status quo since the cold war. Had the question been asked in 2012 or 2008, the answer would have been yes as well. In 2017, the nature of spreading information to consumers has transformed dramatically thanks to the increased reach of social media, and the decision of the Russian government to use social media as an attack vector. This is par for the course in world geopolitics, as the United States government has engaged in principally the same thing for years across the world.
Also slightly off topic but - when a candidate says "Read my lips, no new taxes", or "If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor", and somebody votes for them, but instead they act against the interests of the voter, isn't the net result that the voter has been duped, regardless of by whom?
Regardless, I am curious about this particular anti-Russia wave though because it seems to be treated more seriously than other cases. For example when a sitting President says "Tell Vladimir this is my last election, after the election I'll have more flexibility", and also blasts the opposing candidate on the debate stage by joking that "the cold war ended 30 years ago" when he suggested Russia was a threat to American interests - is this not a good enough case for collusion with the Russian government to ensure that potentially objectionable geopolitical decisions are postponed till after a Presidential election so that a debate regarding their propriety can be absent from the political discourse during the campaign?
There is also the issue of large sums of money flowing to Washington lobbyists to influence members of both parties in the legislative branch, which is now being uncovered as part of the Mueller investigation - again this is not particularly new, as Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Tony Podesta etc. made a lot of money doing exactly this for countries all over the world for decades.
The strongest case against the President would be if there was proof that Julian Assange's source for the DNC and Podesta emails was either the Russian government or someone working for the interests of the Russian government. These emails were very damaging to the Clinton campaign, but contained true information, nonetheless. Given that Podesta chose a trivial email password, it's also likely that some other entity had access to his emails. The challenge then would be to prove that the Trump campaign was a co-conspirator in this exercise, by perhaps coordinating the timing of certain releases with the appropriate campaign rhetoric, etc. What's also equally likely is that the campaign was clueless about the entire thing, and unwittingly profited from it. In that case, there would need to be evidence that if there are pro Russia decisions being taken by the executive branch or the military, and that these decisions are being made as a result of suggestions coming from the Kremlin. This, of course, would far exceed "influence on the elections", but "influence on the executive branch". Given that there is already Russian money flowing into Congress, this puts two thirds of the government in the pockets of Russia - i.e. unprecedented levels of corruption and probably some degree of treason as well.
For some unsolicited perspective - speaking as someone living in India - the geopolitical impact of an America that was supposedly free of Russian influence has not been a net positive for the world in my view. There have been a number of bad decisions and messes created in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and others. I'm somewhat confident that President Putin is not all that interested in whether Gorsuch or Garland takes Scalia's place, but is rather more interested in furthering his personal game of Risk that he plays on the world map. If the US government is now effectively a Russian puppet on the world stage, this is selfishly somewhat comforting since the Russians have been political allies with India for several decades. Putin violates the sovereignty of Russia's neighbours, as does China with India and others, as does the USA with countless interventions around the world, often seating a sympathetic figure as the head of state in other countries to facilitate this kind of thing in exchange for good deals. I find it difficult to accept that Hillary Clinton would have been a better outcome for the rest of the world given her decision making for the past 30 years of public life, and her track record as US Secretary of State. I don't know if we would be better off with two Putins as opposed to one Putin and one puppet Putin, if that turns out to be true in all of this. Major world powers like the USA, Russia and China are in a constant battle for territory and resources, which is something we could frankly all do without.
As for your statements about 2008 or 2012 I would need a lot of citations for claims about russian interference in those elections.
Your statement about this current anti-russian wave is wildly off base.
Comparing an innocuous diplomatic statement and a line during a debate with a prolonged and consistent pattern of contact between campaign officials to obtain intelligence provided by the Russian government through hacking....
Moving on-yes- lobbying is bad.
