(07-19-2017 03:52 PM)Redwingtom Wrote: First off, you're falling for the right-wing BS if you think any majority of the left thinks that the Russian interference was about changing actual votes or stopping people from voting. There's only a small minority on the left who believe this nonsense.
But the left wing BS is that Russia attacked our democracy. If this didn't happen, then Russia didn't attack our democracy. Hacking the DNC and Podesta's emails isn't attacking our democracy, for one simple reason. The DNC and Podesta are not our democracy.
Quote:The Russian interference cast Hillary in negative light in the minds of some of the undecided voters. And with the closeness of the key swing states (in Michigan it was only like 2-3 votes difference per precinct) it certainly could have cost her a state or two.
First, I'm not willing to accept the "Russian interference" as a done deal until somebody proves that. And no, the statements by the directors of the various intel agencies about a "high degree of confidence" does not constitute proof. At the end of the day, I'm going to remain skeptical of any "proof" that is not supported by giving nonpartisan IT forensic experts access to the allegedly hacked computers. The DNC's denial of such access strikes me as a major red flag.
Second, if Hillary was cast in a negative light, it's because she and Podesta were exposed as low-life human beings by factual emails (I've seen nobody claiming that the exposed documents were not legitimate, have you?). They were exposed as the kinds of people whom society SHOULD cast in a negative light.
Quote:That being said, I don't think anyone can claim that it was enough to totally turn the election over to trump, but I also don't think anyone can make the case that it did not change the minds of at least a small percentage of voters.
If it didn't influence enough people to change the election, then the whole idea that it was an attack on our democracy gets blown to kingdom come.
To be clear, I'm not in any way denying that Russia has been hacking us for decades, as we have them, and China and a bunch of other countries have been hacking us both. That's why Hillary's server was a problem, which the left vigorously denied. I find it the height of hypocrisy that the left continues to insist that possible hacking of classified information form Hillary's nonsecure server was not a problem, but hacking the DNC and Podesta's emails was a major national crisis. That is utter BS.