Democrats are basically playing politics the way the GOP does: throw a bunch of random scandals, conspiracy theories, and bullshit against the wall and the overwhelming amount of it will override the lack of evidence behind each individual attack.

If this is the strategy adjustment the Dems made in response to losing the election, then WAAF.

I'll grunch too since 90% of the responses to me were boring/bad/already addressed but this is worth responding to.

So:

I agree that the Russia business should be investigated and reported on and I said as much.

Public officials and serious media analysts or more appropriately, serious Democratic apparatchiks and media interests friendly to Democrats should either:

1. tread carefully
or
2. make some kind of coherent, full-throated case with an explanation of what all the sides (namely Trump, Putin) are specifically getting out of the ruse

...and they should stop functionally data dredging.

Trump is beholden to Putin because Putin helped him win the election with hacking. He's his puppet now! By doing all the terrible things he said he would, like cozying up to Russia. Voters are going to be galled when they discover Trump plans to be much friendly with Russia like he said he would.

Well, wait, hold on: Jared Kushner knows Yuri Milner! He's friends with Abramovich! No, wait, it's Exxon and Rosneft and the all powerful extraction industry -- they're at the bottom of this. No, wait, it's Trump himself! He pissed all over Russian ladies and Putin has proof! THAT'S why he's a puppet!

This is p-hacking. It's data dredging. It's the textbook right-wing tabloid conspiracy: just some stuff you chortle about, no real coherent explanation necessary.

The Democrats need one story. One set of explanations. Reduce complexity. Explain the motivations of the people involved.

I think this article is emblematic of the problem.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...ump-and-russia

This chart gets to the heart of it:



I even like how the WaPo frames it from a journalist's perspective:

To be absolutely clear, the Washington Post and journalists aren't responsible to do the left's job for them.

But the left and the Democrats are responsible for doing it. Not internet people. Not journalists. It's the job of the party and interests aligned with the party paid to engage and organize, support aligned interests and then ultimately hold power.

And I sense that once you get away from reporting and journalism, the left -- the serious left, the professional left, the establishment left, establishment Democrats -- are happy to just more or less let that chart tell the story. Cue Schumer et al sounding like that WaPo story: "that official is an ally of a presidential campaign that’s got a complex set of possibly inappropriate relationships with other representatives of that ambassador’s country, and when that official while under oath says he did not have communications with representatives of that country...THIS IS TERRIBLE."

Uh, OK. 95% of the room got lost half-way through the 1st sentence; the story from Democrats needs to answer how is Trump stealing my money again? What exactly did he do wrong? What's your alternative? Tell me about that.

My point: right now, it's not enough. Everyone understands the broad outlines already: there's some complex, probably fishy and inappropriate stuff going on. But without more to tell a good story -- we are filling the limited, finite space of public attention with something that is ultimately not that relevant to most people, and relitigates a past battle that seems to have evolved into partisanship-noise for most persuadable people.

I think people are lazily just like 'dvaut cribbed from Greenwald' because well, we're all understandably limited in to how much we can track each others' posts, but I've said my piece on Greenwald and that I don't precisely agree with him either. This isn't 'overreach' in that Democrats are truly lying or exaggerating, which is what I think Greenwald means. But I still think this is bad form. It's bad politics; it's a personal politics of Trump being scandalous in ways that most people don't understand and doesn't feel relevant. We all agree, I think, that Autocratic's post on this was trenchant and correct: Russian influence peddling isn't ultimately to fly the Trikolor over the White House but more likely just mutual personal enrichment grifts. For better or worse Trump's got most of the crowd for whom nationalism matters, leaving the Democrats fishing for who? Who is animated by "Russians and Trump form a nefarious cabal?" -- is it the working class, the poor, the people who want racial or social justice? The rich? The middle class? It's the same bad strategy from the Clinton campaign: it appeals to a small niche of like former Bush Administration officials and upper middle class whites who have the time and interest in studying foreign relations but aren't quite mega rich *******s who are going to be living large after Trump policies migrate more wealth upward. The blows aren't really landing, the broad controversy was known prior to November 2016 and didn't effectively defeat Trump, and it's ultimately part of a circus atmosphere that Trump is feeding off of.

