4 ms·

QAnon is pretty weird, but the idea that Russia was secretly manipulating every aspect of American society was also pretty bizarre, I mean looking in from the o

QAnon is pretty weird, but the idea that Russia was secretly manipulating every aspect of American society was also pretty bizarre, I mean looking in from the outside across the pond in Europe. There wasn't really any evidence for either idea but the Russia conspiracy ate the Democrats - if anything, far worse than QAnon has eaten the Republicans. Indeed given the demographics of HN I'm guessing someone will reply to this post and claim that "The 2016 election was rigged by the Russians" or "Russians controlled Trump" etc was all totally true and not a bizarre conspiracy theory at all. The descent of US political parties into fantastical theorising is a general trend.

runawaybottle 6y ago
Both groups are internalizing after trauma. They say children that go through abuse and trauma in childhood start to internalize and develop compulsive fantasy worlds as a defense mechanism (or rather we all do it via escapism - avoidance, drug abuse, paranoia, compulsive behavior, all anti-social outgrowths). It’s really hard for the left to remain mature and fight rationally. They have given up on doing that and taken on the ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ strategy where they are now using the same right-wing nonsense conspiracy tactics to rile up the base. The right has fully internalized as a traumatized child into madness. They’re political capital was wasted on a party that used them to goto war, bailout banks, not buff up or protect the working class. They are betrayed, and like an abused child, fully cocooned themselves from rationally considering the circumstances. Even when they actually evolve and reject pro-war platforms (you know , the right wing actually adjusted and fixed this), they are unable to formulate their economic concerns in a non-racist way. They are exhausted and beaten down, and basically need rehab. They literally need a breather, but the Republican machine won’t give them that and will rile them up against everything Biden/Dems will do for the next four years. It’s viscous stuff, reminds me of a bipolar kid I remember from elementary school where all the kids would just rile him up knowing he’d eventually start throwing chairs uncontrollably. It’s callous as fuck, there’s no love amongst ourselves at all. There are no healthy adults at the table at the moment.
digitaltrees 6y ago
The Muller report details quite a lot of evidence actually.
- giardini 6y ago
  Evidence of what? Don't be vague. Few on the right pay attention to the Qanon meme. In contrast leftists believ most, if not all, conservatives are rabid Qanon faithful. But Qanon is a myth concocted by the left for the left. As I've stated earlier, the left simply generates an endless sequence of lies, publishes (or yells them) them awhile and then abandons them when the next lie is concocted for publication or if the lie falls flat in the public eye. No autopsy, no inquest is ever performed on the left's past outrageous lies. If you ask them about the "Russian conspiracy" they'll ignore you and shout about the rightist "insurrection", their latest meme. The left is, essentially, a mob: "The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind Paperback – December 24, 2016 by Gustave Le Bon" https://www.amazon.com/Crowd-Study-Popular-Mind/dp/1636000169 https://www.amazon.com/Crowd-Study-Popular-Mind/dp/163600016...
  - digitaltrees 6y ago
    Why should I summarize the report? I was responding to the claim that “there was no evidence of Russian influence in the election and collaboration by the Trump campaign”. That claim is demonstrably false. Muller did find evidence, and people went to jail for lying to hide the evidence. The president could not be convicted because the DoJ internal policy prohibits filing charges against a sitting president. I am not ignoring or shouting about any red herring diversion. Read the report. Read the court proceedings that sent Flynn or Stone to prison.
kmos17 6y ago
There actually is hard evidence of direct Russian manipulation and the Mueller report’s overall conclusion was that there was extensive manipulation: “ The Mueller report found that the Russian government "interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion" and "violated U.S. criminal law". The report relayed two methods by which Russia attempted to influence the election. “ Mueller could not find hard evidence of Trump colluding although he had clear evidence of obstruction. This obstruction when also considering Trump’s very unusually obsequious deference to Putin, including them meeting multiple times with no other US official present, something completely unprecedented, is a lot of smoke. On the other hand can you show a single shred of evidence backing a Qanon conspiracy? On one side you have a series of conspiracy theories that have continually been disproven from a completely anonymous source, and on the other you have hard evidence from investigations and actual events that you can view online. You have to be pretty dense in my opinion to not see the difference.
- thu2111 6y ago
  What hard evidence? I don't actually trust the US government or its appointees to reasonably handle that particular theory because, like I said, it basically ate half the US political system and most of Washington culture to a far wilder extent than QAnon has done. If there is really hard, compelling evidence, then what is it? I ask because for years (until I tuned it out) I would research and fact check claims about Russian interference of various types, and they always fell apart on close inspection. It was cry wolf, over and over. For instance the original claims were quite specific that Putin tried to rig the 2016 election for Trump via social media manipulation. Then Facebook produced a pile of supposedly "Russian ads" that were just random shitposting and didn't clearly support either party. As is usually seen in conspiracy theories, when a central pillar collapses the theory just instantly mutates, so very quickly the narrative changed to be "they're sowing division to make us hate each other". Why would Putin do this? Aren't Americans doing a good enough job of that themselves? What about other countries that might have similar motives? None of these questions were ever explored. It's just obviously motivated reasoning on a massive scale.