The next paragraph where you talk about Podesta is baffling to me. The strongest case against the president (note these might not actually be crimes-often the cover-up is more damaging and criminal) is that his campaign officials met with agents of the russian government (who represented themselves thusly) and intelligence services to proffer damaging material on a domestic political opponent. Your contention that it is possible that "the campaign was equally clueless about the entire thing" is belied by the fact that three of the key principals (Manafort, Kushner, Don Jr) in the trump campaign met with agents of the russian government...(among many any other incidents).
Hell there was a new york times article this very day about how the trump campaign was aware of the DNC hacks months before it became public knowledge. Donald trump cheered the hackers on in debates. Claiming the campaign was entirely unaware is dead wrong.
You then mention how there needs to be a demonstrated pattern of pro-russian behavior. I mentioned a fair few above-adding in that trump still has not implemented a recent round of sanctions.
To the geopolitical point-the actions of America are very far from perfect. I have many frustrations with the actions of my government. But I do not know if the world would be much more stable if America did not exist and neither do you.
I assure you- the united states is not a russian puppet and will never be so.
How is it clear though? This is my analysis of the RCP average - there are clear events that are showing an impact on the polls, but I am unable to see any swing that is significant enough trending downwards for candidate Clinton that would give merit to the theory of a significant effect.
(https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/g...)
We see candidate Trump overtake candidate Clinton around July 26, which coincides with the release of the DNC emails by Wikileaks, wherein a systematic bias against candidate Sanders is revealed to the public. Apart from this, candidate Trump trails in the polls by mostly 3-6 points.
The decline in numbers for candidate Clinton seems to trend again between August 25 and September 8. August 25 is when the Clinton campaign declared that pepe the frog is a symbol of the alt-right, and denounced the supporters of candidate Trump's campaign as racists. Given that pepe the frog's history as a beloved meme is widespread, including on platforms like Twitch.tv and in several online subcultures, many of which I am a part of, and are completely apolitical, I'm quite convinced that the reaction to this kind of failure to connect with younger voters would have hit her in the polls.
Note also that on August 26, she went on the Jimmy Kimmel show and performed a gag where she opened a pickle jar, to steer clear rumors of her ill health.
On September 9, she made the famous "Basket of deplorables" comment, which shows yet another negative spike - it seems like every time she goes on the offensive against the candidate's support base, she starts to lose favour.
On September 11, she fainted at the 9/11 memorial service. During this entire period there is a significant downtrend in her poll numbers. The polls are most certainly reflecting major popular stories from the campaign.
The week of October 7-14 is again significant here. The Access Hollywood recording was released to the public on October 7, and the John Podesta emails were released the same day. During this period, the polls appeared to have a very sharp negative impact on candidate Trump, whereas candidate Clinton trended upward.
On October 16, the stories from John Podesta's emails finally break in the mainstream media, with CNN's Jake Tapper suggesting that it is illegal for the public to read them. This is where candidate Trump begins to make a comeback in the polls.
On October 28, Director Comey announces that the investigation into candidate Clinton's use of a private server has been re-opened, because emails were found on a the laptop of Anthony Weiner, during an unrelated underage sexting scandal involving Weiner - this causes a very clear nosedive in poll numbers for Clinton, which recovers sharply on November 6, when Director Comey once again clears her of all charges.
For me to accept that "Russian influence" via ads or some other propaganda machinery had a significant impact on the minds of the voters, I think it ought to be visible somehow in the polls - since this is true of nearly every other major development in the campaign. The only theory to validate that would be that the Russians somehow played a part in the Wikileaks drama. Julian Assange has offered to be a witness for the Mueller investigation but has been ignored.
The other controversial figure who had information about what was going on with Wikileaks was the infamous Kim Dotcom, who, in 2015 said that Assange would be targeting candidate Clinton's campaign, as early as 2015, referenced here:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-14/kim-dotco...
Dotcom has also offered to testify, but has not been taken seriously, yet is the only person is known to have had knowledge of the Wikileaks operation an entire year before it happened.
The idea that there was a significant impact seems to be an unfounded hypothesis in the face of actual data.
> As for your statements about 2008 or 2012 I would need a lot of citations for claims about russian interference in those elections.
