The recent Buzzfeed kerfuffle made me question some fundamental assumptions we are making in our house.
Of course, in this house we think Trump is guilty (guilty guilty guilty, as they said in Watergate). However, I did react to the initial Buzzfeed accusations by calling for evidence, which didn’t go over too well with Gary.
“EVIDENCE? HE IS GUILTY WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?”
And then, of course, Mr. Mueller stepped in and flopped an icy wet blanket over all the impeachment talk.
It made me think – and question – why are we so sure, in lieu of evidence, that he did something underhanded to win the election, like conspiring with Putin?
Like the conspiracy theories that still bedevil the Kennedy assassination: it’s unthinkable that something so earthshaking could happen if there wasn’t an earthshaking cause.
Some pipsqueak murders a president? No way, had to be the Russians/Mafia/CIA.
Some pipsqueak becomes president? No way, had to be the Russians.
Scary thoughts. Can’t talk about them with Gary, though. Not going to be a happy house here for the next few years.
11 responses to “This Russia Thing with Trump and Russia”
Well, there is the whole “did definitely use targeted ads on Facebook like ‘She doesn’t deserve your [minority] vote’ as a legal form of voter suppression” thing. and there’s quite a lot of well-documented interactions between Interesting Russian People and Trump’s Campaign People and that probably should not have happened so much. and there’s the publicly asking Russia to hack Clinton thing (I still can’t believe that’s legal, but apparently it was?).
I don’t know exactly what the totality is of what has happened, obviously, but I think it’s generally reasonable to assume that if we know about a *bunch* of questionable things that were done (and denied and taken as a great insult, and then later admitted with assertions similar to there’s-no-problem-with-that-everyone-does-that-why-are-you-pretending-that’s-bad), then it seems plausible for there to be more. It’s *possible* there isn’t anything more, and whether any of the “more” technically falls under “illegal” (well, say, more illegal than the campaign contribution stuff) is uncertain, and can’t be fully pursued until there is evidence (unless they went for the insanity not-exactly-impeachment option, which has some appeal as a “this is not acceptable behavior for a sane human” statement, although it would be tough to pick exactly *which* outright lies and factual flip-flops and such to mention as grounds).
I guess: I think it is reasonable, if you have, say, a housekeeper who you have discovered has repeatedly pilfered a bunch of quarters from a change jar in your house, to be fairly confident that this housekeeper might also pilfer dollar bills from your house, if there’s a situation where they’re sufficiently unlikely to be noticed. *But* you can’t legally charge the housekeeper with pilfering things you don’t have any evidence of the housekeeper pilfering, and that is as it should be. (but you can probably fire the housekeeper, which is where this analogy breaks down. Sigh.)
So, to some degree, I share your discomfort with this situation. Whether someone is guilty of something specific or not does not depend on whether we like or dislike them. Whether we feel someone is *probably* guilty of something specific, based on other definite known behavior… that gets stickier. But we still can’t convict them of something specific without the evidence of that something specific, and really, we ought to want to keep it that way? (while, ideally, not further destabilizing the country/world/environment)
And at this very moment the U.S. is using an electoralist pretext as the pivot of a deliberate and depraved policy to foment social collapse and civil war in Venezuela. No country since WWII has been such a dedicated or effective enemy of popular self-determination worldwide as the United States, not by a mile. The list of Latin American interventions alone is as long as your arm, if you have a really long arm.
The U.S. murders people who don’t vote how we want. But Trump playing footsie with Putin for Facebook memes is some grave crisis of government? It’s comic opera. I’d laugh if the whole spectacle weren’t so grotesque.
KC – I’m uncomfortable when Gary insists that being one degree of separation from a Russian is evidence of a high crime. Now that Russia is doing business with the world, I would be right there doing deals with them too, were I a businessman. Political lobbying deals strike me as skeevy, though. I keep using the rule where you put your favorite politician in place of Trump. Obama and Clinton could owe millions to the Russian banks, and I’d raise an eyebrow, but I wouldn’t call in the FBI. Of course, it doesn’t feel good to play fair.
Michael – Venezuela took me by surprise last night. And Gary woke me up this morning to tell me Marco Rubio says we plan to steal their oil. Blatant. But is blatant better? I feel that it is, somehow, at least other countries will know who “we” are.
Uh, if Obama or Clinton owed millions to any other country’s banks (while they were in a substantial international negotiating position, that is; probably not now?), I’d be asking the FBI to check into things. Hundreds or thousands, probably not, but millions, uh, hello, yes.
I also am of the opinion that if a businessman wants to be in a political position where he would substantially have power to influence business deals, he should take that time off from doing business deals (outside of a very limited scope; want to buy a different vacation cabin, fine) and also recuse himself from anything government-related that has to do with his former business deals/partners/associates. But those are “shoulds” not “it is illegal not to” things. (But president is a full-time job working for this particular nation and, to a lesser degree, for the world. Not first for yourself and then maybe a little bit for America. There should be non-compete agreements or something. 😉 )
KC – Well, okay, that was a bad analogy, but I stand behind my point that I need to be equitable. What’s sauce for the reprehensible toilet brush President is sauce for the decent human President.
Yes, it’s important to be equitable!
There’s this thing people do sometimes where they say “well, we ought to be fair” and therefore throw out the context in this “I’m sure there were faults on both sides [implicitly: fault is evenly distributed between both sides]” weird *thing* – and I felt like that was important to avoid in this case as well (because truth is a good thing, and getting muddled about demonstrated-true/demonstrated-false/unproven is *easy* when people all over the place are persistently trying to change the terms of engagement) which is why I sort of pushed back.
However, from what I generally see around, I think the “it’s important to be equitable” reminder (that whole “love your neighbor as yourself” and also “love your enemies” thing… sanctification over here is not complete, although assisted progress has been made…) is probably rather more important in this case, so thank you for that. 🙂
(also: does your reference imply that all presidents should be immersed in a bleach solution once a month or so? It would be fascinating to see if that reduced the field of candidates for the position, and if so, in what ways…)
KC – Well, Justice Brandeis said “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants,” so maybe just tie them to lawn chairs in the White House vegetable garden instead.
Yes, it is actually quite weird how good of a disinfectant sunlight is, but that’s mostly because of the UV rays and them killing things, from what I understand? But I still bet Required Sunbathing would be a whole lot more popular rule than Strong Bleach Solution Dunking, even with the potential increased risk from skin cancer. and you could look at the nice garden while you’re doing it, if the lawn chair you’re handcuffed to was pointed the right way!
KC -I worry the FBI might view this as a threat.
I assume that sort of thing would have to go in the contract (or whatever) that they sign on becoming president, rather than something that could be applied retroactively, and hence would not be threatening to any existing individual? But who knows what the FBI would think. (if I were in charge of adding things to presidential contracts, I’d have more “must not financially benefit at the cost of the US, aside from salary received” stuff in there and less of focus on literal sanitary measures, honestly. But it was an entertaining thought engendered by the toilet brush question.)
KC – we could have a Toilet Brush rider to the oath of office.