The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Vladimir Putin Official Portrait

Russian Hacking of the US Election and Faithless Electors

Alrighty, I had hoped to avoid this topic, because it’s stupid, but here we are: The Left can talk about nothing else.

The argument is that Russia interfered in the US election, and that this interference threw the election to Trump. Therefore, electors pledged to Trump should switch their vote to Clinton.

I’m tempted to just say, “This is insanity,” but let’s go through it step by step.

The CIA apparently believes that the Russians (GRU) hacked both the DNC and the RNC, along with Podesta and didn’t release the RNC emails. This is the basis for their argument that Russia was push the election away from Clinton.

Emptywheel has the best summary of this. She notes that:

First, hackers presumed to be GRU did hack and release emails from Colin Powell and an Republican-related server. The Powell emails (including some that weren’t picked up in the press), in particular, were detrimental to both candidates. The Republican ones were, like a great deal of the Democratic ones, utterly meaningless from a news standpoint.

So, weak on its point. Also, while there are reasons to believe Russia was involved in the various hacks, there is no smoking gun that makes it certain, especially not that it was Russian STATE-sponsored actors.

But let’s assume it’s true: Russians hacked and made sure that certain information wound up public.

So far, I am unaware of a single email which has been found to have been fabricated or doctored. Not one. All the released information appears to have been true. The information was germane to the election; there was simple more truth available about Clinton than Trump.

(There have also been allegations of hacking voting machines. This may be, but there is no proof. I’ll wait for that, as well as proof that the interference was from outside the US.)

So, there are some reasons to believe Russia may have tried to influence the election by releasing true–and damaging–information about Clinton, but they also appear to have released info against the Republicans too. So…what?

More to the point, none of this is ironclad. Contrary to the wailing I see from many, the idea that intelligence agency assessments are always correct is laughable, as anyone who was alive for Iraq knows. Intelligence agencies not only get things wrong, they have axes to grind and slant intelligence to suit both their own ends and the ends of their masters (still Obama).

If I were a Trump voter, and a bunch of electors were to give the election to Clinton, based on evidence that is this uncertain and which–even if it is true–amounts to “telling the truth about Hillary and Democrats,” I would be furious, and I would consider it a violation of democratic norms: An overturning of a valid election result because elites didn’t like the result.

And while I’m not saying that they should, or that I would (nor that I wouldn’t), many will feel that violence is the only solution if the ballot box is not respected.

If faithless electors give the election to Clinton, there will be a LOT of violence as a result, and there might even be a civil war.

If you’re pushing for this, understand what you are pushing for. One reason we have democratic elections and referendums (Hello, People Who Want to Overturn Brexit!), is so that we don’t settle such things by violent means.

Trump won the election, and unless you have ironclad proof of real election tampering that had impact enough to throw the election (a.k.a. voting fraud, in auditable form), you should probably just live with it. Unless you really think he’s Hitler and going to set up concentration camps, in which case I can see no argument against using force yourself.

This is where Nazi/Fascist/Hitler/Camps rhetoric leaves you. Nothing is off the table.

Either decide you mean it, or calm down and take shit off the table that is going to get a lot of people dead or hurt unless you pull it off.

(Oh yes, and, as a number of wags have noted, the idea of the CIA in specific, or the US in general, whining about foreign influence leading to a right-wing government is hilarious on its face.)

Update: The article has the worst case scenario for Russian hacks (minus machines) that can be even slightly suggested by the evidence IN ORDER to show that overturning an election result still isn’t justified. This doesn’t include whether the Russian state was directly behind any or all information releases. Only hardcore proof of machine hacking could justify the above outlined.


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82 Comments

  1. Hairhead

    ” . . . . America whining about foreign influence leading to a right wing government . . . ”

    ZOINK! CLONK! BOOM! (irony-meter explodes)

  2. Hairhead

    “Democracy is the belief that the Common People know what they want and deserve to get it — good and hard!” — H.L. Mencken

  3. Bill Hicks

    The Clinton forces do not seem to care that they are undermining confidence in America’s electoral process just as badly as it was alleged Trump was going to do had he lost. In fact, had Clinton won sporadic outbursts of violence would likely already be happening, though certainly not on level there will be if these electoral college shenanigans succeed.

    All of this was baked into the cake the moment that it became apparent that Trump and Clinton would be the nominees. Let’s not forget that the Clintons did everything they could to help make Trump the Republican nominee because they felt he was the one candidate she could easily defeat. In effect, America is on the verge of being torn apart thanks to the massive ego of a sociopathic politician who spent two years expecting to be coronated as America’s first female president to the point of looking down her nose at everyone who had the audacity to oppose her coronation.

    We’re rapidly approaching neoliberalism’s end game, as the forces of reaction are now rising up to destroy it. As a result, America is about to descend into violent chaos the likes of which it hasn’t seen since the late 1850s–and I don’t see a Lincoln or even an FDR anywhere on the horizon.

  4. markfromireland

    hackers presumed to be GRU did hack and release emails from Colin Powell and an Republican-related server

    Hackers presumed to be GRU by people who have let themselves (however unconsciously) be influenced by American Establishment propaganda on this, and or, don’t know the hacking scene in Russia.

    Many if not most Russian hackers are private sector “biznezzmenyi” – yes that’s a polite way of saying “criminal” others are “politicals” or “patriotic” – very few are in the security services. From what I’ve seen I think the balance of probabilities is that there was Russian involvement but involvement by any part of the Official apparat? No I don’t think so. Apart from anything else it being done by non-official hackers (see below) has the benefit from an official Russian POV of maintaining plausible deniability.

    I think what’s happened is that “patriot” hackers took the initiative on foot of knowing that Russian Officialdom was pissed off at American attempts to interfere in Russian domestic politics and decided that what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander. Elsewhere a knowledgable and experienced American commenter has described this as a ““Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?”” situation and remarked accurately that “A vague desire, never voiced specifically, has gone far in mobilizing the Russian patriotic hackers in the past”.

    The Americans currently shrieking about this should STFU and get used to the idea that those who can’t take it shouldn’t dish it out. Some foreigners hacked some politicians’ servers. Yeah? Quite frankly so fucking what? That comes at most under the heading of espionage and using the information gained from espionage for political purposes. I repeat, “so fucking what?” and “if you Americans don’t like it being done to you then you should refrain from doing it to others”. It’s not as is those who released the information from the hacking were making stuff up – all they did was see to it that some embarassing truthul information entered the public discourse. Let’s’ see more embarassing truthul information entering the public discourse it’s good for democracy. This is a completely contrived “crisis” and I’ll say it yet again in response to all the yelling “so fucking what?” and “if you Americans don’t like it being done to you then you should refrain from doing it to others”.

    As to the hysteria on display here and elsewhere by Trump’s opponents. It comes neither as news nor as a surprise to me that the American left are so irresponsible that they risk a civil war. They’ll be unwise to provoke it though. They’ll lose and all that eliminationist rhetoric will stop being mere political hyperbole and will start being OOD, the simple fact is when an untrained mob comes up against sustained directed violence the untrained mob always loses.

  5. StewartM

    US elections have lot more and substantial problems than news cycle propaganda, in particular news-cycle propaganda that is essentially truthful, whether or not they are the results of the actions of foreign governments or not. Voter suppression still makes a huge difference.

    And besides, how much media coverage was given to the actual substance of the Wikileaks email dumps, other than the media simply repeating the Clinton camp’s assertion that “dem dastardly Russkies are behind it all?” There was far more negative coverage about all the horrible stuff that Trump said or did than anything in those emails.