My point is probably best approximated in popular media by this article in The Nation more than anything Greenwald is saying:

https://www.thenation.com/article/de...ussian-circus/

Democrats should be talking 10x as much about how Trump is preying on Americans and 10x less time and energy drawing dotted-line color-coded charts to Russians.

As I said, Democrats are focused on Russia due to the fact the actual things they should be talking about are harder and more difficult to solve and they're being lazy and hoping this eventually hits home or a modern-day Woodward and Bernstein rise up to save them with the Silver Bullet and validate all the time and focus spent on this.

For better or worse, though, Republicans at least tell scandals and amplify conspiracies that flatter the impulses of their voters. Barack Obama is a pretend America secret Kenyan Muslim Indonesian Prince and the Clintons are sexual deviants captures the essence of right-wing lizard brain identity and sexual politics. The right and the GOP have been ginning up this stuff for DECADES. The right succeeds with tawdry, titillating fantastical bullshit because their audience been primed for this forever and it's exactly what they want to hear. In fact the process has been largely bottom up; the GOP resisted entering this market for some time.

But it's why the Democrats can't simply import the methods and expect success. Note that I think Russia:Trump is infinitely more empirical than PizzaGates but again that's sort of not the point. The Republicans tell dime-story ghost stories that confirm their paranoid, fearful audiences' worst superstitious fears. It's perfectly coherent from a certain sense. The Democrats are trying to do business selling true-crime murder mysteries to people who aren't that into books.

This debate is so incredibly self-defeating and a good example of why dems lose so much.

Is there 100% rock solid irrefutable proof of Russia's role in the election. Of course not, there hasn't even been a damn investigation yet! There is however mountains of circumstantial evidence and other smoke including every single intelligence agency saying it it so.

Yet here we are debating whether dems should push this or back off for lack of solid evidence.

The right pushes every single consipiracy as far as possible even when there is not one shred of evidence.

While the right wholly ignores their own principals, the left is so obsessed with maintaining theirs that they would rather lose than play the game.

Republicans aren't the successful because they find some random information on the fact-fiction continuum and went HAM pushing very fictional nonsense. Even if they go HAM pushing very fictional nonsense. Democrats can't simply win by matching their zeal pushing stuff that is closer to fact on the continuum. It's more like a matrix report with > 1 attribute. Democrats shouldn't hold back but the political hammers they weild should further our agenda and appeal to voters we can win and can be perusaded to vote for Democrats. The Trump/Russia stuff does neither, at least well enough to change things measurably. GOP conspiratarding often does both.

Rumor is he was starting an investigation into Trump--I guess we'll find out soon if that's true.

This sentence is key too. Even the so-called principles at stake here are not clearly delineated. What principle does this scandal expose -- what shared principle did Trump violate? I guess it's something like: see, see! Trump isn't really an ardent nationalist, America First conservative. He's just in this for himself. Or he's corrupted!

OK; and which Republicans are you winning over with this? Which Democrats not already in your corner are now activated by the story? You're not going to out-patriot the right even if their candidate is nakedly in the back-pocket of Putin. It's too deeply embedded that the Democrats are the party of internationalism and cooperation and putting American interests in the mix of other higher ideals like justice or global peace and prosperity. GOP already has the America First brand and you're not going to shake that, at least not like this, particularly since a huge percentage of nationalist sentiment on the right is actually just white identity politics masquerading as something more appropriate for polite society. And Trump has that group in the throes of passion for him. You ain't gonna shake them.

And the left who stayed home probably aren't going to be moved by this either. America First and patriotism has never been animating for the left. Our bread and butter voters are the downtrodden and workers and racial minorities and women, people historically left victimized by the America First attitude, people often left at the back of the line to share in America's vast wealth and political and civil liberties. The left always stood for something different and alternative to that attitude, largely because it was correctly seen as just a way to reflexively plead with leaving the status quo in place.

The problem as Autocratic rightfully pointed out is that the Democrats aren't framing this correctly. They misunderstood and adopted a fundamentally right-wing frame about patriotism and nationalist and solidarity to an American identity that for many people is actually about white Christian identity. For people who *don't* embrace white Christian identity politics, paeans to a nationalist identity fall flat. They want different things out of the political system.

