Why did Russia work to elect Trump?
Through cyber warfare attacks and old fashioned espionage, Russia worked to elect Trump. The question now is, why?
There are a couple of likely reasons and the final answer may turn out to be a patchwork of overlapping motivations.
1) Putin did not like Secretary Clinton. As Secretary of State, Clinton exposed the anti-Democratic abuses going in in Russia, and was instrumental in helping set up the sanctions after Russia’s flagrantly illegal annexation of the Crimean penisula.
2) Russia simply wanted to fuck with and destabilize a rival. Over the past 20 years NATO expanded rapidly into eastern Europe. Even if the Russian cyber warfare attacks and espionage were not based on personal animus, Russia still stood to gain by setting Americans against each other and dividing the country by electing a person wholly unqualified and unequipped to be President. Even if the plan failed to elect Trump, they knew a Trump campaign could poison the well of American politics by courting white nationalist. A divided America is good for the Putin regime.
3)They have kompromat on Trump which ensures that he will pursue their goals. Kompromat is short for “compromising material” ( компрометирующий материал) used to exert pressure. Given Trump’s narcissism and history of sexual adventurism, and his many shady business dealings in Russia, it is very likely Putin has something on Trump that Trump does not want disclosed.
So it is one or all of these. Once Russian motives are fully known, it will be time for this country to, at long last, more to the final act of this drama and figure out what this cyber attack on America will cost the perpetrators. And what, if anything, it will cost their American collaborators.
More news outlets calling the Russian attack on America “meddling”. WTF?!? Like Putin is Shaggy and Manafort Scooby simply out on a lark.
My favorite “defense” of the Russians is that we did the same thing to their elections, among the dozens of countries we’ve meddled with to advance “American (meaning corporate) interests.” As if that’s a reason to let them do it to us, instead of a reason for us to knock it the fuck off.
The CIA has been the ruination of this country. Collecting intelligence is one thing, assassinations and coups quite another.
Putin believes Hillary helped the girl group Pussy Cat Dolls or whatever the name. He also believes that U S would use regime change on him like Gadfly and other Arab Spring dictators.
On TRUMP he is a Russian asset. He been laundering Oligarch $ since 2008 financial crisis. 2013 trip to Moscow beauty pageant they reeled him in. Then when President Obama and EU put sanctions on for Ukraine invasion, Putin & Oligarchs money and access to western banking really screwed their money game. Trump was their go to guy to remove the sanctions problem.
I think you mean Pussy Riot.
Motives, reasons, agendas
1) Money
2) Money
3) More Money
4) ALL OF THE MONEY$$$$$$$$$$$$
Rep. Kowalko
It’s payback for Hillary’s minion, Vicky Nuland’s catastrophe in Ukraine.
Anyhoo, If Killary was not such a shitty candidate, no one doubts that whatever the Russkie’s threw at her would not have stuck.
Now can we address the more real and serious homegrown “meddling”?:
Voter ID laws
Felony disenfranchisement laws
CrossCheck
Gerrymandering
Superdelegates
Blackbox voting
and … the Electoral College.
haha. yes, delcrat. no one here has EVER mentioned any of those things you mentioned. You’re a russian troll. piss off, vlad.
Only a fuckstick like you thinks it’s either/or, botboy.
The official GOP position appears to be that the right guy won, so the Russian attack on American democracy…was a good thing? I think that’s it.
They aren’t that loyal. Anyone who took NRA money was taking Russian money, and the people at the top knew it. Hasn’t been proved yet, but that’s where Mueller Highway leads.
the irony is, the second amendment was meant to ….. relieve us…… of exactly this type of despotic, illegitimate government.
No, it wasn’t. That’s a myth promulgated by the pro-gun folks. No government sets itself up in such a way as to make it easier for its domestic opponents to overthrown it by violence.
Militias were indeed the key to the 2nd Amendment, and militias existed mainly in the South as slave patrols, because Southrons were afraid above all else of being murdered in their beds by their slaves. And rightly so.
That’s sounds like a modern NRA reading of the second amendment.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
I take it to mean that in the absence of a standing army, we’ll need a well regulated militia for national protection from invasion. The entire rest of the Constitution deals with protect from despotism.