runawaybottle 6y ago

Both groups are internalizing after trauma. They say children that go through abuse and trauma in childhood start to internalize and develop compulsive fantasy worlds as a defense mechanism (or rather we all do it via escapism - avoidance, drug abuse, paranoia, compulsive behavior, all anti-social outgrowths). It’s really hard for the left to remain mature and fight rationally. They have given up on doing that and taken on the ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ strategy where they are now using the same right-wing nonsense conspiracy tactics to rile up the base. The right has fully internalized as a traumatized child into madness. They’re political capital was wasted on a party that used them to goto war, bailout banks, not buff up or protect the working class. They are betrayed, and like an abused child, fully cocooned themselves from rationally considering the circumstances. Even when they actually evolve and reject pro-war platforms (you know , the right wing actually adjusted and fixed this), they are unable to formulate their economic concerns in a non-racist way. They are exhausted and beaten down, and basically need rehab. They literally need a breather, but the Republican machine won’t give them that and will rile them up against everything Biden/Dems will do for the next four years. It’s viscous stuff, reminds me of a bipolar kid I remember from elementary school where all the kids would just rile him up knowing he’d eventually start throwing chairs uncontrollably. It’s callous as fuck, there’s no love amongst ourselves at all. There are no healthy adults at the table at the moment.

digitaltrees 6y ago

The Muller report details quite a lot of evidence actually.

giardini 6y ago
Evidence of what? Don't be vague. Few on the right pay attention to the Qanon meme. In contrast leftists believ most, if not all, conservatives are rabid Qanon faithful. But Qanon is a myth concocted by the left for the left. As I've stated earlier, the left simply generates an endless sequence of lies, publishes (or yells them) them awhile and then abandons them when the next lie is concocted for publication or if the lie falls flat in the public eye. No autopsy, no inquest is ever performed on the left's past outrageous lies. If you ask them about the "Russian conspiracy" they'll ignore you and shout about the rightist "insurrection", their latest meme. The left is, essentially, a mob: "The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind Paperback – December 24, 2016 by Gustave Le Bon" https://www.amazon.com/Crowd-Study-Popular-Mind/dp/1636000169 https://www.amazon.com/Crowd-Study-Popular-Mind/dp/163600016...
- digitaltrees 6y ago
  Why should I summarize the report? I was responding to the claim that “there was no evidence of Russian influence in the election and collaboration by the Trump campaign”. That claim is demonstrably false. Muller did find evidence, and people went to jail for lying to hide the evidence. The president could not be convicted because the DoJ internal policy prohibits filing charges against a sitting president. I am not ignoring or shouting about any red herring diversion. Read the report. Read the court proceedings that sent Flynn or Stone to prison.

kmos17 6y ago

There actually is hard evidence of direct Russian manipulation and the Mueller report’s overall conclusion was that there was extensive manipulation: “ The Mueller report found that the Russian government "interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion" and "violated U.S. criminal law". The report relayed two methods by which Russia attempted to influence the election. “ Mueller could not find hard evidence of Trump colluding although he had clear evidence of obstruction. This obstruction when also considering Trump’s very unusually obsequious deference to Putin, including them meeting multiple times with no other US official present, something completely unprecedented, is a lot of smoke. On the other hand can you show a single shred of evidence backing a Qanon conspiracy? On one side you have a series of conspiracy theories that have continually been disproven from a completely anonymous source, and on the other you have hard evidence from investigations and actual events that you can view online. You have to be pretty dense in my opinion to not see the difference.

thu2111 6y ago
What hard evidence? I don't actually trust the US government or its appointees to reasonably handle that particular theory because, like I said, it basically ate half the US political system and most of Washington culture to a far wilder extent than QAnon has done. If there is really hard, compelling evidence, then what is it? I ask because for years (until I tuned it out) I would research and fact check claims about Russian interference of various types, and they always fell apart on close inspection. It was cry wolf, over and over. For instance the original claims were quite specific that Putin tried to rig the 2016 election for Trump via social media manipulation. Then Facebook produced a pile of supposedly "Russian ads" that were just random shitposting and didn't clearly support either party. As is usually seen in conspiracy theories, when a central pillar collapses the theory just instantly mutates, so very quickly the narrative changed to be "they're sowing division to make us hate each other". Why would Putin do this? Aren't Americans doing a good enough job of that themselves? What about other countries that might have similar motives? None of these questions were ever explored. It's just obviously motivated reasoning on a massive scale.