07-13-2018, 02:35 PM
(07-13-2018, 12:41 PM)hollodero Wrote: Austria, since you brought that up, is a country full of narrow-minded, mostly rather primitive people. But no way. Really, no way. If Russia had aided a certain party by hacking opponents, a propaganda attack and whatnot and all agencies had confirmed that, no way the electorate would ever tolerate that leader calling all of that fake news, that Putin is to be believed over them, that whoever disagrees, journalist or official or opponent, is attacked, insulted and called names up to enemy of the people, that every investigation is painted as fraudulent and must be stopped immediately, when there's a demonstrable huge avalanche of lies to deny the obvious, there's simply no way that would be accepted. Not as of now at least.
Maybe some, a few, would be so naive and out of touch to honestly believe the lies still, maybe a few really wouldn't care, but the rest of us through all allegiances and beyond all loyalties would unequivocally be outraged, furious by that hypothetical I described. And an reelection bid (that probably would come way earlier as planned) would become a disaster for said party/leader. And the fact that you're so cynical as to be willing to understand and accept Trump's behaviour as the right thing to do and a political necessity might be the single saddest thing I ever read on this board. Tribalism really trumps national security and you actually make the case that this is the reasonable thing to do for Trump. As someone who always looked up and admired the USA, this is simply heart-breaking and that is not a hyperbole.
I think you're mistaking not publicly admitting it with not doing anything about it. There were calls for Trump to be impeached before he was even sworn in. There are prominent Democrats calling for his impeachment on a regular basis. Tribalism does not trump national security, but expecting Trump to own it publicly, or Hillary if the position was reversed, is going to disappoint you. None of this is saying that Trump's "fake news" diatribes are right or productive (although the media has blown a fair amount of stories about him in their rush to condemn him), but it is not analogous to ignoring the threat. Trust that there are thousands of good men in women in our government working on the Russian threat and how to counter it, Trump's statements don't change that.
