Russian meddling (hypothetical)

gingertop

Thu, Jun 28 2018, 5:29 pm

anon for this wrote:

What exactly are the parallels here? Do you think that Iran interfered in the US elections in an attempt to elect Obama? Do you think that Obama made millions of dollars in his family business from Iranian oligarchs? Did Obama, or his close advisers, arrange with Iran to obtain and reveal compromising information about his opponents? Did Iran buy Facebook ads discouraging people from voting for Obama's opponents?

Are there rumors about a tape showing Obama cavorting with Iranian women of loose virtue and indulging in "water sports"?

water sports LOL

gingertop

Thu, Jun 28 2018, 5:46 pm

One thing that I am trying to articulate but having a hard time doing (maybe because it's past my bedtime):
People sometimes argue "Country over party." No one should have voted for Donald Trump because he's an indisputably awful human being. It's more important to worry about America than about the GOP/conservatism.
But the problem with this argument is that your (lib) conception of what is good for America is not my (con) conception of what is good for America.
I believe in free speech absolutism, for example. I think it's good for America to defend the first amendment completely. Hillary Clinton does not. She would have nominated a justice more like Kagan or Sotomayor. Justices can serve for 40 years if they are young when nominated. For this issue, I think country demands a vote for Donald Trump.
I might have thought differently if I knew of active interference in the elections but as of now, I am not convinced that there was any. As I said, I didn't vote but I'm just trying to explain why people did, even though Trump is awful.
I think I have to suffer through the Trump clown show for principles that are very important for America. My party is not arbitrarily chosen and I can't just give it all up and vote for someone like Clinton who would actively undermine many things I believe in. This is politics.

PinkFridge

Thu, Jun 28 2018, 7:02 pm

anon for this wrote:

On the most basic level of misguidedly currying favor with the wrong country over other better allies.

PinkFridge

Thu, Jun 28 2018, 7:04 pm

gingertop wrote:

Your post is so 2016. Wink

I get it. There were many people who voted against Trump in the primaries but who held their noses and voted for him in Nov. As someone I know put it, she filled in the ballot from the end and worked backwards, hoping against hope that Moshiach would be here before having to fill in a choice for president....

SixOfWands

Thu, Jun 28 2018, 7:21 pm

gingertop wrote:

Please provide examples in which Clinton, Sotomayer or Kagan attempted to limit free speech. The Janus case? Please note that non-union members could never be compelled to contribute to a union’s ideological or political activities. But since the unions are obligated, by law, to represent them in collective bargaining, they were entitled to collect payments.

Trump has repeatedly attacked the free press. He has repeatedly referred to the media as the "enemy of the American people," specifically calling out the NY Times, CNN and NBC. https://static01.nyt.com/image.....=webp He repeatedly refers to any news stories that are not favorable to him as "Fake News," and has threatened to ban media organizations that are critical (or, as he claims, unfairly critical) to him. (“The Fake News is working overtime. Just reported that, despite the tremendous success we are having with the economy & all things else, 91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake). Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt? Take away credentials?”)

Not to mention Trump's attacks on the free speech rights of NFL players who choose to kneel for the national anthem. Or his statement that "Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag" (a protected First Amendment expression), suggesting that they should be imprisoned for doing so.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I really don't understand how anyone who claims to be interested in or supportive of free speech could also support Trump.

Jeanette

Thu, Jun 28 2018, 7:28 pm

gingertop wrote:

One thing that I am trying to articulate but having a hard time doing (maybe because it's past my bedtime):
People sometimes argue "Country over party." No one should have voted for Donald Trump because he's an indisputably awful human being. It's more important to worry about America than about the GOP/conservatism.
But the problem with this argument is that your (lib) conception of what is good for America is not my (con) conception of what is good for America.

I might have thought differently if I knew of active interference in the elections but as of now, I am not convinced that there was any. As I said, I didn't vote but I'm just trying to explain why people did, even though Trump is awful.
I think I have to suffer through the Trump clown show for principles that are very important for America. My party is not arbitrarily chosen and I can't just give it all up and vote for someone like Clinton who would actively undermine many things I believe in. This is politics.

There is voluminous evidence of Russian interference. To deny it at this point is to be willfully blind and worse, gives Russia carte Blanche to interfere again, maybe even more effectively next time.

You don't need to be con or lib to be very concerned about giving immense powers unto the hands of an unfit conman. There is NO conservative principle that makes it worth taking those kinds of risks with people's lives.

SixOfWands

Thu, Jun 28 2018, 7:31 pm

Jeanette wrote:

Moreover, condemning Russian interference is not conceding collusion by the Trump campaign.