    Moreover, the media gave the Clinton camp a free pass at the Democratic Convention, glowing about how well-managed and well-run it was, where in truth (as was reported in Shadowproof) Bernie supporters were harassed and had their homemade signs denouncing TPP ripped away from them by DNC aisle police. This resulted in some Bernie supporters being forcibly removed from the Convention and many others leaving in protest. To hide the fact that there were all these empty seats in the convention for the TV cameras, the Clinton people *paid* people who weren’t delegates to fill the empty seats of Bernie supporters, with nary a peep of coverage about this from the mainstream press.

    And the Clintonistas are whining about unfavorable press? Give me a break. Clinton lost despite having the media on her side, with its thumb about as heavily on the scale as in any election I’ve ever witnessed.

  6. Duder

    Before the election I noted that if Trump won liberals would advocate a coup against him. Looks like some of them and members of the state establishment are serious. A frightening prospect. Actually carrying out a coup against Trump (via parliamentary mechanisms or extra-legal means) would be a full proof way to get the fascist military dictatorship in the US that liberals fear from Trump. The irony and stupidity of liberals post-election does not cease to amaze me.

  7. markfromireland

    @Stewart M and Duder: If you’ve read Barbara Tuchman’s “March of Folly” their behaviour will come as no surprise to you.

  8. Ché Pasa

    A coup?

    Something’s happening that’s well beyond a popular insurrection. Whatever it is, it involves factions of the ruling clique, not the people. A contest between the conservatives and the radicals.

    The Left has nothing to do with it.

    Nothing.

  9. Bill Hicks

    Duder – good call on that one. In fact, I’m starting to think Trump may be appointing these “loyalist” generals to his cabinet in anticipation of holding off such a coup.

  10. Bill Hicks

    Che Pasa – I agree with your last point as well as your point about the two rival factions among the elites, but I don’t completely agree that it doesn’t have anything to do the “people.” The whole reason Trump makes his insane tweets is to communicate directly with his true base–the 10% of U.S. households who own 80% of the guns. Those people, who include a lot of current and former military members and police officers, are his shock troops who will be the cannon fodder on the front lines should a real civil war break out.

  11. subgenius

    Well, this guy is pretty direct, in a position to know, and NOBODY is paying attention…

    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/12/cias-absence-conviction/

  12. ks

    @Ron,

    It’s gotten beyond parody at this point. Granted the whole Russianpobia or, more accurately, Putinphobia is a way overdone but the people who were saying for at least a year “ZOMG Killery is going to start WWIII with Russia and kill us all!!!!” based on their own um..dubious speculation…at best…are now downplaying the CIA report regarding Russia helping Trump that’s exploding across the news landscape now.

  13. Peter

    @Sub

    What is also disturbing is that sites such as this one and others who are seemingly questioning the CIA lies continue to parrot those lies and make assumptions based on them being true. How can anyone in their right mind think that somehow now the CIA or Obama could be telling the truth and not pursuing an agenda.

    Obama and the Clintonite Hawk forces have a small window of opportunity to disrupt Trump’s planned dealings with Putin and new sanctions could torpedo those plans. This agenda is a twofer attacking Putin and attempting to discredit Trump’s victory and it is beginning to stink even more of a Soros Color Revolution.

  14. Sluggo

    I agree that there would be a civil war if the electors reversed the results and gave it to Clinton. And that would be one of the most one sided civil war in history. It would be selfie sticks vs more guns than there are people in America. I’ve come to despise the Democrats and their supporters as much as the right wing now. They are completely moronic, incompetent, and mean, and now they are playing with the safety of millions of lives. They are nothing more than scum. The entire Democratic leadership should be charged with treason.

  15. realitychecker

    Is it a full moon?

  16. Pho Child

    Ron, take your anti-psychotic meds, NOW.

  17. GrimJim

    “Is it a full moon?”

    No, it is just the beginning of the Web Battles between the Redhats and the Blueshirts, much as was seen in the Street Battles between the Sturmabteilung and the Rotfrontkämpferbund before the installment of Hitler.

    The parallels are remarkable, save of course the battles are one of words not brickbats and guns… thus far. And indeed, as mentioned above, the Blueshirts are woefully outgunned by the Redhats. Time will tell how quickly both sides take to real arms.

    Let us not forget that, if Trump had not won, his followers more than ready to start an armed insurrection to ensure that he took power nonetheless… so of course they are threatening such now.

    Frankly, the revelation that the Russians (governmental or otherwise) hacked the DNC and helped Trump win by helping him WIN MORE VOTES is, frankly, a non-issue. That is, provided that there is no clear and direct and indisputable line drawn between Trump asking for such help and the Russians delivering… that would be actionable. And while he did kinda, sort ask for such back in July…

    ““I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” the Republican nominee said at a news conference in Florida. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.””

    There is no direct, actionable tie between him and any Russian hacking. Which is still purported, regardless of what the CIA says.

    So really, this should be a non-issue. All it DOES do is take away attention from his REAL, true, constitutionally-actionable shenanigans that completely and VERY PUBLICALLY stomp all over the emoluments portion of the Nobility Clause.

    Of course, the rub there is that he can do ALL THAT with the consent of a friendly Congress. So of course, a Republican Congress (as we now have) will happily, I am sure, give said permission.

    Of course, this is if he gets through the Electoral College, which is not a given. They sure won’t hand it over to Hillary, but as it stands, if they can get 51 electors to turn, it will be interesting. Most likely several blocs will form to try to get a favored Republican favorite to be that third candidate thrown to the House; if enough of them get tied for third, it will be quite a horse-trading session, and may end up in gridlock for years.

    Of course, Pence will easily get the Vice Presidential slot, no problems there… which means if the House is tied up over the Electoral College, we get Acting President Pence… and as there is no deadline for the House to determine the election, and no reason not to table and simply abandon the proceeding through rules of order, we could have Acting President Pence for four years…

    Which makes the nightmare of Trump seem like a lovely daydream by comparison…

  18. chris collins

    It’s getting interesting several Republicans are now signing on that there was hacking. Including at least one Trump backer. I don’t think the powers that be will go for overturning the election unless actual hacked votes are found. Which I doubt. Apparently all this info was there for a while and reports are that Obama had the info withheld to prevent instability in the election. It came out now as several members of the senate were briefed by the CIA. There are several claims that more damning info was pulled from the republicans but was not leaked.

  19. markfromireland

    @Ian I thought you’d banned the Showalter howler?

  20. Peter

    @Grim

    I thought the emoluments clause only addressed gifts and favors given by foreign governments. The idea that Trump has to destroy and sell off his family legacy to make a bunch of whining losers happy is a bit extreme so long as he no longer is involved with managing the business. His foreign businesses seem to be mostly luxury resort hotels and golf courses where he will probably be doling out the emoluments to foreign dignitaries, Trump steaks and wine for everyone.

    I read that LBJ directly ran his oil business from secret phone lines in the White House which if true would make the handwringing about Trump’s refusal to sell off his empire while severing his control of the businesses seem overblown.

  21. MojaveWolf

    Is it a full moon?

    This has been going on for a few weeks. Can’t if some people are trolling or infected with the general I-dunno–what-to-politely-call-it that has afflicted some of the Dem party loyalists–the Republicans were kinda this way after Bill Clinton beat Bush and took away what they thought was their permanent claim to the presidency, except the degree of hysteria seems ratcheted up a few dozen notches this go round.

    Ron I think we can just call a troll. IIRC Ian actually asked him to leave and he keeps showing up and being as unpleasant as ever, so dismissing him.

    To ks and others, seriously–if you are trying to persuade anyone of anything and NOT just trolling, WHY are you acting like this? I disagree completely with Che often and Mandos a huge chunk of the time, but I’ve always thought they were trying to make points and not just annoy people. If you’re not just trying to annoy and insult us for the fun of it, I can’t tell. The reason I think you might be serious is I had an actual real time conversation with a very angry Hillary supporter during the run-up to the election, that I was actually friends with at the time, part of which went something like this:

    Me: “It’s funny, my Hillary and Trump friends both keep trying to tell me I’m wasting my vote if I vote third party, but the Trump people are way nicer and more polite about it.”

