Many are fed up with this endless obsession with Russia and I don't blame them. If Trump is to be defeated it will have to be from the left, on policy, not just harping on about Russia and hoping that he will be impeached (or voted out over Russiagate)- ain't gonna happen. It's not hard to defeat Trump on policy etc, there is much wrong there and it shouldn't be hard to reveal him as the pro-establishment conman and authoritarian he really is.
And the fact is, as Noam Chomsky has pointed out, that Russia are not the only nation interfering in the politics of other countries, just look at the dodgy (and far more significant) goings on between Israel and the US (as pointed out by Chomsky) and Saudi Arabia-US (bribes for weapons deals etc)
With this hawkish obsession with Russia, which will only escalate tensions, the Democrats are squandering their chances of electoral success and possibly pushing us into a war.
No, there is no "hawkish obsession with Russia" among Democrats, except in the fevered minds of people on the far left and far right in American politics.
It's about the integrity of the forthcoming elections - something else that the fevered minds don't seem to care much about.
Just to sum up:
- There is evidence that agents acting on behalf of the Russian government intervened in the 2016 elections. I won't go into the "how" as it's well documented.
- There is already evidence of similar tampering happening even in the primary elections in the run up to 2018.
- Very few measures have been put in place to fix the vulnerabilities that were there in 2016.
- The US Supreme Court and Congress have green lighted other measures likely to reduce the number of people with left leaning views being allowed to vote.
- The US Congress voted against funding to secure the integrity of the 2018 elections against tampering, hacking, faulty machinery, etc.
It doesn't matter whether barriers to a free and fair vote are being put up by agents of the Russian Government, GOP appointees to the Supreme Court or Republican congressmen and women. What matters is the chances of anything like a free, fair, democratic vote are slim.
You think that's nothing to worry about and people should stop complaining about it. Right.
Sure, the US, UK and most colonial powers have intervened in other countries elections. Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because little Johnny down the street is doing it doesn't mean it's okay for you to. I know a lot of folks are enjoying the spectacle of America getting the comeuppence they think it deserves, but the blow back will fuck the whole world - including them.
So, in addition to evidence of intervention by agents of a foreign power, we also have:
- Evidence of ballot irregularities in key districts in 2016 (e.g. Wisconsin, Michigan, etc.)
- Gutting of the Voting Rights Act and resulting reductions in access to voting (e.g. closed polling stations, reduced voting hours, restrictions on registration, etc.)
- Noted problems with unreliability of technology and security of voting machines.
- "Purges" of voter roles happening just before polling day, resulting in people who believed they were registered being denied ballots
Folks with the fevered minds seem hell bent on either denying that any of the above is happening, or insisting it doesn't matter to the outcome.
Republicans
have to deny that the electoral system was bent in their favour. Otherwise, it brings into question the legitimacy of Trump's presidency and that of every GOP politician that took or returned to office following the 2016 elections, local, state and national. They don't want to open that can of worms. They want to bury it under six feet of concrete. They also want to keep any advantage it will give them next time round. Some Trump supporters have even come out and said they don't care if a foreign country intervened, or there was cheating in any other way, so long as they got Trump.
Maybe it's same for folks on or to the left of the Democratic Party. They have to paint the Democratic Party as an abject failure, and Democratic voters as incapable of informed choice in order to legitimise the candidates
they back. Accepting Democrats from county halls to the White House may have lost due to electoral corruption of any kind undermines their narrative. You'd think parroting Trump/GOP talking points would leave a bad taste in their mouths, but they seem to savour it, so . . .