I honestly don't understand why Trump and all Republicans haven't condemned it.

anon for this

Thu, Jun 28 2018, 8:08 pm

PinkFridge wrote:

On the most basic level of misguidedly currying favor with the wrong country over other better allies.

OK, I guess. I'm guessing that by "better allies" you mean Israel. I'm sure you understand, though, that the JCPOA was not an effort to curry favor with Iran, but an attempt to delay Iran's access to a nuclear weapon (and I don't think there's any evidence that it didn't achieve this aim). If Obama was trying to curry favor with Iran at the expense of Israel, working with Israel on the stuxnet virus attacking Iran's nuclear program was an odd way to do it. Not to mention giving Israel the Iron Dome. And giving Israel, in 2016, $38 billion military aid over 10 years, the largest award in history.

But sure, Obama was "misguidedly currying favor" with Iran over Israel.

I mean, do you think that Trump's meeting with Kim was an attempt to curry favor with North Korea? Or an effort to bring the nuclear threat from NK down a notch?

anon for this

Thu, Jun 28 2018, 8:38 pm

Jeanette wrote:

Did we see evidence of Iran suddenly having cachet on the left, the way KJU has suddenly become a Conservative icon?

I think that's evidence that some Trump supporters are in favor of whoever Trump is in favor of this week. A recent survey showed that among Republicans, KJU--a brutal dictator who enslaves his people and has murdered members of his family--had a higher favorable rating, and a lower unfavorable rating, than Nancy Pelosi.

Even if one maintains that Trump's flattering comments about KJU were necessary to bring the nuclear doomsday clock back a few minutes (after he advanced it by gratuitous comments and tweets), his admiration of Duterte does not appear to serve the US in any strategic way. Rather it appears to be a manifestation of his genuine respect for authoritarian, autocratic leaders, and a desire to emulate them.

PinkFridge

Thu, Jun 28 2018, 9:10 pm

anon for this wrote:

It's not just Israel that's leery of Iran and to be honest, I really wasn't thinking of Israel when I typed that. There are a number of Arab countries that are nervous about Iran.

You guessed wrong.
I'm not sure why you're bringing up Korea, as I wasn't thinking in terms of nuclear but simply (and maybe simplistically) about two presidents who seem to be getting chummy with bad actors.

anon for this

Thu, Jun 28 2018, 10:33 pm

PinkFridge wrote:

OK, but the points I made earlier are still relevant, in that Obama did work with Israel to develop Stuxnet, and strengthened Israel militarily--neither are actions of a president who wants to be "chummy" with Iran.

And you're right that Saudi Arabia and the UAE didn't like the JCPOA, for the same reasons that Israel didn't, and applauded Trump for ending it. They were concerned that the end of sanctions would give Iran resources that would allow it to interfere in proxy wars with other countries. And it did. That's because the JCPOA prioritized keeping Iran from enriching material for nuclear weapons over depriving Iran of financial resources that it could use for other bad stuff.

A country that obtains a nuclear weapon almost certainly will not give it up. (Only South Africa has ever done so, and only because they developed those weapons as a defense against the Soviet Union, which they no longer considered a threat. Obviously this wouldn't apply in the Middle East. It might not even apply if South Africa were developing a nuclear weapon today). I'm guessing that Obama was also hoping that Iran's younger population would prefer peace, and elect leaders who could bring them peace, which may have happened had the JCPOA continued.

One can argue whether the JCPOA was a good strategic decision. But it wasn't done to be "chummy" with Iran or to anger SA, UAE, or Israel, but to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, which would be an irreversible decision.

I mentioned North Korea because I was noting that Trump's meeting with KJU was, likewise, not about being "chummy" with NK, but rather was intended to dial back a nuclear threat.

Trump's behavior towards Russia is different than Obama's behavior towards Iran in that it doesn't appear to benefit the US in any way. Besides interfering in the US election, Russia has only increased its expansionist tendencies and its murderous interference in proxy wars in Syria and elsewhere, and has become less free and fair to its citizens. Therefore, Trump's praise for Putin, his attempt to force Russia back into the G-7, and his reluctance to impose sanctions on Russia appear to be much different, because none of this is providing any strategic advantage to the US.

That's why people are wondering about Trump's behavior towards Putin. Is it because of a compromising tape involving Russian women? Is it because Russia gave large sums of money to Trump's businesses? Is it because members of the Trump campaign, perhaps including his own relatives, conspired with Russia to obtain damaging information about political opponents?