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Comment by Faramir4k | Hacker News Reader

Required reading:

>"A mass hysteria happens when the public gets a wrong idea about something that has strong emotional content and it triggers cognitive dissonance that is often supported by confirmation bias. In other words, people spontaneously hallucinate a whole new (and usually crazy-sounding) reality and believe they see plenty of evidence for it. The Salem Witch Trials are the best-known example of mass hysteria. The McMartin Pre-School case and the Tulip Bulb hysteria are others. The dotcom bubble probably qualifies. We might soon learn that the Russian Collusion story was mass hysteria in hindsight. The curious lack of solid evidence for Russian collusion is a red flag. But we’ll see how that plays out."

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>We might soon learn that the Russian Collusion story was mass hysteria in hindsight. The curious lack of solid evidence for Russian collusion is a red flag. But we’ll see how that plays out.

What they miss is that this "mass hysteria" was carefully cultivated (for political benefit and ad money) from newspapers and magazines, including the Guardian and NYT.

So much for the silly "masses".

> So much for the silly "masses".

To be fair though, the masses are rather silly, and the size of that mass is growing (spreading into demographics of higher intelligence). So much of the news is obviously "fake" (weasel words, implied but not outright stated "facts", etc) but as the propaganda campaigns continue, they seem to be gradually wearing people down. Although, the decreasing frequency of dissenting voices in social media could also be explained by people abandoning all hope of getting people to think critically and just checking out.

> getting people to think critically and just checking out.

How do you check out? By going to a reputable news source, like NYT, WaPo or The Guardian?

By stopping participating in discussions about facts vs "facts". The above publications don't have a particularly stellar record of clearly differentiating between the two in a way that those who lack excellent critical reading skills are able to leave with an accurate perception of what is proven vs alleged. But this is a matter of opinion of course, the level of criticality one applies when reading the news typically varies according to the political topic.

> We might soon learn that the Russian Collusion story was mass hysteria in hindsight.

What we know is the actions of the sitting President of the US didn't rise to the legally provable action of actively working with a hostile foreign intel agency.

Everything up to that point has been proven and made public. The Trump Tower meeting, Trump Tower Moscow negotiations, Manafort giving polling data to the FSB, Wikileaks/GRU, etc.

If ALL of that happened and no one reported on it, the news media would have truly failed.

The story has yet to be written.

Yeah, but I can't decide if the Russian collusion angle was pushed more by the right or the left.

I mean, there IS a ton of evidence that Russian propaganda interference was real, and that it had an impact on the election. That in itself is a huge deal in my opinion. If there was no coordinated collusion, Trump and friends get to shout "See! No collusion! It was all a witch-hunt!" The idea that no collusion= witch-hunt is completely absurd and preposterous to me.

>Yeah, but I can't decide if the Russian collusion angle was pushed more by the right or the left.

For me there's no "right" and "left" as much, as an ok-with-Trump and "not-ok-with-Trump".

The right Republican establishment also didn't like Trump -- coming from outside the party, with no social grace (which I don't care for, I don't care about optics or what a politician is like as a person, only for their politics), and with some bizarro ideas of his own that break the traditional two-party consensus (e.g. on "more war", or on "limits to globalization" -- which, as a left-inclined person [1], I quite liked. I remember when some parts of the left were against globalization too -- e.g. in Seattle 1999 WTO protests. How time flies...).

>I mean, there IS a ton of evidence that Russian propaganda interference was real, and that it had an impact on the election.

I'd say a ton of noise more than evidence (and not for impact, just for propaganda). At worst they have some "social media" factories, which are par for the course today. In my country both major parties have their own, and publish BS against one another, pose as the other etc. The US surely has it's own (e.g. judging from things like this: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/feds-probe-fake-messages-to-f... ).

I also remember (from actually reading world news) that they have all kinds of sponsored ties, with government and opposition parties around the world, with NGOs, with think tanks, etc, which pretend to be "neutral" but are mostly fronts for national interest promotional work. Thousands of those, all over the world. Plus all the mainstream media eating off their official stories. I doubt Russia has 1/10th the budget or reach for those, which is probably why they have to content themselves with twitter posts and fake blogs.

[1] non US one, so not the modern vegan liberal that passes for one there.

> We might soon learn that the Russian Collusion story was mass hysteria in hindsight.

Will families split by stupid arguments over the Russian collusion hoax be reunited?

I think going back we are going to study this as one of the most effective and prolific conspiracy theory pushed by the major news organizations. I just heard that apparently Mueller and Barr were Russian agents and if we'd wait longer we'd discover the truth. At that point I just nod and smile because I realize we might as well be talking about flat earth or chemtrail contrails.

Do you mean Chemtrails? Contrails are real and a normal phenomenon of flight. I figure since you put it next to Flat Earth you might mean Chemtrails.

Thanks. That's what I meant. I corrected the post. I need to brush up on my conspiracy theory terminology.

maybe contrails don't exist because they are all chemtrails?

But there's not a hoax. Lots of people have been covicted in connection with it, and the President who is at the center of it all acts extremely suspiciously, trying to destroy evidence, intimidate witnesses, and shut down investigators. You would have to ignore a whole heck of a lot of evidence to call the story a "hoax".

The most charitable thing Contra-Coverup Barr could say in his summary is that the President wasn't personally involved with Russian governmental officials in connection with the Internet Research Agency scheme. That is an absurdly specific denial, not even close to "no collusion".

Nobody forced Don Jr to release his emails to representatives of the Russian government saying he would love their help.

> You would have to ignore a whole heck of a lot of evidence to call the story a "hoax".

What's the evidence?

It started with Russians in the bushes in Wisconsin hacking voting machines and bumping votes for their favorite candidate. Remember the Green Party recount how many donated and believed we'd find evidence of hacking.

Then it was about a pee tape of some sort. What happened to that? There was complete certainty if you listened to mainstream media that it was true. Where is that evidence? Any impeachments from it?

Then Comey's testimony. Remember people took time off work to watch it waiting the Russian collusion to finally be exposed. What happened to that? Any impeachments came out of that?

Then it was a constant stream of "just you wait till next week, the report could be out and it's the end of it, impeachments surely are coming next week" for the last ... what? Year or year and half?

So what should we do? Wait for another Mueller report now?

> That is an absurdly specific denial, not even close to "no collusion".

Right, so the hoax continues, because the conclusion wasn't general enough and we'd just have to wait till next week when ... impeachments will finally be here?

> President who is at the center of it all acts extremely suspiciously

But imagine for a second there was no collusion. (A pure thought experiment). After being called anything from Putin's "cock holster" (https://pjmedia.com/video/stephen-colbert-says-donald-trumps...) to "muppet" to whatever, non-stop, 24/7, by the CNN, MSNBC and the likes, do you think he might be a bit irritated? What would you do if everyone around accused you of something you didn't do. Can't say I wouldn't be taking sarcastic jabs back at them and fighting to stop the farce.

Where is that quote from? (I didn't see it in the OP)

If "Russian Collusion" (which could be defined any number of ways) turns out to be mass hysteria, it was partly turned into a hysteria by the actions of the very parties accused of it.

This isn’t from the article. You’re just spoiling for a flame war.

Are you calling bullshit on that quote?

Russian Collusion mass hysteria?

Members of his immediate family and campaign flirted with people associated with the Russian government. He lied about his Russian financial deals. His National Security Adviser lied about his contacts with Russians and his foreign ties. And finally, Trump talks so oddly fond of Russia (and other despots) without ever condemning their human rights abuses.

It was worth investigating.

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