    HRC person: “That’s because we know what we’re talking about and they can barely read. We know why we should be angry.”

    That said by someone who had just told me that Jill Stein didn’t “represent ALL the community” with comments about whitebreadness suggesting either racism or out-of-touchness, and whose response to “her VP candidate is a black lives matter activist. A black black lives matter activist” was blank stare and “Trump bad.”

    Assuming you are not just trolling, let it be known that you are coming across to some of us (or at least me) rather like the person in this conversation. If I have to tell you why this is not an effective mode of argument, and why my sympathy for Trump voters went up as a result of conversations like this one and my sympathy for Hillary supporters went down, I give up and shall never respond again. (neither was ever likely to persuade me, but the Trump voters had way the better tactic; some of the Hillary people simply persuaded me to quit talking to them for an extended and possibly permanent period of time)

    And for the people who are just here to be annoying, WHY? Life is short. There are worthwhile battles to be fought, and if you are lucky, genuinely fun good times to be had.

  22. Some Guy

    I think the relevant question is what purpose the whipping up of anti-Russian sentiment (which well predates this latest episode) serves.

    My sense is, as Che Pasa says above, that we are witnessing a battle between two elite factions, but I can’t say I have enough information (why would I?) to really sort it out.

    Seems like the ‘Russia is evil and must be stopped’ side is represented by the standard neolib/neocon consensus, but not sure what the point is – perhaps there is a mix of things, but my best guess is that the biggest driver is just ‘Manifest Destiny’ still grinding on after all these decades, with anyone who doesn’t bow to the U.S. set up as enemy number 1.

    Opposing this we have (to some extent at least) Obama, who has spent most of his presidency pushing back against various anti-Russia initiatives, and the Trump faction, where my sense is that Trump’s agreeableness with Russia just stems from his nature, with one authoritarian nativist naturally inclined to sympathize with another. What may have developed beyond that, especially as he got closer to the White House, is unknown at this point, possibly forever. I’d guess if there was Russian support for Trump that worked directly with his campaign in some manner that this was kept well outside of Trump’s orbit or knowledge.

    I don’t think there’s much point wasting pixels on faithless electors or an electoral college upset. Maybe there’s something like that in the U.S. future, but it’s not going to happen this time around. Still, I suppose even the fact that the party that likes to think itself as the serious, respectable one is pushing for such a thing is one more piece of evidence of crumbling institutions and norms, etc. but it’s not like that is all that notable amongst the flood of such things these days (remember when Scalia died and an ocean of pixels debated the price Republicans would pay for not accepting a replacement before the election?, yeah, me neither).

    The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on. Yes, it’s heading for a cliff, no, it is not there yet.

  23. Richard McGee

    @Bill Hicks
    I’m not convinced neoliberalism has reached its endgame. There is still Ian’s option 3. Despite some of Trump’s populist noisings, his cabinet choices make it all too clear he will heading in this direction. The transition from Obama to Trump will be barely noticeable, as the required state security framework is already primed and ready to go.

    And the thing is, it could actually work. With an actual direct spending stimulus, he could reap the benefit of a demand-induced boom. The contractionary effects of cutting Social Security and substituting vouchers for Medicare are mostly downstream.

    The continued survival of capitalism is directly attributable to constantly pushing its crises into the future. The triumph of reactionary forces is not necessarily inconsistent with the continuing success of neoliberalism.

  24. Ian Welsh

    Having some issues with my spam filter, email in with support. I don’t like banning IPs, it’s too shotgun. In any case, all deleted.

    I did hope (though not expect) that he would go away when asked politely (some people have), but that appears to not be in his character.

  25. Ian Welsh

    The article has the worst possible interpretation of Russian hacking which could be even slightly supported by the facts we currently know IN ORDER to show that even the worst interpretations do not justify what is being done.

    I suspect the Russian state wasn’t officially behind this BUT I don’t care. It’s not important. Even if they did it all (minus actual hacking of voting machines) it wouldn’t justify overturning election results.

  26. realitychecker

    None of us know anything yet. Period. We all understand that all the players are capable of lies and duplicity and manipulation, so pretending any certainty about anything at this point is pure folly.

    But just as a thought experiment, maybe we should consider that the future world superpowers would seem to be shaping up to be the U.S., Russia, and China. (Personally, I feel very strongly that China will be the dominant player, displacing the U.S. for that ‘honor.’)

    How do we want that dynamic to look?

    China and Russia allied against the U.S.?

    Or (and I’ve seen nobody consider this yet), U.S. and Russia allied against China?

    At first blush, it seems to me that the latter possibility might be more desirable, but, in any event, I don’t think it is too soon for some of us to start thinking about the question.

  27. Ian Welsh

    I’ve written more than one long article noting that America was forcing Russia into China’s arms when Russia would rather ally with America.

  28. anonymous coward

    The case against Iraq Russia is a slam dunk! Pin a Freedumb Medal on CIA Director John Brennan. Put it next to the one he got for torturing people, (or was that awarded for hacking into the Senate’s computers to monitor the progress of their report on CIA torture?) and alert NATO that the big dance is set for 0300 hrs Jan. 1 GMT. Watch your ass Putin, you’ve been messing with people who’re way too smart for you!

  29. Ché Pasa

    “Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out.” I, Claudius.

  30. BlizzardOfOzzz

    Would be positive to have a talk about foreign governments meddling in our affairs / elections. We should start where such is most widespread as a matter of public record: Israel and Mexico.

    Podesta fell for a phishing hack. Hillary’s IT guy was asking how to scrub Outlook files on Reddit. As Trump said, an 15 year old playing around might have hacked these people. Put the blame where is lies, on their sloppiness and carelessness.

  31. realitychecker

    @ Ian

    Thanks, Ian, I must have missed those Russia/China posts somehow; could you please indicate dates so I/we can review them?

  32. Mel

    The question for me is: “How did these systems become so hackable?”
    How did mail servers get to be so poorly defended?
    How did news media get to the point where reports can be false in essence, and nobody can tell and nobody cares?
    Those are my questions. Answer? Various people have been making them that way for various short-term gains for quite a while now. Call it crumbling intellectual infrastructure.

  33. nihil obstet

    America’s rulers like duopolies. Duopolies have served them well domestically in maintaining the trappings and propaganda value of elections, as they have ruthlessly eliminated any real chance of third parties getting leverage.

    After World War II when the totally inexperienced little bantam rooster Truman accepted what he was told — that the American economy depended on a permanent war economy — the Soviet Union was extraordinarily useful. The big horrible threat was godless communism, which was incarnate in the Soviet Union. Voila, the birth and growth of the Military Industrial (Congressional) Complex. When the Soviet Union collapsed, our rulers flailed around looking for a substitute. The War on Drugs pinch hit. Although we were endlessly creative in figuring out how the usual script of American businesses extracting value from weaker countries could be sold as fighting drugs, it really wasn’t satisfactory, especially any time middle and upper class whites used drugs.

    Then Terrorism came to the rescue. Still, shifting bands of terrorists don’t really sell the need for lucrative military contracts the way another state actor does. And it’s hard to do business in failed states, which is what the War on Terrorism has produced so far. The old guard is just drooling over the return of the Soviet Union as existential enemy. That’s why it’s all about the commie Soviet Union instead of kleptocratic Russia. So far they really haven’t done a good job of developing a framework to say American kleptocracy good, Russia kleptocracy evil. The “they diddled in our elections” has all the common sense holes that are pointed out in this post and comments, but we’ll see how well they make it stick as a righteous cause. And, of course, how they monetize it.

  34. realitychecker

    Thanks, Ian.

  35. Nadin

    Just a note, well two.