“The official GOP position appears to be that the right guy won,” – jason330
The official delacrat position is that any American whose job went to Monterey, can’t cover the ObombaCare deductible or knows their student loans will never be paid off does not give rat’s ass about Russiagate.
Sounds like maybe bad parenting.
By delacrat’s parents? Without a doubt.
@Delacrat: Are you one of those people? Then how do you know? Is that what they tell you over there in St. Petersburg? Because it’s so funny that yours just happens to be their position, too.
@jason: I don’t know what you’re reading, but it’s not the Constitution, which is a conservative document that’s mostly about preserving private property. You’re thinking of the Bill of Rights perhaps?
Another funny thing about delacrat: I have never once seen a comment by him, in years of reading, that does anything but raise the same tiresome points without a scintilla of insight.
That’s a bot.
guys.. i know. It’s just fun to say that and watch conservatives get all huffy.
DC, your “country’s” screwing with our elections got T elected… who will wreck the economy and force thousands of people to default on their student loans… that is the next economic catastrophe. BTW, everything else you pretend to care about is being perpetrated by the party your people put into power. It’s one thing to be a russian Bot, it’s another to be programmed to be an idiot. Some Crocadil dealer named Vlad really messed up writing you.
“No, it wasn’t. That’s a myth promulgated by the pro-gun folks.”
Absolutely correct. That’s why NRA Headquarters (about 2 miles from where I used to live in Virginia) has only a part of the 2nd Amendment on the building. If they had put the entire amendment there it would have been an inconvenient truth.
They created a narrative and the willful ignorant bought the narrative, never bothering to read and study for themselves.
In the beginning militias were key to defending home and hearth because we had no provisions for a standing army and having ones musket and kit bag at the ready was essential for defense.
This looked like a lot of fun. Great work.
@Dave: In Colonial times, yes, but the defense of one’s specific home and hearth was against attacks by hostile natives, not robbers, and a lone musket almost never did the job. The militia in such situations was called out after the slaughter to enact vengeance.
Now I know this is true because I saw some of it and many other people saw parts of it too. Last fall before the election there was a dark colored van loaded with men in long leather coats and with heavy Russian accents riding through various parts of Southern Delaware.The van stopped a couple houses down from my house and my neighbors told me all the men piled out and ran up to the front door, Mrs. Primble, she’s a 76 year old women with a disabled husband and a small spaniel mix named ToTo was at home. When Mrs. Primble answered the door the Russians grabbed ToTo and screamed they were going to Cook and Eat her dog unless she put a Trump sign in her yard and voted for Trump.
She had no choice, she had No choice! After they thrust a Trump sign into her hands and released ToTo they took off – laughing. Now if the Russians did this to Mrs. Primble they probably did it to thousands of other people. That’s how he won, how Trump won. And you know what? They just built this Russian Church in Lewes, can you imagine? Why would they build a Russian Church in Lewes, it’s so they can spy on Biden that’s why.
Alby earlier today: “Militias were indeed the key to the 2nd Amendment, and militias existed mainly in the South as slave patrols, because Southrons were afraid above all else of being murdered in their beds by their slaves.”
This article provides historical context and even quotes the founding fathers themselves to show exactly that: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/13890-the-second-amendment-was-ratified-to-preserve-slavery
Gerry W gives us some timely insight into the wing nut take on this. Sounds very much like whistling past the graveyard to me.
No, he’s a total nut, not a Republican one. Read back on his submissions.
Talk radio has done the research on this: The mentally ill are 100 times more likely than the average person to call talk radio. I imagine the same holds true for blogs.
“This looked like a lot of fun. Great work.”
I’ll bet it was less work than making the nameplate look Cyrillic. Which was done more than a year ago. Why we should start ignoring it now is something you’ll have to explain more fully before I understand it.
“The mentally ill are 100 times more likely than the average person to call talk radio. I imagine the same holds true for blogs.”
LOL. What does that say about writers of blogs?
Nonsense bloggers are witty, well above average intelligence and a benefit to society. Talk show hosts are merely turning over the mulch pile in search of large insects