Even on principle, this is bad, incoherent politics. Left with no real political vigor in the Trump/Russian nexus, the best hope is that Trump/Russian cabal committed statutory violations that left them in violation of the law. And that whole game is left mostly to the GOP Congress to investigate. Good luck.

re: Democrats courting upper middle class whites who aren't quite rich enough to benefit from Trump--

Most of these people that I know who identify as Republican or independent (anecdotal, I know) voted for Trump anyway and would always vote for a Republican no matter what. I don't think there's even any point in trying to convince these people, who vote solely based on theoretical self-interest (MAYBE AT SOME POINT I'LL BE ABLE TO BENEFIT FROM THE TAX CUTS, SO GOTTA VOTE FOR THE GOP).

Remember too many of these people are in fact animated and motivated by white identity politics but are self-aware enough not to put that on display. So you get some incoherent mish mash about this and that as why they voted for Trump and vote straight ticket GOP forever.

These are fair points regarding right now but you are being ahistorical. It was less than a decade ago that none of these points would hold and in fact the idea of a Russian-American cabal would cause the right to go apoplectic. Many of those people are still republicans and as soon as they realize Trump can't deliver on their right wing utopia, due to his shear incompetence and poor approval numbers, they will likely jump ship.

Besides I really am having trouble understanding what you would do instead?

.

So the White House has basically shut out the press at this point. President pussy coward is just gonna hide from answering questions for his term. Gg America.

Can't democrats do both?

Everyone agrees on point 1.

This debate centers around point 2. If independent investigations are not being had, and R's are preventing them from being had, then what should D's do, and what should the media do?

Point 3 is true but a straw man. There is enough airspace to do both.

I don't even think we necessarily need to see them as separate. The Russia stuff plays right into enriching Exxon cronies and other rich friends of his instead of the working class also.

https://twitter.com/matthewjdowd/sta...52010104516609

There is a finite amount of attention and meaningful airspace, so it's not a strawman. A lot of voters aren't paying close attention and keeping a tight focus on a small amount of coherent narratives about Trump is better than a scattershot.

Yeah, I feel like there's definitely some truth to what DVaut1 is saying. Focusing on bread and butter issues could very well be the key to bringing Trump down in the long run. But I say for this Russia stuff, at the moment at least, put the pressure on Congress for independent investigations. As long as they refuse them, make it clear that Republicans in Congress are making a political game out of our national security. This is unacceptable. Run hard in 2018 against Republicans who are unwilling to hold Trump accountable. It's gotten to the point, in my mind at least, where a special prosecutor is absolutely needed. Appoint a special prosecutor and let Congress deal with all these other pressing issues like gutting health care and securing massive tax cuts for the wealthy.

Like for example this RepubliCare bill, we really should be focusing a lot of energy on it at the current moment. Millions of peoples' health hangs in the balance, as well as the overall health insurance market which could death spiral if this bill passes. And it's just so bad, in so many ways, it's a great political battleground for Democrats. "Even better" than the Russia battleground.

Then tell the specific story that Trump / Russian ties are specifically to enrich extraction industry interests and benefit his rich friends. It plays right into that story if you tell it. Democrats do say some stuff kinda like that, sometimes. But then they also note Trump has a global real estate empire and Alfa bank and his marketing IT firm are passing data around; wasn't that the thing motivating this? Or, wait, maybe it was the pee pee videos? Like Trump owes all this money to the Russian mob creditors too. Or maybe Kushners? Or maybe because Russians abuse Muslims too?

So you just seized on one of the half dozen ways the Russian ties *might* play into some more coherent narrative that no one is really making.

So: I can imagine ways this MIGHT be better politics but right now that remains some alternate universe where Democrats and the left are focused on "Trump does this to enrich Exxon" and not a random smattering of data that builds into ??? or basically "Trump is just REALLY bad, OK?" Well, sure, OK, but as I said, the broad outlines of *that* meme are baked in.

John McCain and John Negroponte are nodding along furiously. Bill Kristol is with us. Colin Powell and Robert Gates couldn't agree more.