    1.- There IS consensus among all 29 intelligence agencies, not just the CIA. The FBI is the one with most doubts, but they agree they did it…and it was not just the GRU, but the FSB. Think CIA vs FBI. It is an analogy that works, because it is precisely what it is.

    2.- Two subpoints and they matter.

    A.- We have done it, especially in Latin America, and often, a case of chickens coming home to roost. And now we get horrified…I prefer we get out the feed, make sure they are fed, and prepare a nice chicken dinner.

    B.- Russians have their own motives for doing things like this, and they have a history since at least, that we know off, 2010. I suspect it goes well before that, but that is when they were caught in European elections. And they are expected to be with their hands in tje German cookie jar soon incidentally. Putin wants to rebuild the Empire and the idea of Greater Russia is there at the heart and fully independent of American so called liberals ( Neoliberals) or Conservatives, or their controlled opposition of each other.

    For a much longer exposition, here you go into Russian motives. It is not just elections incidentally. And hiding our heads in the sand, while typically American, will not stop what is going in other places. https://reportingsandiego.com/2016/12/09/the-road-to-world-war-one-and-current-russian-foreign-policy/

    So no, the Russians did it is internally consistent with their own circus.

    As to faithless electors, I agree with you it would lead to a civil war, but faithless electors are actually not just legal, but tje way the Founders set to get rid of a bad president elect. It is antiquated, meant to protect slavery and should go away. But die to it, yes Trump should be President, but is coming in with legitimacy issues, like Rutherford B Hayes and George W Bush.

  36. ks

    This is really getting interesting as subjectivity reigns and proves Mandos contention from the other thread was right. This is an absolutely fascinating bubble.

    So let me see if i can get this straight, over the weekend Nate Silver confirmed that the biggest factor in Clinton’s loss was the FBI/Comey letter and even flatly stated the if the election were held on October 27th, the day before the letter, Clinton would’ve won. The FBI blatantly and openly interfered in the outcome of a POTUS election but that’s okay because you all hate Clinton and the candidate you favored won and you know the real real reason was “economic anxiety”.

    Meanwhile, after the election, the CIA expands on the earlier (at least October) claims of Russian hacking and states they were doing so to help Trump and all of a sudden it’s OMG!! Threat to Democracy!!!” hysterics. Really, huh? That’s quite a different set of standards.

    Also if I read Ian’s tweet correctly, it’s fair to do the “both sides” thing and describe the furor among some about the CIA report as the “Russian hacking delegitimization of Trump” and say that’s bad and compare it to the “Birther delegitimization of Obama” which was also bad. Except for the small inconvenient facts that the Birther stuff was put forth by loons, didn’t have a shred of credible evidence to support it, was utterly false and still put forth even after it was debunked to the point that a significant minority of registered GOPers still! believe it. Other than that, both sides….

    @Mojave Wolf – Cool story thanks but, I’m not interested. I’ve posted on and off here for years. I’m just going against the current grain so that is bound to ruffle feathers. It’s not a big deal and nobody’s going to get hurt.

  37. b.

    Missing the point.

    It is actually not ethical for Murray to provide information – “I met” and “insider” – that increases the risk of exposing the source, but setting Wikileaks internal ethics aside, the claim also is a more direct challenge of the ClintonIA campaign than all emptywheeling combined.

    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/12/cias-absence-conviction/
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/10/cia-concludes-russia-interfered-to-help-trump-win-election-report

  38. someofparts

    In comments for another post I asked Ian what comes after neoliberalism. Mark Blyth says it will be neo-nationalism.

    Haven’t seen professor Blyth mentioned on this site yet so I’m going to share.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkm2Vfj42FY

    Blyth says the sentiments that elected Trump are evident all over Europe as well. While he acknowledges the cultural baggage that comes with right wing populism, he sees all of this as economic in it’s roots and characterizes what is underway as a debtors’ revolt.

  39. Peter

    @RC

    The China/Russia boosters with their Slick Road dreams and hopes for a real counter to the Hegemon seem to be mostly wishful thinkers to me. The USSR was a world power but todays Russia is a gas station with Nukes and without the Nukes it would project about as much power as Italy or Mexico. It’s ironic that it is capitalism not communism that has brought these long time enemies closer but not together. The big economic deals between China and Russia don’t seem to be moving anywhere and the huge gas pipeline deal that was celebrated so publicly has either stalled or been canceled.

    China’s economic power is based on their ability to draw foreign companies mostly from the US but also Europe to use their sweatshops to produce profits from low and increasingly high value products. They have their own export industries such as solar cell production but they depend on the US and Europe for much of their revenues. They are attempting to breed a consumer class to reduce their dependence on export but that is a generational project with unknown consequences. The BRICS or what is left of it and their investment banks are Chinese economic and financial tools that may expand their local influence but most of their neighbors are very wary of the Chinese if not other long time enemies.

    Returning even some of the high profit/quality manufacturing from China to the US as Trump is proposing is where the conflict between the Hegemon and China may be resolved leaving them to produce the cheap crap they are so proficient at.

  40. BlizzardOfOz

    Even more to the point: how did Putin hack Michigan’s all-paper ballots? Impressive!

  41. Kris

    MarkfromIreland: “As to the hysteria on display here and elsewhere by Trump’s opponents. It comes neither as news nor as a surprise to me that the American left are so irresponsible that they risk a civil war.”

    Please don’t conflate liberals with leftists. Liberals have swallowed the Third Way/New Democrat worldview in its entirety, which brought us Trump. Leftists supported Bernie as the best among poor choices, and have left the Democratic party in droves.

  42. markfromireland

    @Kris – Spare me the disclaimers please. And please spare me also the claim that Sanders is anything other than the political equivalent of click bait or would you prefer it if I called him a “gatekeeper”? There’s a continuum of political opinion in the USA running from “liberals” to “socialists” generally categorised as “left”, get used to it, and spare us all the terminological pearl clutchery.

  43. realitychecker

    @ Peter

    I don’t quite agree with your analysis. I just left a longish comment on Ian’s new China thread laying out my analysis, and rather than reproduce it here, I would ask that you click over and read it there.

    No disrespect, amigo, we seem to agree on a lot of other things. 🙂

  44. shargash

    @ks

    Nate Silver’s opinion does not qualify as confirmation, nor is his “flat statement” anything more than opinion. Face it, his opinions were pretty dreadful right up through the actual election. I see no reason to give them any special credence afterwards.

    Here is Marcie on exactly that issue: https://www.emptywheel.net/2016/12/11/obamacare-not-comey-effect/. You’ll note from the chart that Clinton was actually farther ahead of Trump in the polls on election day than she was on 10/27.

    Comey’s two step was pretty bizarre, and it may have had a minor impact on the election. But how do you decide which bolt failing is responsible for the collapse of a bridge? The Democrats seem to insist on focusing on any and every bolt that wasn’t their fault to avoid seeing the ones that were. IMO, the result is going to be serious damage to the D brand among everyone but D dead-enders.

  45. realitychecker

    Just amazing how some argue that Comey was out to torpedo Hillary, when his original revelations were made in the context of giving her a get out of jail pass on grounds that were legally dubious to the nth degree. How do they explain that inconvenient truth? They don’t, they just pretend it didn’t happen. Pretend. Because that’s the best way to deal with realities they don’t like.

    I guess that really proves Mandos’ stupid contention that just because most people can’t manage to rise above their subjective fantasy wishes, that that PROVES there can be no such thing as an objective reality in existence.

    Some will never make it out of their cramped little partisan thought-box. Sigh.

  46. StewartM

    @ks

    So let me see if i can get this straight, over the weekend Nate Silver confirmed that the biggest factor in Clinton’s loss was the FBI/Comey letter and even flatly stated the if the election were held on October 27th, the day before the letter, Clinton would’ve won.

