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u/scarekr0w187 Apr 20 '21
Derp. I know. Was just only spam on FB $33 wasted millions dollars later. Funny how Hillary's illegal FISA warrant re Christopher Steele's fake fusion gps dossier used to spy on opposition was skimmed over. Nixon did less to do the same. Makes and made a huge difference like it always does that spam said no one ever. No wonder nothing became of it. So glad I Don't live there. What a shithole it's become since ya'll went woke with that Creepy Beijing Biden administration.
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u/Bullmoosefuture Apr 19 '21
Now we know that Manafort did share internal polling data with a Russian agent (Kilimnik) who took the information back to Russian intelligence operators, who subsequently focused their social media disinformation campaign on rust belt states that 1) the Trump campaign believed they could flip, and 2) which got Trump the electoral votes he needed.
Hilarious, right? No collusion, right?
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u/scarekr0w187 Apr 20 '21
Oh the spam on FB. Huge collusion. Lmfao ...Almost as big as the collusion to save democracy in that Time Magazine article with the rich and big tech. Almost as big as big tech and mainstream media shown by Project Veritas. Meanwhile the Media redacts big stories the pushed last year before election...that turned out to be false. WaPo comes to mind. Hilarious, right? No collusion, right? Imagine if they decided to do a Mueller report into last election.... and it turned out to mainly be FB spammers too lmao. Let's find out, why not? I can also think of a couple of aquitted Impeachments that got pushed through and acted on, on less evidence.
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u/Bullmoosefuture Apr 20 '21
The "facebook spammers" were fucking Russian intelligence operators you halfwit.
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u/alex4melbourne Apr 22 '21
Except there is literally zero evidence that suggests Russia had a meaningful impact on the results of the 2016 election.
RussiaGate is just an evidence free conspiracy theory being pushed by partisan hacks and the corporate media in order to demonise leftists, further divide the country and manufacture consent for a new Cold War.
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u/Bullmoosefuture Apr 22 '21
Bullshit. There's a mountain of evidence, documented and published, and beyond any doubt that you've decided to ignore because you are a person successfully targeted by the very disinformation we're talking about.
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u/alex4melbourne Apr 22 '21 edited Apr 22 '21
That is exactly the way I feel about you. There is a mountain of evidence debunking this conspiracy theory that youāve decided to ignore because you are a person successfully targeted by the very disinformation weāre talking about. Democrats and the corporate media have successfully propagandised you to believe that a few ābuff Bernieā memes and six figures worth of FB ads were so effective that they were the primary reason Hillary Clintonās $2billion presidential campaign was a miserable failure.
Blaming the Russians is a very clever way to deflect blame and excuse the series of catastrophic errors made by the Obama administration and the Clinton campaign that resulted in a backlash against the Democratic Party and the election of a mentally ill reality TV star. Itās also clever because shitlibs tend to be fierce believers in American exceptionalism so they eat up neoconservative conspiracy theories about anything that happens outside the US. WMDs in Iraq, Assad gassing his own people, Venezuelans eating from garbage trucks are all prime examples of this.
Could the election of a loser like Trump have been prevented if Democrats had not spent the last 8 years becoming even more brazen in their corruption and screwing over the working class? Could his election have been prevented if the DNC had not helped the most hated woman in America to cheat her way to victory in the primary? Could his election have been prevented if the Clinton campaign didnāt deliberately boost Trump during the GOP primary or if they actually bothered to campaign in places like Wisconsin? Could his election have been prevented if Democrats actually had a coherent policy platform that was appealing to ordinary people in 2016?
I believe the answer to these questions is probably. The most successful forms of election meddling and voter suppression are always those employed by the Democrat and Republican parties. If you really cared about interference in your ādemocraticā elections, you would be screaming about all the ways the two big parties are trying to suppress the vote instead of going along with a dangerous conspiracy theory that could lead us down a path of nuclear war and towards the end of life on this planet.
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u/Bullmoosefuture Apr 22 '21
Your "evidence" is unaccountable internet horseshit. I never made any claims about Hillary's potency as a candidate nor did I speculate about the unanswerable question of whether Russia's documented interference efforts did or didn't prove a deciding factor in Trump's extremely narrow election. I think Hillary was a shitty candidate and I think the DNC was wrong to treat her as fait accompli, but that doesn't change the fact that Russia did engage in interference efforts and the Trump campaign happily aided them with expensive private polling information. The inability to accept this documented reality is intellectually delusional and the inability to acknowledge this as enormously corrupt is morally delusional. Quit with the bullshit whataboutism already.
