Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Russia and the Election: an Interesting Thought

An interesting thought, from New Yorker editor David Remnick.

Remnick suggests that the Russians were not trying to make Donald Trump president. They wanted to destabilize the Hillary Clinton presidency that they thought they would be dealing with.

The Editor of The New Yorker says that the Russians weren't trying to aid Trump's campaign; he says they were trying to destabilize Hillary's inevitable Presidency. His contention is that, like everyone in the media, the Russians thought that Secretary Clinton was going to be the 45th President, and the hacks and leaks they released were in the hopes of damaging her leadership. He says that the Russians are actually now fearful of Trump's off-the-cuff attitudes and that "there's a lot of buyer's remorse." This totally flies in the face of the liberal narrative, that the Russians essentially put President Trump into the Oval Office.

At the least, Remnick has given us another reading of the situation, one that effectively makes more sense than the standard narrative.

2 comments:

  1. Certainly it makes sense - they wished to weaken the expected winner of a foreign election. They didn't even need to originate most of the fake news, even if they did their share.

    And a two-fer here - now they benefit by the rumors of their influencing the election for Trump, making it easier for America to stay divided. A win-win for the chaos makers.

    And the more America looks corrupt and bought by the wealthy, the less Russian Citizens will complain about their kleptocracy, so win-win-win! This is probably the smallest benefit since the Russians have long been cynics, but every little bit counts.

    Sure, Trump is not Russia's literal puppet, golden shower video tapes not withstanding, but certainly Exxon is happy that they can finally start drilling in their economically frozen Russian contracts.

    Spring is finally here for Exxon at least! Its not like they're making any money in US fracking. Finally Exxon can stop buying back shares. This is from a year ago at least. Its investment time, and there are Russian Billionaires to pay off!

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2016/02/02/exxon-ends-share-buybacks-it-must-be-acquisition-time
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    As CEO Rex Tillerson said in a statement Tuesday, “The scale and diversity of our cash flows, along with our financial strength, provide us with the confidence to invest through the cycle to create long-term shareholder value.”
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  2. Yes, an interesting take: our foreign adversaries seek to shape our elections to serve their interests.

    Kind of like what we've recently done in Israel and France.

    Shocker.

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