Today’s Innovation in Anti-Anti Trump Discourse

Evidently, at this late date it’s becoming hard to argue that there’s nothing to the Trump/Russia story, what with the Trump campaign now boasting about their collusion and all. So the anti-anti Trump left needs some distracting non-sequiturs. One favorite is the (utter falsehood) that Russia is a DISTRACTION that is preventing Democrats from talking about anything else, with bonus points if the pundit in question didn’t write much or anything about the massive domestic policy differences between the parties during the campaign but did find the time to write lenghty stories about how Hillary Clinton has a media relations team constitutes a major scandal. Matt Taibbi tries another move — declaring that if you’re concerned about Russian influence in the election you must believe that Russia is an OMNIPOTENT SUPER-SUPER POWER:

Still, these efforts are probably far more limited in scope than we’ve been led to imagine. DNC hack or no DNC hack, Russia is still a comparatively weak country with limited power to influence a nation like the U.S., especially since it’s still dogged internally by those same massive economic and infrastructural problems it’s always had. Putin’s political grip on power at home is also far less sure than our pundits and politicians are letting on.

The generalized plan to create chaos in other industrialized states by seeding/spreading corruption and political confusion – which many in the intelligence community believe is an aim of Russian intelligence efforts – is revealing in itself. It’s the strategy of a weak and unstable third-world state looking for a cheap way to stay in the game (and bolster its profile) versus more powerful industrial rivals. Hyping Russia as an all-powerful menace actually plays into this strategy.

This both true and completely irrelevant. To state the obvious, you don’t have to be a particularly powerful state to materially affect the outcome of an election that was decided by 70,000 votes with a ratfucking campaign. No liberal of any influence thinks that Russia is now some incredible world force that PULLS THE STRINGS in American or international politics.  It remains true that 1)Russian interference in American elections is a serious concern, 2)Republicans looking the other way as part of their ongoing deference to Trump is even worse, and 3)maybe next time journalists shouldn’t play into the hands of ratfuckers by hyping inane bullshit as a major scandal just because it comes from a hacked source.