Who the **** else cares about this? ZOMG THE NATIONAL SECURITIES are some thing Republicans chatter about, mostly as a way to play up their own masculine credibility among voters for whom that kind of signaling matters.

Who else is interested in the high ideals of the political machinations of national security?

Yes. Exactly.

There is certainly a point where the Russia story gets played out, but remember that Flynn got nailed over it less than a month ago, and Sessions had to recuse himself more recently than that. In the meantime, GOP healthcare reform is in utter chaos and Trump has a barebones executive branch full of empty suits and actually empty chairs. The strategy is producing great results! There's even a risk that pivoting off Russia and on to abnormal topic could help Republicans get back on the same page. Remember, the Democrats only formal power is to filibuster anything that doesn't happen under reconciliation. The way to thwart the GOP is to keep them running around in circles unable onto being their power to bear.

Fair.

But two things:

1. the haplessness of Trump and the modern GOP may be just endemic and part of their character -- just part of the feature set -- rather than a hack or a virus the Democrats introduced with Russia.

2. Even if we say that the cause of GOP incompetence is the distraction of Russian ties, we should still acknowledge it for what it is: a short-term obstructionist tactic. That's good, we should do that, no problems there. And Republicans were very successful relying on just these sorts of schemes. So far I think then we're in pretty close agreement here: Democrats are doing this because it's the shortest path to some immediate political victories but really holds limited political appeal beyond that. Remember that Republicans didn't even make themselves popular with these kinds of tactics, they just brought the Democrats and proper functioning of government down with them.

Now, obstructing Trump is a first order priority, but frankly this is the perfect kind of story for a Democratic establishment, even the old guard Republican establishment that wants to have its cake and eat it too: distract and disrupt on terms that don't really further leftist interests or builds any sort of coherent frame that is both distracting AND does you long-term benefits. Just destroy Trump and lay waste to the land, let the rest be TBD and figure it out later.

Again: I'm not asking to go high when they go low. I'll repeat yet again I am principally and ethically OK with this kind of thing and I hope it works, but it's a pretty blunt object that to me doesn't really build to any enduring political value for the Democrats. Like I said, at the best you're hoping journalists give you a magic silver bullet or GOP suddenly decides to investigate. If not those, then we're into squishy territory of "well, our distractions sure are distracting" when set against an Administration that seems almost terminally and intrinsically distracted by nature and even if it's successful -- leaves you nowhere logical to turn next. The best achievable outcomes are President Pence, a GOP controlled Congress and a we-told-you-so story about how Trump really is uniquely bad and out of bounds. That's not much to build on. I'd take that in a heartbeat over the status quo but it's not the ideal outcome.

The ideal outcome is to win on the kinds of terms Autocratic is talking about where you instead pivot to framing and talking about Trump in ways that actually coincides with the vision for what you would like to do instead: it's not that Trump is a corrupted foreign agent but he's symbolic of the rich elites who don't give a **** about you and will find any horrible ally to do business with to enrich themselves. He's promoting the interests of the mega rich, look at this RepublicanCare bill, it's a giant hand-out to plutocrats, we want to move to single payer, etc. Right now the mish-mash narrative, p-hacking data dumps where WaPo et al find out some incriminating evidence and the Democrats tut-tut it without any real frame or narrative outside of "see, see, this Trump guy is a menace!" I think it is bad politics but I suppose I can concede there's some chance you're correct this is proving very distracting to Trump such that his admin appears to more inept than they would be without this kind of story. That I guess would give the Russian story merit. I'm a little skeptical.

Semi-grunch again. I can't keep up with the thread really.

I doubt the Russia stuff does have much impact on an election. When people lose their healthcare or find out that Trumpcare sucks, that's obviously going to be much bigger, barring an impeachment. On the campaign trail in 2018 Democratic candidates should be talking about how Trump policies are making the world worse and how different policies can make it better.

But, none of that helps with the problem that 4 years of Trump is just about unbearable. The Russia business offers hope for impeachment. Maybe that puts me in the same place as the Trumpkins who felt that their way of life couldn't withstand an Obama Presidency and they put everything into the hope that they could disqualify him for office, but that's where I am in fact; genuinely concerned that even one full term of Trump will do catastrophic damage.