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There actually is hard evidence of direct Russian manipulation and the Mueller report’s overall conclusion was that there was extensive manipulation: “ The Mue

by 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.

by kmos17 6y ago

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.