If The Russians Engineered a Trump Victory

[Eric the Green]

(03-02-2017, 06:00 PM)TeacherinExile Wrote:

(03-02-2017, 05:33 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-02-2017, 05:12 PM)TeacherinExile Wrote:

(03-02-2017, 04:47 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Amen.  People are going batshit-insane.  I've read about popular hysteria in books, but watching it happen in real-time with people I know is one of the stranger experiences of my life.  It's like people believe this sort of thing doesn't have consequences.

And here's a snippet from my favorite "socialist rag."  (Not that I'm a socialist: I rather prefer Marxist critiques to Marxist prescriptions, as they have played out in reality.)

"The Slow Collapse of Imperial Republics"

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/01/trump-russia-election-legitimacy-imperial-power/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=email_this&utm_source=email

...If people could step outside their partisan selves for one minute, I’d ask you to consider the following fact as yet another sign of late imperial disjunction: For the last eight years, we’ve had a president who half the country thinks is Muslim, Kenyan-born. For the next four, maybe eight, years, we will have a president who half the country thinks is the Manchurian Candidate, Russian-born. I can’t think of a greater symptom of the weird fever dream that is the American empire, whereby the most powerful state on earth imagines, over a twelve to sixteen year period, that its elected leaders hail from the far reaches of its various antagonisms.

What ties these events together is either that they cast serious doubt on the democratic legitimacy of American institutions [including the Fourth Estate] or that they drag those institutions into the delegitimating mud of the most sordid scandals...

Most Americans--and certainly those who voted for Trump--could give a good goddamn about "fake news," wherever it originates...

Are you also arguing for turning the other check?  The GOP has pretty long record of malfeasance here.  Giving them a pass is a near certainty of more to come.

Not necessarily.  But one thing I learned early on as a teacher--mainly by substituting all over a big school district, as a way to hone a classroom management style prior to becoming a full-time teacher--is not to fight little battles.  Writing up students for small infractions, like chewing gum in class, was not the way I wanted to invest my emotional and ethical "capital."  I saved that for the big issues, like cheating and bullying.  This kerfuffle with Jeff Sessions strikes me as just so much Democratic revanchism for whatever reason.  Maybe the Democrats will succeed in getting a scalp by having Sessions resign.  (I don't think he will.)  And, personally, his recusing himself from any future investigation is sufficient penance...for now.  Ask yourself this: Does our country really have the luxury of pursuing a long, expensive, and contentious investigation into the whole Trump/Russia connection?  I don't think so. 

I say move on.  This is not the battle Democrats want to fight, nor are they in a position of strength to successfully wage such a battle.  If Trump and the GOP is going to be tripped up at all, let it be by virtue of their economic failings, not some low-grade ethical scandal.  And by the way, I'm rooting for Trump to be successful (with some qualifications).  There's simply too much at stake for all of us if he should fail.  And that's coming from someone who opposed his candidacy every step of the way.

I don't think I agree. Sure, we don't want Trump to make a mistake that gets the nation into a war or another great depression. But this kind of scandal is just what needs to happen, to expose the Drump team as the liars and cheaters that they are. The more trouble they are in, the less damage they can do by enacting their "economic failings," meaning all of their wrong economic policies. The less they can "accomplish;" the more they can be distracted by the consequences of their own malfeasance, the better for our nation and our world. And if a scandal can get rid of a snake like Sessions, so much the better. Most of his appointments were the worst ever by a president of a "democratic" country; worst ever! There's a chance a better appointment will be made, if more of the alligators like Sessions have to resign. We saw that when McMasters replaced Flynn, and a slightly better pick for Labor Secretary.