Three Questions for Left Wing, Russian Collusion Believing ATSers:

originally posted by: Konduit
a reply to: ErrorErrorError

I don't think Trump is any less qualified than a community organizer from Illinois who only served 300 days in session as a senator.

Trump didn't get elected because he is a politician, he got elected because he wasn't. He is the blowback against a political establishment that had become too full of themselves and stopped serving the people they claimed to represent.

Well, the question was why the "left" believed in Russian collusion not your wet dreams about Trump.
I don't care why some uneducated white American hick voted on Trump, but rather why Russia would want someone like Trump in the White House.
Trump and Tillerson are a trainwreck for US foreign relations, Putin probably felt like he won a lottery after Trump got elected.

a reply to: ConscienceZombie

You left. Ruined your own political party and got your opposition into office. It wasn't the Russians or some foreign government. It was you and your ignorance. Nothing more nothing less. Stop whining. Sort yourself out. Regroup. And get your # together. F'ing children.

Very astute observation.
Too bad they will not listen; they hear you, but they will not listen.

a reply to: OtherSideOfTheCoin

Excellent response. Just what I was looking for. Thank you.

Now I have a couple questions about your theory. I agree with you about russia wanting to influence elections (what country doesn't) and it's a reasonable assumption that they tried to do that. How trump is involved is where I get lost.

1. The Russian government believed that Trump would have views that are in line with the interests of the Russian state and as such they believed that his rise to power would be hugely beneficial to them.
and
2. The Russian government believed that Trump would be massively damaging to the united states and thus weaken their old enemy from within with out Russia having to do any more than ensure he got into power.

This doesn't address trumps involvement. Was he simply aware that they wanted him in power, nothing nefarious? While I would normally take exception with some of the assumptions you've made here, it really isn't the point of my questions to get into that.

3. There was a deal of some sorts, we will give you the dirt on the Democrats in return when or if you get into power we want you to do x, y and z for us

Ok, but where's the evidence of this? Don't take that the wrong way, what I'm getting at is why do you believe this to be a possibility?

4. This one is most disturbing, I believe it is also possible that Russia may have compromising information on Trump and as such are able to exert blackmail over the President, thus essentially giving the Russian state control over the United States through a proxy. Essentially this would be a covert coup of America by Russia, they very worst case.

While this would certainly be alarming, wouldn't this be pretty easy to overcome? I mean, most people are able to be blackmailed because they would lose everything if the truth came out. Trump is already financially secure. His businesses aren't going anywhere, and if they did, he could simply sell the assets beneath them and let his kids start a new empire. So how would this blackmail work? I mean, if trump says, "nah putin I'm not doing what you want" what happens to trump? He loses re-election? Big deal, and as we saw with hillary, people have short memories. And really, trump could spin this into a positive. Come out with the information yourself and play the victim. This gives you ample reason to really ramp up pressure on Russia (which is what you'd want to do to your blackmailers).

Mike Flyn already very close to Trump has had to quit office because of his dealings with the Russians

Why do you believe that is the reason he was fired over the stated reason of lying to the president/vice president about what was discussed in the meeting?

even just today we have heard that Trumps son-in-law met with a Russian lawyer who was discussing compromising information relating to Clinton.

That's not the story I have heard. The story I've seen is that he was willing to meet with a russian lawyer discussing such information. Everything I've heard says that the meeting was actually about russian adoption rules in the US. Which was disappointing to the attendees.

I believe that the collusion that took place was in the Russians providing information to the Trump campaign to weaken the Clinton camp and that the Russians deliberately targeted Clinton to boost support for Trump.

Ok, so why is this problematic? I mean, it may not be the best thing in the world to do, but is it unethical or illegal?

I dont think that Trump is really the bad guy in all of this, I believe its the Russians.

Basically you think trump was victim (possibly a willing victim), correct?

I really appreciate your response. It's well thought out and it actually makes some sense.

a reply to: JoshuaCox

Another good response. Thank you.

That said, I do think it's fair to say it is false, if trump never drops sanctions and does give Ukraine weapons..

I appreciate a reasonable assessment like this and I would concur.

The GOP senate has been pushing for trump to increase Russian sanctions. Assuming they are not just "for show" sanctions, then that's at least revealing..

If trump vetos then it looks shady, if he doesn't it makes him look innocent.. nothing definative either way but telling.

Very honest interpretation. As it is in the house, many house members think this unnecessarily ties trump's hands. I mean, imagine he's not a russian puppet for a minute and think about what damage it does to our relations. But yes, the public perception will be that a veto is shady and passing is innocence.

On Flynn: I don't buy that Flynn did that independently, which is trumps claim. Flynn hasn't even been actually hired yet, and took it upon himself to make that call?!?!

Sure it's possible, but I don't think it is likely.. I think assuming he just took it upon himself is the leap.. the most likely is trump told him to.

I think we're approaching this from different points of trust (unerstandable in politics) so I'm not sure we can push the flynn thing any further onto common ground.

For example earlier I forgot to mention that roger stone knew about the leak early and wiki leaks swears it didn't come from them.

Ok, but why is this important. Could he not have been in contact with someone at wikileaks? I mean, at this point in the campaign the DNC hacks had already been realeased. It would be logical for stone to be in contact with wikileaks trying to find out if they had more information they could release. Also, what do you make of the stone firing/quitting? To this day, trump disagrees with stone about what he says are the reasons he no longer worked with Trump.

Then there is trumps only change to the GOP party platform being not giving Ukraine weapons.. he didn't address taxes or trade or
Immigration.. nor any of the far more relevant things he doesn't agree with the GOP.. why was Ukraine his only change???

So I had never really heard this allegation before and just accepted it to be true but I looked it up and here's the platform language about russia-ukraine:
"We support maintaining and, if warranted, increasing sanctions, together with our allies, against Russia unless and until Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity are fully restored. We also support providing appropriate assistance to the armed forces of Ukraine and greater coordination with NATO defense planning."

How is that weak?

There are a dozen little tidbits that I think point to that as the logical conclusion..

but upon inspection very few of these tidbits you've given so far really hold up well. I mean, independently they're tainted by the color of glasses your wearing, they're very subjective (like the flynn thing). In my mind it makes perfect sense that flynn told the russian ambassador he could get sanctions lifted (believing he'd have sway as nat sec advisor) then when asked by pence about it, he said he hadn't made any promises, then the tape comes out proving he lied. I'd fire him. Not because he talked to russia, nor because he made a promise, but because he directly lied to my number two about it. I can't trust him.

The reason I doubt the Flynn story is as I've mentioned, I don't think almost ANYONE would assume they could make that decision with out trumps ok.

but as you pointed out, flynn wasn't even hired yet. So why would he need trump's ok?

2) We have a visible quid pro quo trail that hasn't 100% manifested, but is obviously half way there and we get to track to completion one way or the other.

I would only take exception with calling it a quid pro quo trail. It's just as possible that the russians preferred trump and did everything in their power to get him elected, while having no meaningful contact with trump.

A) Hillary is secretly running an elite pedo ring out of a pizza shop and has had dozens of people killed!!

The clinton body count is staggering. I can admit that it may be like six degrees from kevin bacon though.

Now what is more believable??

I find none of it very believable. Fun conspiracies to think about maybe, but actually true, highly unlikely.