Page 5 and 6 https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf
> Comparing an innocuous diplomatic statement and a line during a debate with a prolonged and consistent pattern of contact between campaign officials to obtain intelligence provided by the Russian government through hacking....
I don't agree that calling it innocuous makes it innocuous. It's clear that the President wanted to take action once it was politically expedient to do so, and promised flexibility on issues once a second term was secured. It is rooted more in politics and less in diplomacy.
The consistent pattern of contact to obtain opposition research obtained through hacking is identical to the effort to obtain opposition research through spying, which is alleged in the Steele dossier. The only difference between these dirty tactics is that the Clinton campaign maneuvered around the law to get the opposition research, likely owing to their decades of political experience. Both are essentially the same crime in principle. It's also important to note that it is clearly known that coordination in the latter case existed and it yielded a result as well - i.e. the dossier. In the former case, there is an investigation to uncover the evidence, and until now no evidence has surfaced that there were meetings or other discussions showing collusion, nor that there was any sort of yield of damaging information that surfaced as a result of the meetings. I think the distinction between the two campaigns is important in the context of the outrage against collusion with the Russian government or agents of the Russian government, because both campaigns were happy to engage in it, but went about it very differently.
In the case of the famous Donald Trump Jr. email and meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya, she was not known to be working for the Russian government at the time, and was retained by Fusion GPS - who was ironically working on opposition research against President Trump. She was able to get a meeting under the pretext of providing opposition research, there was no indication that she was an agent of the erstwhile Russian government, so to prove that a crime is committed because they took a meeting won't really hold up in court, nor should it to a reasonable and fair minded person. What it does is certainly give the appearance of impropriety and a willingness to accept opposition research, which is certainly not unprecedented.
> The strongest case against the president (note these might not actually be crimes-often the cover-up is more damaging and criminal) is that his campaign officials met with agents of the russian government
In my comment I said that the strongest case would be that the President not only worked to get elected but continues to do so. That would be fairly treasonous.
> Hell there was a new york times article this very day about how the trump campaign was aware of the DNC hacks months before it became public knowledge. Donald trump cheered the hackers on in debates. Claiming the campaign was entirely unaware is dead wrong.
Many of us around the world cheered the hackers on - Secretary Clinton is a very unpopular person to millions :)
Not sure why but these news sources are conflating Secretary Clinton's emails from her private server with the DNC emails. They are not the same thing. There are 3 classes of emails - Clinton, DNC and Podesta. The latter two became public during the campaign. The first never came out - this is the dirt that they allegedly had, and the public has not seen the 33,000 emails to this day.
Given this distinction, the NYT and other reporting is a little misleading. There was ample reporting on the possibility that Russia specifically had compromised the Clinton private server emails prior to this. It was public speculation for a very long time, much before the George Papadopolous email to his professor friend. Former Defense Secretary Gates said the odds were quite high.
Jan 2016
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/266674-former-defense-se... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3412251/Former-secre...
Feb 2016
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2016/02/12/...
March 2016
http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/16/investigation-hillary-sent...
If I were a betting man I'd wager heavily that the emails were definitely seen by foreign governments - 33,000 were never released to the public, and still have not been, so even if all of this were true, the fact that the emails never became public sort of proves that the result of the alleged collusion never materialized during the course of the campaign. The only stuff that came out was DNC and
> I assure you- the united states is not a russian puppet and will never be so.
If it comes to light that the executive branch is working to further Russian interests, and so are the members in Congress who are lobbied by folks like Manafort and Podesta, then it would be very difficult to argue otherwise. Currently, the jury is still very much out on the former, since what is being trumpeted by the press is thus far betting heavily that a smoking gun will emerge to prove that there was collusion that yielded some exchange.
They've weakened the United States. I doubt that they really cared if either President Trump or Mrs. Clinton won the election (and indeed I believe that they spent on both); they merely want to divide our society and weaken the country so that they have a free hand to act across the world.