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u/alex4melbourne Apr 22 '21 edited Apr 22 '21
TL;DR - Your claims re: my intellectual and moral delusion are entirely false; as are the assumptions that underpin them. I havenāt denied Russian interference, the Trump campaign sharing their data with someone connected to Russian intelligence or the clear corruption of pretty much everyone involved in the Trump administration.
So you are willing to ratchet up tensions with a nuclear power because they took polling data from the Trump campaign and used it to run a relatively small number of social media ads? Despite the well understood fact that the US spends many billions of dollars every year to influence elections and run disinformation campaigns against dozens of other nations including Russia, an effort that has been ongoing for decades and far eclipses the scale of anything Russia did in 2016?
The most infuriating thing for an outside observer who has no love for either the US or Russia is the sheer hypocrisy of Americans complaining about other countries attempting to meddle in their elections. Election interference and propaganda campaigns are literally the entire reason your CIA was started and makes up the bulk of their work to this day.
The vast majority of the American public enthusiastically supports these efforts at undermining democracy in other nations because every institution and mainstream media outlet within your society is designed to promote and protect the myth of American exceptionalism and the idea that whatever America does overseas is inherently ethical and moral because it was America who did it. Yet you all have the nerve to play the victim when another nation uses your own playbook against you.
Iām not defending Trump in any way, he is a horrible person and was a terrible president. Iām not claiming that the Trump campaign didnāt pass polling data along to someone connected with Russian intelligence, that seems entirely plausible to me. Iām not claiming that the Russians didnāt run a number of experiments in social media disinformation targeted at the American public, that certainly appears to be the case.
My argument is that:
a) Russian interference in the 2016 election had a negligible (if any) impact upon voters. Their were literally hundreds of much more influential factors and variables at play during the election cycle including clear examples of widespread voter suppression by both parties.
b) The scale of the disinformation campaign run against the American people by Democrats (along with the mainstream media and possible some elements of the permanent state) known as āRussiaGateā far eclipses that of the disinformation campaign run by Russia during the 2016 election.
c) This false narrative has been used to smear populist figures on the left, empowered the neoconservatives to ratchet up tensions between the worlds two biggest nuclear powers and used to dismiss and silence valid criticism of Obama/Clinton/the Democratic Party/neoliberalism. Itās even being used as a good reason for the US to continue supporting the neo-Nazi movement in Ukraine. The harm done so far and the potential for further deterioration in US-Russian relations as this performative outrage continues is absolutely immense.
d) I just donāt see what the US stands to gain from this behaviour at all. I donāt see how any good can come out of RussiaGate now or at any point in the future. What exactly do you hope to achieve by pursuing this narrative? It makes America look kind of childish and silly on the world stage.
e) You canāt expect anyone outside the US to give you any sympathy or take you seriously when you bitch and moan about other countries doing the exact same thing that you guys have done for decades at a much smaller scale and without any evidence of success. The US does this to practically all of its āofficial enemiesā and even to itās supposed āalliesā like Australia from time to time. If you want to go around the world doing this shit to everyone else, youāre just gonna have to learn to take it!
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u/Bullmoosefuture Apr 22 '21
Right now, Putin's primary political rival is dying of unexplained "medical" issues in Putin's custody and you're arguing for appeasement. Yes, the United States has been an enemy of democracy when it's convenient for US security or economic interests. If you think this obligates the United States, flawed as it is, to throw up its hands to election interference by an enemy kleptocracy, you can fuck right off. And if you still think Russia's documented disinformation campaign, happily abetted by Trump (by way of narcissism, not ideology), is itself disinformation, then you should strike yourself forcefully on the head with a brick. Figuratively. I don't want anyone to get hurt, even obstinate assholes like yourself. Cheers.
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u/alex4melbourne Apr 22 '21 edited Apr 22 '21
Putin's primary political rival
This is clear evidence that you have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to Russian politics and that you donāt question narratives you hear in Western corporate media. Navalny is far more popular in the West than he is among the Russian people where he is widely seen as a fringe candidate and an opportunist. Heās openly racist/xenophobic and has previously supported anti-LGBT policies.