    Considering Silver and most pollsters had Clinton winning handily (Silver less so than others) I really don’t see why you think this has credibility. That being the case, I can’t fathom how one could conclude that they are offering anything like hard evidence showing that anything Comey did, or the Wikileaks dump, moved the election one way or another. Certainly (as I said) much of the reporting on both was straight from the mouth of the Clinton camp: “Comey’s trying to influence the election!” or “Russia’s trying to influence the election!!” rather than the actual content of the news. The only likely, and marginal, effect was to motivate those who already hated Clinton’s guts to come out to vote against her.

    The negative coverage that Clinton got pales to that which Trump got, and got virtually every day of the campaign. Clinton had the media *firmly on her side* throughout the whole campaign, she and her followers thus have no reason to blame media coverage at all. You want to know why your candidate lost? Here it is in a nutshell:

    http://tarheelred.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Voter-Turnout.jpg

    Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters either stayed home, or voted third-party. And why was that? Well, it’s because Clinton made the conscious decision to crap all over the Sanders voters after the nomination, to dump the “practical progressive” facade she had sported during the primaries, and run as the “Smart Republican”, as was predicted by Kevin Gosztola:

    https://shadowproof.com/2016/05/06/rather-campaign-liberal-alternative-trump-clinton-run-smarter-republican/

    With Donald Trump as the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, it appears the campaign for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will directly appeal to moderate Republicans in order to win the general election, if she becomes the nominee.

    The strategy will not only allow Clinton to be her authentic political self again, but it will also end the charade of moving to the left to appease supporters of her opponent, Bernie Sanders. It would also diminish any confusion over whether Clinton is anything more than a corporate Democrat, who progressives should approach with great skepticism and opposition.

    As POLITICO reported, supporters of Hillary Clinton made a “furious round of calls to top Bush family donors to convince them that she represents their values better than Donald Trump.” Clinton campaign supporters have a list of “Wall Street donors who supported Jeb Bush and other unsuccessful Republican candidates months ago.” An unnamed Clinton fundraiser stated, “We’re making sure anyone who wants to be part of this campaign can be part of this campaign, including Republicans who feel disenfranchised by Donald Trump,” and, “There’s no question there’ve been a lot of incoming calls from Republicans.

    ….

    The Democratic National Committee has stacked the deck against Sanders in order to prevent his campaign and supporters from forcing Clinton into a precarious position, where she has to run on a platform that takes progressive positions that are toxic to her corporate paymasters. Rather than win by appealing to the millions of new voters Sanders has brought into the Democratic Party, they plan to appeal to the Republican establishment and win regardless of whether this alienates millennials, independents, or left-leaning voters, who have contempt for her chameleon politics, where she privately courts corporate executives while publicly claiming to support pro-working class policies.

    This was her strategy. Her surrogates on MSNBC and other MSM outlets trotted out Republican after Republican, including many movement conservatives, who parroted the line that “Trump was unqualified/too extreme/temperamentally unsuited” and who endorsed Clinton. Hell, if the election had continued longer, you might have had them win over Darth Cheney and trotted him out on Lawrence O’Donnell’s show to give a stirring endorsement of HRC. Her TV ads (the ones I saw) accused Trump of things like “Questioning our generals!!” (you mean the ones who can’t seem to win these wars dragging on for say, 15 years??).

    And this was supposed to inspire Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters to turn out to vote for her? Really??

    The results were all-too-predictable. Democratic-leaning voter turnout was depressed or these voted third-party, and Trump won because of this, not only winning places that had twice voted for Obama, but even carrying locales that hadn’t voted for a Republican in over 100 years (Elliot county, KY). Her campaign simply gave Democratic voters no reason to vote for her, save that arguing that “Trump is worse than me”. Of course, by campaigning as the “smart Republican” Clinton was really returning to her comfort zone, because that’s what she really is and how she sees herself, and I’m not sure she would have been able to deliver a progressive message with any credibility. But she was the choice of the DNC, the leadership of the incredibly-shrinking Democratic Party (TM) who they seek to keep tamed and well veal-penned.

  47. XFR

    The article has the worst possible interpretation of Russian hacking which could be even slightly supported by the facts we currently know IN ORDER to show that even the worst interpretations do not justify what is being done.

    However, this is a trap that some Iraq invasion skeptics fell into*–in thinking that this sort of “for the sake of the argument” tactic was the path of least resistance, they failed to take on the blatant problems with the evidentiary case itself. The problem with that is not everyone will agree with the premises of the “even if true” case (even if those premises are perfectly reasonable) and thus making that case exclusively forfeits a lot of potential allies.

    Not that you are in any way guilty of this–you do make the evidentiary case as well, and are invariably quite careful to employ the proper qualifications those occasions when you don’t–but the Iraq parallels are eerie, as I’ve noted before, and it seems to me Peter’s concerns are well-founded.

    *Assuming, of course, that said “skeptics” weren’t just Iraq invasion proponents wearing false colours, which I suspect some substantial fraction of them actually were.

  48. ks

    @shargash,

    Neither does Marcie’s but you have no problem pushing that one because it confirms to your bias? Besides, in the link you provided, she even hedges her bets. Also, Nate’s data is available and you know it but you want to sidestep that as well as the main issue which is….

    “Comey’s two step was pretty bizarre, and it may have had a minor impact on the election.”

    That’s awfully generous of you to grant “it may have had a minor impact on the election” but as you well know, the point that you’re avoiding is that it’s hypocritical to ignore or, as you are doing, downplay FBI interference in the election as it was actually going on but scream about the after the election CIA assessment as being some sort of threat to democracy.

  49. shargash

    I would really like to know what actually happened with the Comey letter. The narrative the Ds are pushing is that a hyper-partisan Comey discovers some Clinton-related emails on Weiner’s laptop and goes public on his own initiative to damage Clinton’s campaign. Because he actually had nothing, he had to back off, but the damage was already done.

    From what we know, this narrative *could* be true, but I have my doubts. First, if Comey were that partisan, he could have indicted Clinton when he had the chance. Sure, he might have lost the case eventually, but the damage would have already been done. Secondly, a competent and politically savvy FBI director would only have gone public if he had a real smoking gun among the emails. Otherwise he would have told his people to get him a smoking gun, and if he needed a warrant, he would have got one in secret. Is Comey that politically naive and that incompetent? It seems unlikely. Finally, if Comey is that partisan and incompetent, why does he still have a job?

    I think it is more likely that Comey actually found something, and Obama leaned on him in some way to make him back off. Now, if Comey were principled, he would not have backed off. But I have always read Comey as primarily a political animal who trots out principles whenever they will help him politically.

  50. shargash

    @ks

    I was advancing an alternative to what you were pushing. Usually that’s called balance. In any case, you have no idea what my biases are.

    There were a hundred reasons why the Ds lost to the most beatable candidate in American history. Comey’s letter may have been one of them but, if so, it was far from the biggest one. If Clinton were a decent candidate running a decent campaign, the letter would have meant squat.

    In reality, it may have meant squat anyway. We really don’t know. Reality is like that. You don’t get to run multiple versions to see how alternate realities turn out.

  51. Nadin

    someofparts PERMALINK
    December 12, 2016
    In comments for another post I asked Ian what comes after neoliberalism. Mark Blyth says it will be neo-nationalism.
    Haven’t seen professor Blyth mentioned on this site yet so I’m going to share.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkm2Vfj42FY
    Blyth says the sentiments that elected Trump are evident all over Europe as well. While he acknowledges the cultural baggage that comes with right wing populism, he sees all of this as economic in it’s roots and characterizes what is underway as a debtors’ revolt.

