The past couple weeks probably felt like one long Christmas Day Super Bowl for the folks who bought “Mueller Time” T-shirts back in 2018.
The Department of Justice charged the superstar informant at the center of the GOP’s presidential impeachment efforts for lying to the FBI, and it turned out this informant got at least some of his intel from high-level Russian officials. Amping up the intrigue factor, the thrilling climax of the Alexander Smirnov saga unfolded amid a suspiciously Baltic-centric backdrop. Donald Trump has refused to condemn Vladimir Putin for the probable murder of Alexei Navalny, the GOP continued refusing to fund Ukraine’s fight for self-determination against Russia, and Tucker Carlson refused to ask Putin a question as challenging as that of an airport customs officer during a slobbery interview.
Taken together, these developments seem like an elaborate psy-op against MSNBC liberals, designed in a lab somewhere to lure them into screaming at the top of their lungs about Russian collusion for the next nine months—which would be a huge mistake.
Considering what happened during the 2016 election, and how its aftermath played out, the temptation to go all-in on fresh election interference is understandable. It’s an indisputable fact that Russia intervened in that election, as Putin’s close ally Yevgeny Prigozhin outright confirmed in 2022, beyond all the ironclad evidence already concluding as much. All that’s left to debate is the degree to which this sabotage influenced voters. Meanwhile, after Team Trump initially denied having any contact whatsoever with Russians in 2016, investigators found that Trump and his campaign associates had at least 100 contacts with Russians that year. Toss into this stew Trump’s unwavering fealty to Putin and his sharing of classified info with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in 2017, and it smells fishier than Russian sturgeon.
However, the problem is what happened after all this information began to emerge. There were too many moving parts in the grand conspiracy known as Russiagate, and not enough evidence to connect them all in any coherent shape. But that didn’t stop mainstream media, Democratic lawmakers, and liberal sleuths on Twitter from overhyping every new piece of the puzzle, until it became impossible to retain any sense of proportion about any of it. (All those pee tape memes didn’t exactly help matters either.) Ultimately, the shared dream of a Trump perp-walk in connection with Russiagate ended in the spring of 2019, when then-Attorney General Bill Barr presented the Mueller Report in the most exonerating terms possible for Trump.
People got so into the weeds trying to prove handshake-deal collusion for so long that once the Mueller Report fizzled out, it was too late to scale back with the simpler story of Putin interfering in our election in favor of a candidate who treated him with undue reverence ever after.
By that point, the vast majority of conservatives and a substantial portion of leftists already viewed Russiagate as something akin to QAnon for Liberals. Its central lasting legacy is that certain politicians and pundits continue linking everything they don’t approve of with Russia to this day. Regardless of what actual interference actually took place (some!) and whether the Mueller report was intentionally mishandled (sure seems that way!), in the court of public opinion, this case is closed. The verdict is somewhere between “Russiagate was all smoke, no fire” and “Who cares?”
Which brings us to this moment in time, when the Smirnov indictment finds some Dems attempting to untangle the broader geopolitical yarn ball once again in painfully familiar language. Quintupling down on the arch threat of Russian collusion, though, seems destined to make persuadable voters on the left and absolutely everyone on the right roll their eyes about a Centrist Groundhog Day.
Why make that mistake again? Why risk being seen as the Boy Who Cried Russia once more, when it will clearly never lead to finding cathartic footage of a cross-continental handshake? It’s not as if there is a dearth of other damning shenanigans to focus on instead. The Russia piece of the Smirnov saga, for instance, is less important in the short term than the fact that Smirnov’s testimony no longer matters. Democrats would do well to drill down on what that means for the collapsing Biden impeachment effort, rather than probe the implications of the GOP pushing fugazi Russian intel.
Republicans would like nothing more than for the Dems to make this all about Russia. They are demonstrably champing at the bit for it. The GOP ran the “loony liberals” playbook all throughout Russiagate, reducing all claims of foul play to desperate excuses for Hillary Clinton’s loss, and then did a touchdown dance after the Mueller report, unearned as it may have been. This is their fact-proof comfort zone. Reviving the phrase “Putin’s Puppet” when Trump invites Russia to invade our NATO allies, as he did recently, might be a gift to his supporters. They can’t wait to defend him from that particular brand of accusation.
What they are decidedly less eager to defend Trump against are the facts behind his many indictments and potential convictions. Or that he now claims Black people will go full MAGA because of those criminal prosecutions. And they would especially prefer not to have to answer for his bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade, given the unpopularity among Republican voters for making IVF treatment and birth control illegal.
Keeping the MAGA faithful on their toes with these issues is bound to bring far more satisfying results than The Russia Stuff™. Anyone who needs additional catharsis, though, can simply make an AI video of that mythical Trump-Putin summit from 2016 using Sora and watch it while sipping a Moscow Mueller. I promise it will go down a lot smoother than losing this election.
Dems Must Avoid Giving in to Russiagate Hysterics Again
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28.02.2024
The past couple weeks probably felt like one long Christmas Day Super Bowl for the folks who bought “Mueller Time” T-shirts back in 2018.
The Department of Justice charged the superstar informant at the center of the GOP’s presidential impeachment efforts for lying to the FBI, and it turned out this informant got at least some of his intel from high-level Russian officials. Amping up the intrigue factor, the thrilling climax of the Alexander Smirnov saga unfolded amid a suspiciously Baltic-centric backdrop. Donald Trump has refused to condemn Vladimir Putin for the probable murder of Alexei Navalny, the GOP continued refusing to fund Ukraine’s fight for self-determination against Russia, and Tucker Carlson refused to ask Putin a question as challenging as that of an airport customs officer during a slobbery interview.
Taken together, these developments seem like an elaborate psy-op against MSNBC liberals, designed in a lab somewhere to lure them into screaming at the top of their lungs about Russian collusion for the next nine months—which would be a huge mistake.
Considering what happened during the 2016 election, and how its aftermath played out, the temptation to go all-in on fresh election interference is understandable. It’s an indisputable fact that Russia intervened in that election, as Putin’s close ally Yevgeny Prigozhin outright confirmed in 2022, beyond all the ironclad evidence already concluding as much. All that’s left........
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