I haven't been following this story but are you telling me the big reveal on Manafort is something from 12 years ago? That would make it a weak linkage to Trump.

Not quite.


https://twitter.com/Evan_McMullin/st...98053109354496

Your book of English idioms needs an update.

Even if Trump switched to Garland the dems would probably keep filibustering. It's not about the choice.

8 years not much difference than 12.

How would you describe this leftist lunacy?

Because it's not a political issue. It's a matter of national and global security at this point. The integrity of our very democratic process is at stake.

All is well that in the ending of things become well.

Sure. I think we're in furious agreement here. I'm not going to go dig it up but one of my first posts in that tangent was that one of the main, fundamental priorities of ideologies and parties that portend to serve ideological interests is to give people and voters a way to interpret any information, news, events, emerging developments, whatever and give them a frame to understand what they're seeing. It's not to explain to people the facts. It's why the Vox explainer style gets so much wrong and what the right has mastered.

It's a testament to the modern right that they don't have to work very hard at this to get all of their side to think the same things and act the same ways with almost no overhead. No explanation needed. Facts be damned. The costs are very low: they can yell about Benghazi in totally inchoate, incoherent ways and they all know the real story here is that Democrats are weakling pussies. The content is almost irrelevant. That's powerful ideology! Kudos...to them? I mean it's horrid all the consequences of this but let's at least marvel at what they've constructed.

The left has none of this in place. By spending ~two generations rolling back all of their earnest socialist priorities and becoming second-best champions of market orthodoxy who give some mealy mouthed hand-waving allusions to defending the welfare state and muzzling criticism of wealthy elites, multinational corporations, the ownership class, etc. -- we're simply bereft of ways to talk to people without huge up-front costs. How many times have liberals felt frustrated and defeated having to explain basic facts, assumptions, history, etc. about what used to be consensus? The answer is simple: they stopped telling the story and really lost any meaningful sincerity behind the charge.

That's a holistic ideological failure. It's a huge failure of the Democratic Party. These are the costs: obviously Autocratic take on this is more or less the *best* story to tell voters here but Democrats have no meaningful, credible way to tell it.

I think you and I agree and the Trump/Russia story is a really a microcosm of the utter feebleness of the left. The real story is that Trump is simply an amoral corporate oligarch who couldn't give a **** about anyone but himself. He's not a Russian pawn; he's simply slavish to capital. But Democrats can't say that, heaven forfend, THE DONOR CLASS, what would the heros of Silicon Valley think, there's a gig on the board of Uber or a corporate speaking tour to do, let's not be too hasty here. But unfortunately it wouldn't work anyway since no one would have a ****ing clue what the charge even is, what Trump's real failure is.

Seriously right wingers "The boy who cried wolf" is literally one page long. It's not a novel, it's not a short story, it's literally one page.

That is the entire story!

Grimm brothers big time slackers. White people!

The problem with Trump isn't so much that he lies it's that it's getting increasingly harder and harder to find instances where he tells the truth.

It's one of Aesop's fables, he was Greek

Remember too that Russia Fretting is the absolute favorite, most cherished notion of the dying class of Never Trumpers, faux moderates, the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Evan McMullins of the world, people wedded to the old status quo, etc. That's no accident. No accident at all. Getting the rest of the GOP off the hook and having precisely ZERO introspection of what built to this is HUGELY important to them. They desperately want Trump off the scene but then everything set back to the world order ante Trump where Democrats are feckless idiots and there's an angry white rabble of morons frothing at the mouth channeling their energy into the Mitt Romney campaign, not a genuine idiot like Trump.

Just remember that Russia RUSSIA RUSSIA! is not just bad idea but a coherent strategy. They see it as the Krytonite that sinks Trump but sets the scene back to the way they had it before. "GOP is cruel and incompetent" is a one way ticket to Bernie Sanders style leftist populism with a bunch of moochers demanding free college and health care and who knows what will happen to capital gains tax rates then? Hugely risky, they could have another New Deal on their hands here and this whole project was to roll all that **** back. They can't let that build. They'll take a second or third best outcome where the GOP are hapless victims to a Co-Opted Trump but now that he's gone, everyone play nicely now, 2006 wasn't so bad, give Jeb a try, lessons learned.

You don't need sense. You need narrative and implication. The party that bounced from birtherism to Ben Gahzzy to pizzagate is now in complete control. Sense is irrelevant.

dvaut: we certainly agree about the need for liberals to figure out a more coherent political narrative, and that part of that problem is too much capture by the "donor class", as you put it.

Where we probably have a very mild disagreement is that I don't think the ways liberals are talking about Russia is particularly illustrative of that problem. I think it's mostly just people reacting to news as it happens. I guess you could argue that we're too easily distracted by the Russia stuff from making the more basic political arguments, but it doesn't seem that likely to me that -- absent Russia news -- Democrats would be doing much better at getting to that. I mean, I shuddered at your line about post-Trump Democrats passing AHCA and confirming Gorsuch in a show of unity, but I think it's grimly accurate and makes this point.

And there are obvious reasons why the Russia news is actually news and worth talking about, so for that reason it seems to me that the discussion about grand strategy, narratives, and all that can be separated from complaints about talking about Russia, at least somewhat.

White people always trying to take the credit for others work!

Fair enough, I think it's coming though so for now we wait. **** these people

so mike pence, who is only vp BECAUSE of russian interference and treason from the tippy top of his own campaign, will be potus if trump is arrested? LOL

Yes? Maybe they'll ensnare Pence in the web too, which just gets you Paul Ryan. Or you think Putin is in so deep he has Ryan too? Or like Comey gets to make Hillary Clinton President? Not how that works.

You say "Trump calls her x" like it ****ing means something. Your New god king has a 37% approval rating a mid 40's approval rating on his best day. He is under an fbi criminal investigation, is pushing a widely unpopular health bill and is generally a ****ing moron.

If Elizabeth Warren is the exact opposite end of trump and people like your self I will gladly position my self there.

1. the dems are filibustering anything
2. the repbulicans are the ones that wouldn't confirm Garland
3. Democrats would confirm Garland today

If this was the ONLY link between Trump campaign and Russia, I agree.

But this guy was Trumps campaign manager
Tillerson
Sessions perjury
Flynn getting fired


its another log on the fire