    Indeed, and Russia has been part of this trend. I will take it a step further. We are heading to a declining US empire (we are there, but will be nice). The rise of a multipolar world, with interlocking alliances, and the rise of a very toxic brew of hyper nationalism. Incidentally, not that many know this…we have been here. Globalization was stopped in its tracks in around 1910…and 1929 was another major shock.

    Anybody care to ask what fun came next? Nor is tje Manchester School, at the core of Anglo-American neoliberalism, precisely new.

  52. ks

    @StewartM,

    “The negative coverage that Clinton got pales to that which Trump got, and got virtually every day of the campaign. Clinton had the media *firmly on her side* throughout the whole campaign, she and her followers thus have no reason to blame media coverage at all. You want to know why your candidate lost?”

    Clinton wasn’t “my candidate”. Not the Media Research Center stuff again. Brent Bozell’s outfit has been cranking out conservative propaganda for almost 30 years now. Also, you’d think folks would have some respect for the “Godfather of Blogging”, Bob Sommerby, who has been painstakingly documenting Clinton Derangement Syndrome for about 20? years now and laugh at the notion that the media has ever been *firmly on her side*. Btw, your “voter turnout” chart is wrong and needs updating. Clinton is currently near Obama’s 2012 total and might pass it.

  53. realitychecker

    @ shargash

    “Sure, he might have lost the case eventually, but the damage would have already been done.”

    Just FYI, there is no way any prosecutor would have lost THAT case; the law under which Clinton was being investigated does not include any element of “intent” required for conviction, and Comey clearly laid out all the evidence required for multiple convictions absent that invented intent element. In spades.

    Also, Obama did not have to lean on Comey; he had good old Loretta Lynch to do that for him, and you may recall that she re-introduced herself into the case at the end (after first recusing herself after being caught having a little tete a tete with Hillary’s husband on her airplane).

    There’s no way any rational person could interpret that “pass” as anything but helping Hillary, but commenting here is not restricted to only rational persons, more’s the pity.

  54. realitychecker

    LOL see what I mean?

    Someone ask him his views on the Trayvon Martin case. That guy is beyond hopeless.

  55. ks

    “…Comey’s letter may have been one of them but, if so, it was far from the biggest one. If Clinton were a decent candidate running a decent campaign, the letter would have meant squat.”

    No, you don’t if the bolded is true. Somebody who is known for doing credible analysis on the big stage indicates otherwise. I’ll lean with the latter. The rest is just your bias showing through.

    Btw, to your earlier post. Comey couldn’t have indicted Clinton. That’s Lynch’s job.

  56. ks

    I see objective reality is that Clinton would’ve been convicted if charged but was saved by good ole Bill, Loretta Lynch and Obama. Okay, well that’s not a subjective, emotional opinion at all.

  57. peonista

    @ks The Democrats ran a terrible election campaign with a flawed candidate. Anytime you have a bombshell on the eve of an election it sways people, especially if it seems credible. You also risk energizing voters that support the attacked candidate who then come out in numbers to vote in their defense. This FBI thing could have gone either way.

    I had not noticed Nate Silver’s infallibility on other issues, why do you accept this as gospel? (on Nov 8 he gave Clinton a 71.4% chance of winning).

    The threat to democracy being commented on here is flipping the electoral college to a not-Trump president, not the CIA interference vs the FBI interference .

  58. realitychecker

    @ ks

    “Btw, to your earlier post. Comey couldn’t have indicted Clinton. That’s Lynch’s job.”

    Jeez, can’t you get anything right?

    Lynch publicly passed the indictment decision off to Comey after she got caught parleying with Bill on her plane on the runway.

    You really are a hopeless troll.

  59. ks

    @peonista,

    Not that dead horse narrative again. The Democrats didn’t run a terrible campaign. They gained in the Senate and House and lost the POTUS by a hair while winning approx 3 million more votes. Once they step back and examine it and get some new leadership they should be fine. The flawed candidate stuff is particularly bad since all candidates are flawed. It’s just a meme to generically assert something without have to really prove it.

    Why speculate? The FBI thing didn’t go either way. It went one way and the data shows it. Nobody ever said Silver was “infallible” but he is pretty good and it’s a bit much to use that prediction against him as most, if not all, of them were off in terms of the electoral college though not the popular vote.

    The flipping of the EC currently being discussed is being premised on the latest CIA news, no? IMO, it’s a thin reed to hold onto that while downplaying the FBI involvement that helped us get to the current outcome.

  60. Peter

    @RC

    You seem to be having fun with this banter but it would be more satisfying if Soros sent in the A-Team and not the bench warmers and water-boys.

    Your observation that a conviction was more than possible for the server scandal is probably accurate but it probably would have been pled down to misdemeanor level. The undisclosed Clinton Foundation investigation is where the ‘lock her up’ chant gains some real meaning but that will probably escape down the memory hole.

  61. ks

    @realitychecker/Morocco Bama,

    Ah that’s right, I forgot that Lynch recused herself and said the Justice Department would accept the FBI recommendations and go ahead. My bad.

    But wait, that kinds of kills all of your Comey was pressured not to indict Clinton and was saved by good ole Bill, Loretta Lynch and Obama talk when he could have gone ahead and done so.

    See what happens when you trolls troll with the gotcha game…

  62. Who do we know had the information in question? The NSA, thanks to its unconstitutional wiretapping and internet tapping programs. And what else do we know about them? They have employees and contractors, some of whom are Democrats or Republicans, some of whom are skilled with computers, who might have known about the things that were leaked, and decided it was time to tip the election in favor of their person. At the same time, fake the evidence that blames the Evil Rooshin Commies (yes, I am aware of 1991), because it will be good for an incredible budget increase.

    As an aside, Julian Assange is quoted as saying it was not hacking, it was a leak, and he knows details.

  63. Hugh

    Once you accept that it was Martians out to steal our precious bodily fluids, it all comes into focus.

  64. realitychecker

    @ ks

    “I see objective reality is that Clinton would’ve been convicted if charged but was saved by good ole Bill, Loretta Lynch and Obama. Okay, well that’s not a subjective, emotional opinion at all.”

    No, it’s just the opinion of a pretty good lawyer who has actually read the damn statutes involved, and understands how to interpret them because he has the appropriate background and training to do so.

    Now I see why you founder so badly in discussions about what objective reality might mean.

    @ Peter

    Of course you are right that there probably would have been a light sentence or a plea bargain if the prosecution had proceeded, but that does not change the reality that she would have been shown to be guilty of a criminal offense and her candidacy would have been dead in the water.

  65. realitychecker

    “ks permalink
    December 12, 2016

    @realitychecker/Morocco Bama,

    Ah that’s right, I forgot that Lynch recused herself and said the Justice Department would accept the FBI recommendations and go ahead. My bad.

    But wait, that kinds of kills all of your Comey was pressured not to indict Clinton and was saved by good ole Bill, Loretta Lynch and Obama talk when he could have gone ahead and done so.

    See what happens when you trolls troll with the gotcha game…”

    Oh please, it’s really embarrassing to be responding to such lame ass drivel as you exhibit. You need to sit at the children’s table. I’m serious, please STFU.

  66. Steeleweed

    Like you, I think there would be a lot of violence if the Electoral College gave the office to Clinton. I have seen it suggested that the Dems urge the EC to select someone other than Clinton, perhaps a different Republican, so as to be (or appear) less partisan. I’m not sure they would be free to do that – might be forced to choose between those who were on the ballots. Re the EC itself, it was designed for just this situation, since the FF greatly distrusted the Common Man. Suspect they didn’t think it through well enough to realize that if a patently unfit candidate won at the polls, it might mean there was a strong anti-elite movement that might refuse to accept the EC reversing the voters’ choice.

    I think the only possible way to prevent DJT on one hand and mass violence on the other hand would be for the Supreme Court to declare – based on irrefutable evidence that no one has yet provided – the entire election tainted and order new elections.

    Ain’t gonna happen.