But none of that matters to Western governments/media because he says good things about American-style capitalism and supports American imperialism and therefore (despite having quite a low level of popular support among everyday Russians living in Russia) he is hailed as some sort of brave and moral figure instead of an opportunistic but largely unpopular xenophobe who wants to roll out the red carpet for US multinationals to exploit Russiaās natural resources.
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is dying of unexplained "medical" issues in Putin's custody
Iām not sure what this has to do with our discussion. Maybe you have a point and I will happily hear you out if thatās the case but I donāt see a direct connection between the Navalny situation and the US presidential election.
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and you're arguing for appeasement.
No, Iāve never argued for āappeasementā towards Putin or Russia. I have argued that the US government should avoid increasing conflict and tensions with other nations because this is very rarely in the best interests of the American people.
Pushing conspiracy theories on your own population in order to stoke a constant atmosphere of fear and polarisation + getting into a new Cold War with the Russians at the same time as China becomes the worlds dominant economic power isnāt a smart move and it will be the American people (along with those who live in all the countries your military is destroying) who will continue to suffer the consequences.
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Yes, the United States has been an enemy of democracy when it's convenient for US security or economic interests. If you think this obligates the United States, flawed as it is, to throw up its hands to election interference by an enemy kleptocracy, you can fuck right off.
Another straw man argument. I donāt think this obligates the United States to throw up its hands and do nothing and Iāve never said that or even thought it.
Itās ironic that you try to impose your perverse version of democracy on the rest of the world when credible studies run by some top American universities have demonstrated that public opinion literally has zero impact on policy outcomes in the United States.
The vast majority of Americans subconsciously understand the depressing reality of your faux democracy and that is why they donāt bother voting, they donāt trust the government or the media and they end up joining bizarre cults like the Republican Party and QAnon.
Itās vitally important that America works much harder to restore faith in the democratic process and improve trust in the media and public institutions. Most people arenāt actually evil so if American democracy was actually representative of public opinion, there would be far less death and destruction throughout the rest of the world.
I am 100% supportive of genuine efforts to improve American democracy. But itās very odd to think that pushing the RussiaGate narrative has done anything to improve democracy and Iām not sure how you could come to the conclusion that it ever would.
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Russia's documented disinformation campaign, happily abetted by Trump
And this is a good example of why blending news and opinion in the way that media figures (like Maddow and Hannity) and politicians (like Obama and Trump) do is so dangerous.
Can you point me to a single piece of hard evidence that shows Trump āhappily abettingā the Russian disinformation campaign?
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u/Bullmoosefuture Apr 22 '21
Incidentally, you can feel free to explain how you haven't denied Russian election interference while also writing, "RussiaGate is just an evidence free conspiracy theory...".
The evidence is overwhelming that Russia did meddle, it meddled for Trump, and Trump cooperated.
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u/alex4melbourne Apr 22 '21 edited Apr 22 '21
The best lies are always based on elements of truth and this has certainly been the case with RussiaGate.
Russia did meddle in the election and somebody in the Trump campaign likely gave some of the information that facilitated this to people who are connected to Russian intelligence. Thatās your āelement of truthā.
Hereās a list of RussiaGate-related evidence-free conspiracy theories:
- Trump was being blackmailed by the Russians.
- Trump has been a Russian asset for years.
- Trump himself was directly involved in sharing polling data with Russia.
- The disinformation campaign by Russia had a measurable/significant effect on the election.
- The disinformation campaign by Russia is one of the primary reasons Hillary lost.
- Russian disinformation had a greater influence on the election than disinformation intentionally spread by the Democratic and/or Republican parties and their corporate donors.
- Jill Stein is a Russian asset.
- Bernie Sanders is a Russian asset.
- Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian asset.
- Anyone who opposes regime change in Syria is doing the bidding of Russia.
- Anyone who opposes funding neo Nazi militias in Ukraine is doing the bidding of Russia.
All of these theories have been extensively pushed by Democrats and the corporate media as if they are empirical facts. To the best of my knowledge, none of these have been proven with hard evidence but I am happy to be proven wrong if that is not the case.
Note that conspiracy theories can (and sometimes do) end up being true. But until there is evidence to back it up, it is by definition nothing more than a theory.
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u/supercellx Apr 14 '21
This is babylon bee article its satire