  67. StewartM

    @Ks

    Brent Bozell’s outfit has been cranking out conservative propaganda for almost 30 years now. Also, you’d think folks would have some respect for the “Godfather of Blogging”, Bob Sommerby, who has been painstakingly documenting Clinton Derangement Syndrome for about 20? years now and laugh at the notion that the media has ever been *firmly on her side*.

    Yes, firmly on her side. The only major media outlet which recorded a net-favorable coverage towards Trump was Fox, according to a study by Jack Beckwith and Nick Sorscher; even the Wall Street Journal coverage was 50/50. Only six newspapers endorsed Donald Trump, which is rather astounding given the history of these endorsing Republicans (final count among newspapers and magazines, 500-27 for Clinton). ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox spent more than 4 hours total on Trump’s sex scandals and only 36 minutes about the Wikileaks dump in October (and as I said, much of that coverage was just to give the Clinton camp a microphone to scream “The Russkies did it!”). I am not alone in seeing what was pretty obviously a heavy thumb on the news coverage in Clinton’s favor, and I’m no fan of Trump–according to a USA Today poll, even 74 % of *Clinton supporters* thought the media biased in her favor.

    Brent Bozell’s outfit has been cranking out conservative propaganda for almost 30 years now.

    Sure. But all that Whitewater/Vince Foster/Jennifer Flowers/Monica Lewinsky/Benghazi/etc stuff is only good at getting people who already hate the Clintons and would never vote for them to hate them even more. I don’t see it moving the needle any.

    If you do want a to name a third-party who contributed mightily to Clinton’s defeat, look no further than one Barack Obama. It was Obama, President “Renegotiate NAFTA”, after all, who was primed to run TPP through over the opposition of just about every non-Third Way Democratic constituency (all without a mean nasty Republican forcing him to do so in sight). That, and Carrier moving those jobs to Mexico, brought TPP and other trade deals to the limelight. Still, Clinton might have survived in the Rust Belt if she had strongly disavowed TPP *AND* admitted that NAFTA was a mistake that needed to be undone. She only half-heartedly disavowed TPP (her surrogates preventing any strong language against it in the party platform) and clung to NAFTA. That, as part and parcel of her “I”m the smart Republican” strategy I described above, is what sealed her fate. It’s why blue counties in 2008 and 2012 in the Rust Belt flipped red.

    (And for that reason, I think Obama too would have lost in 2016 had he run. Obama beat Romney only because Romney was the face of the plutocracy, and Obama had not yet pushed the Grand Betrayal of TPP).

  68. SA

    You forgot to mention the purpose behind the CIA claims. Trump poses a threat to the current status quo (intelligence agencies). If they had proof, they would have shown proof; therefore they do not have the proof that they’ve alleged.

    This is more propaganda for the masses of deluded idiots that infect this country. But if their given their day with the Electors who swing their vote towards Killary, it will be war in this country. Of that I have absolutely no doubt at all. And you are correct, they do not realize it (yet).

    The CIA is not seeking to change the (s)Election, this is where everyone makes the mistake. They are making threats to retain their relevancy, purpose and autonomy. They’re also being used themselves for political purposes.

    The anti-Russian rhetoric must also be considered. The Eastern ‘pivot’ you recently described is overdue. That will have a huge impact upon the intelligence operation of the CIA, which has cultivated fear and loathing of Russia for many, many years. This is reason enough for the CIA to be used against the (s)Election results, but undoubtedly, there are others.

    This will all go away (most likely), but will simmer in the minds of the deluded class that this is yet another stolen (s)Election. If it doesn’t go away (because anything can happen), it will go down very badly. For all of us.

    I am not concerned about any of this. It’s fluff for the brain-dead masses who still remain too stupid to realize that they were “cheated” long ago. If they push the issue, and gain the influence to swing the (s)Election, then there will be a terrifying reality check as Americans reach for their guns. There will be blood (theirs) and they seem to be unaware of this fact.

    I do not support Trump, I have no vested interest of any kind in any of this. I’d rather avoid unnecessary violence, but these people are truly idiots and they don’t seem to understand what they are advocating for.

  69. MojaveWolf

    Re: Hacked elections, in general — The best way to prevent hacked elections and disputes over whether an election was hacked or not is to switch over to hand marked, hand counted paper ballots.

    If someone supports this switchover going forward, I’m your ally on this even if we disagree about everything else.

    If someone does not support this switchover, but is complaining about hacking, I figure they just don’t like who won and don’t really care about election integrity, and are hypocrites who would be fine with hacking if their person had won.

    Same with disenfranchisement–yes, it is a problem. Yes, it was a problem in this election. But anyone supporting the dem primary result as valid who complains about disenfranchisement of voters in the general is either ignorant or a huge hypocrite. How about electing politicians who actually care about making things better, and are basically fair-minded people, and working to defeat those who aren’t?

  70. Ché Pasa

    The winning side (or “side”) in our electoral pageants generally doesn’t care how they win. We saw how Democrats ignored and dismissed the complaints of electoral fraud during the primaries, just as Trump and his loyalists denounce and dismiss the questions raised about the general election outcome.

    Electoral fraud of various kinds has been part of the process of US elections from the beginning. There should be little doubt of fraud in this year’s general election. It’s part of the process.

    Prior to the general election, you may recall, there were accusations from both the Trump and Hillary campaigns that the election was being tampered with, she loudly complaining of “Russian” interference, he assuring his loyalists that the election was “rigged.” This was the mantra of each campaign leading up to election day.

    Well, yes. Interference, rigging, tampering with elections is a well-known and well-honed practice in the United States. There’s nothing new or unusual about it.

    This time, though, there was to be an additional layer of protection — DHS and affiliated agencies would monitor the election and protect against outside interference — foreign or domestic.

    Oh? Really? And how exactly would they do that? Well, they have ways, don’t they? And if they have ways to prevent interference, they can most certainly have ways to interfere themselves. Not that they would, of course. They only interfere in foreign elections.

    Questions about the electoral process were relegated to the fringe, a boutique issue of a few malcontents and radicals at best, as the main candidates dropped their claims of rigging and Russian interference in the aftermath of the surprising outcome. The election protectors announced they found no interference in the general election itself. The issue was supposed to be dropped and never mentioned again as all sides in the pageant publicly accepted the announced outcome — regardless of how that outcome was reached.

    The recount efforts were undertaken by the Stein campaign (with funding, they said, from over 140,000 small contributors and a handful of maximum contributions of $2,700 each, not the multi-billionaire funders allegedly backing the effort.)  Though incomplete, the recount efforts showed conclusively that it is manifestly impossible to verify the vote and the integrity of the electoral process in the states facing recount. The outcome must be taken on faith. There is no way to be sure the reported results genuinely reflect the acts and will of the voters. This is true no matter who is declared the winner.

    The pre-election claims of rigging and Russian interference were dropped in the immediate aftermath of the election, but the Russian interference claims are being revived by part of the intelligence community on a shaky and disputed basis and they are being retailed through leaks to media. False claims about illegal voting are retailed through the Twitter machine. On the other hand, effective voter suppression is largely ignored by both contending factions.

    Efforts to convince the Electoral College to elect someone other than Trump, or to elect no one and send the matter to the House and Senate are an interesting if doomed wrinkle, and there’s at least some talk of getting the courts involved in re-determining the outcome.

    All this is shadowplay. There is something else going on between the factions of the ruling clique. The election is not resolved among them. Until it is, the situation will continue to destabilize and quite likely will crash with unpredictable results. Another coup is more than possible and may be under way.

    It’s not as if Americans haven’t faced similar crises in the recent past.

  71. okanogen

    If in a perfectly legal process, the electoral college decides not to elect Trump, for whatever reason, or no reason at all, that is clearly NOT “illegitimate”. In fact, that is the very essence of legitimacy, it is in the Constitution of the United States.

    Would it be “unfair”? Possibly. But how would that be more “unfair” than having your candidate win the popular vote by nearly 3 million people, but still have the other candidate win the Presidency due to that exact electoral college system?

    Regarding whether Russia hacked the US election, well, every single US agency agrees on that and despite the conspiracy theories, they wouldn’t be putting this out there so publicly if they didn’t have VERY clear information on that. Certainly people want specifics, and certainly chief among those people are the hackers themselves, who would like to close off any vulnerabilities in their work. Specifics publicly released? Not going to happen.

    Has the US done the same thing? Certainly. So? That doesn’t mean we roll over on our bellies and take it to atone for our sins. Tens of millions of people’s lives are at stake. So is climate change, and a host of other issues. If Donald Trump’s election proves to be illegitimate in the eyes of, what would work out to be HIS OWN SUPPORTERS (the electors), then that should be good enough for anybody who counts themselves an American. If they go to civil war over that, then it was just a matter of time.

  72. SA

    Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. So far, there is none. Therefore, going with the unproven assumption “that they must have evidence” is simply false. The straw argument that the “hackers want proof” is quite ridiculous, but making the evidence public is certainly not. Nothing less then publicly provided proof is less then acceptable as in the case of all evidence. So far, there is none, therefore, the claims are bogus. You can conjur up as many connespiracies as you like to suit your own ends, but that does not make any of them true.

  73. anonymous coward

    I think it’s worth remembering that CIA, as everyone following the news lately will know, is fighting a hot war – described by some as WWIII. They are therefore on a war footing, directing bloody conflicts across the Mid East and Ukraine. There is a real war on against Russia and its allies, Syria et al., even if the US denies a war exists and pretends that it is not leading the other side. In wartime, even in the best of wars, propagandistic claims against The Enemy are our daily bread. Outright lies about our evil enemy are justified as good, because the end is good. CIA is so wrapped up in the red mists of war right now that they back jihadi freebooters in Syria against other rebel groups currently backed by our uniformed military. This being their mindset of late you wouldn’t wonder if they sometimes -oh, i dunno- exaggerate a teeny bit about their global opponents. You might even go so far as to wonder if they are not out of control, and are just going rogue, saying and doing their own thing, out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct.

    Other agencies are not directly involved in this shooting war the way CIA is, and they don’t seem to share the certainty being pushed by Langley in blockbuster headlines through the usual mouthpieces.

  74. okanogen

    As much as you may want them to, the CIA, NSA, FBI and other entities are not going to provide specific evidence to the general public that will expose their methods and measures and compromise their sources and means of acquiring intelligence.

    Won’t happen.

    Now, they will provide that information to people who have the proper classifications and have a need to know. You can choose to trust those people or not, and half of them at least will be Republicans.

    That is up to you.

  75. XFR

    Regarding whether Russia hacked the US election, well, every single US agency agrees on that and despite the conspiracy theories, they wouldn’t be putting this out there so publicly if they didn’t have VERY clear information on that. Certainly people want specifics, and certainly chief among those people are the hackers themselves, who would like to close off any vulnerabilities in their work. Specifics publicly released? Not going to happen.

    The term “tin-hatter” entered the popular discourse as a term of derision for those who thought–for good reason, given the poor quality of the evidence presented–that the U.S. government was lying about Iraq’s weapons program. To suggest that American officials would lie about so grave a matter was self-evidently crazy, after all.

    How did that work out?

    Backing up…

    If in a perfectly legal process, the electoral college decides not to elect Trump, for whatever reason, or no reason at all, that is clearly NOT “illegitimate”. In fact, that is the very essence of legitimacy, it is in the Constitution of the United States.

    But if the reason is obvious bunkum, then the legitimacy of the process really is undermined. The restrictions on ballot access now effectively make it impossible for an outsider candidate to get in without running for a mainline party. If party insiders can throw a maverick candidate out for obviously bogus reasons, then the U.S. would effectively be coming out as an authoritarian oligarchy run by the party establishments.

    It would be almost tantamount to a one-party state, seeing as the two party establishments act as one to repel outsider candidates, and will even rally behind an “opposing” candidate, when one of “their own” candidates is an outsider (cf. Ned Lamont.)

    Would it be “unfair”? Possibly. But how would that be more “unfair” than having your candidate win the popular vote by nearly 3 million people, but still have the other candidate win the Presidency due to that exact electoral college system?

    Winning with a minority of the vote is also possible in Parliamentary systems. It’s odd when it happens, but it’s not usually regarded as undermining the legitimacy of the result.

    Has the US done the same thing? Certainly. So? That doesn’t mean we roll over on our bellies and take it to atone for our sins.

    But since the U.S. has denounced other governments as illegitimate simply because they objected to real, rather than fantastical, interference of this sort…

    Tens of millions of people’s lives are at stake. So is climate change, and a host of other issues.

    So far the Democrats I’ve seen clamboring for this have been almost unanimously in favor of the EC installing a “generic” Republican in place of Trump.

    Trump is essentially a “generic” Republican minus warmongering minus austerity.

    So if a “generic” Republican is what they’re screaming for it’s pretty obvious just what issues are truly dear to their hearts.

  76. XFR

    You can choose to trust those people or not, and half of them at least will be Republicans.

    Do you honestly imagine that readers of this blog would tend to be more inclined to trust Republicans?

  77. XFR

    Further on the “Clinton won the popular vote!” issue, voter turnout was extremely low this cycle and it seems very likely that many people in “safe” states declined to vote if they thought their preferred candidate was likely to win. So it’s not reasonable to use the popular vote total as indicative of the desires of the electorate. You might say “well those people should have voted anyway” but you can’t just suddenly move the goalposts after 200 years of the using same system and yell “HA HA! PSYCH!”

    (And the last time I checked, Clinton won a plurality of the popular vote, not a majority…and seeing as we’re playing “what-if”, anyway, most direct presidential election systems nowadays hold run-offs when there is no majority winner. How do you know Trump wouldn’t have won the run-off? Or if there were ranked ballots, how many would have put Trump as there 2nd-ranked choice? You’re cherry-picking the “what if” scenario that puts your candidate ahead and ignoring the ones that don’t.)

  78. XFR

    Pff. “…not reasonable to regard the popular vote total…”

  79. Charlie Dozen

    XFR wrote:

    “voter turnout was extremely low this cycle”

    Voter turnout in presidential elections:

    1984: 53,27%
    1988: 50,15%
    1992: 55,24%
    1996: 49,00%
    2000: 51,21%
    2004: 56,70%
    2008: 58,23%
    2012: 54,87%

    These figures are from the FEC, which measures turnout in percentage of the voting-age population. (One may encounter different figures where turnout is measured in relation to those eligible to vote (which of course makes more sense).)

    For 2016, turnout (using the FEC definition) looks to be somewhere close to 55%, or about the same as in 2012.

    Now of course turnout in US elections is very low, but contrary to XFR’s claim the 2016 election doesn’t particularly stand out.

    This “turnout is down” talking point emerged in the days after the election from people who simply didn’t understand they were looking at incomplete counts.

  80. Ché Pasa

    Votes are still being counted. The likely ultimate turnout may reach 58% or 59%, still low by international standards, but comparable to 2012. Turnout has hovered between 50%-60% since early 1900s. It’s pitiful, but if voters don’t see any point in voting, there could be a reason. Might even be intentional…

  81. XFR

    I stand corrected on that point.

    55% is still too low a turnout to use the extant popular vote as a useful gauge of how people would have voted in a direct election though.

    It’s pitiful, but if voters don’t see any point in voting, there could be a reason.

    Both candidates were pretty awful from the standpoint of the average citizen and people in “safe” states had no a priori reason to make the effort to turn out?

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