When will democratic voters understand that Bernie Sanders is poison? He organized the greatest NON-VOTER contingent in the 2016. He promised his young immature, but voting age followers that life under his presidency would cost them nothing: It was the milk and cookies their moms had waiting for them when they returned home each day from grade school. The man misled them and in their immaturity when Bernie knew Trump was a real threat, he said to his followers: OK changed my mind, we MUST VOTE for Hillary. Too late. He had conditioned his base to hate Hillary. That base of children had a tantrum: Bernie or nobody. And now they have Trump. And if Bernie gets anywhere near the 2018 midterms or 2020 presidential race he should be sent home to Vermont along with his status as an Independent.
10
Let me start by simply seconding Noam Chomsky assertion, on both counts: (1) in the past America was known for its maverick/hypocritical demeanor, now it is gaining a reputation for bad-loser / laughingstock. (2)America has been putting its finger in the proverbial of other nations, and now that opportunistically somebody has fingered it, the ultra-nationalists are calling FAUL.
However, Mr Klion, glibly or slyly, in the last paragraph fingers the demagogues of the world, forgetting that America has been a WORLD CLASS demagogue for acorrupt democracy at home and a champion of TOTALLY CORRUPT DEMOCRACIES abroad.
4
This exercise in contorted logic definitely proves that a journalist with a mission (in this case to follow NY Times editorial policy to discredit Trump) can come up with a contorted argument to prove just about anything. So, in this case .... even though as the objective and worldly thinkers and Sanders supporters in the beginning of the piece conclude - that continuing on a witch hunt to prove that Russia tried to "influence" the US election and that perhaps some on Trump's team talked to them is a distracting and trivial waste of time given that all nations attempt to some extent to influence politics in other nations to their benefit ... This author then proposes that this never ending investigation is somehow the magic wand necessary to correct all the many things wrong with the world that he lists in the second half of this piece. Not likely! This is yet one of the many 'dreams' that the democratic party is so adept at fantasizing into existence in order to distract from its own incompetence and complicity in creating the many problems American and other nations' citizens suffer from.
8
The Russian involvement in our election is just one symptom of far bigger problems. Americans with Russian values are a far bigger problem. These values include using disinformation and secrecy to hide the realities of power, putting money and wealth above all, scapegoating and stirring up antagonisms to confuse and wear down opponents, and letting the end of power justify all means.
Depending on how Russia is dealt with, the Russian investigation may help deal with these problems or distract from them. The central problem is not that the Russians intervened and interfered with our election, but rather that it was possible for actions like theirs to be effective, whether it was them or other forces who engaged in these actions.
6
David Klion:
You make generalizations about Sanders Supporters. I supported Senator Sanders last year and continue to do so. I also hope that whatever can be uncovered about what happened in the election last year that involved the Russians be uncovered so that it can be avoided next year and in 2020. The three writers that you cite as evidence of your claim are just three people, and their arguments do not claim that the current investigations are worthless and irrelevant. One can find "true believers" within any political party or following any political personality.
As a Sanders supporter I am patiently waiting to see just what Mueller's team is able to uncover and present to the American Public. Maybe there will be provable wrongdoing. Maybe not. Meanwhile, one might say that your article is a bit of propagandistic misdirection. There's certainly a lot of it out there.
10
Please show me one shred of hard evidence that Russia meddled in our election. Opinion aired on facebook does not qualify as evidence of such a conspiracy. It is amazing to me how this country can still propagate "the big lie" so effectively. It further astounds me how easily a huge segment of the population can be so easily influenced.
9
Look up the Steele Dossier. It's all right there in black & white, clear as crystal.
2
Some Sanders supporters developed an irrational Hillary hatred, evidence that they were taken in by the Russian/Trump propaganda.
10
Not really.
12
David, thank you for this most informative piece.
I am an outsider (an Australian citizen) but I am simply gobsmacked to learn that getting to the bottom of the allegations of Russian involvement in the American Presidential elections (and god knows what else), is not only not a priority, but not a high priority, for the left in America.
I know that the issues which the left are focused on are important, but surely they can 'think and chew gum at the same time'? We should all be fighting Trump and his ilk on as many fronts as is reasonably possible.
6
When you investigate both parties for collusion with global billionaires to dictate our elections and steal our assets, let us know. Until then it is politics as usual while billionaire power brokers wrestle for control of our purse.
12
Putin has managed to infiltrate our consciousness. The "progressive" left have allowed the hard-right to co-opt once valid criticism of US actions to undermine our national security and play into Putin's hand.
2
Why?
Because the smell of desperation in blaming Russia for all our woes is palpable. This country especially, along with many others has interfered in numerous others' political affairs. For decades.
The US Endowment for Democracy was set up in the 1980s by the CIA to do exactly the things that the Russians are accused of now - subverting elections, supporting opposition groups, destabilising governments. The EU's Eastern Partnership used most of its 600 million Euro budget on trying to build support for EU membership in the former Soviet republics.
When decades of failed domestic and foreign policy yield an unexpected election result and put an orange ignoramus in the White House it can't possibly years of political mistakes at home, no, it must be the Russians.
Because after a year of obsessing about 'The Russians', the best they have is 'increasingly likely'. A senate committee has yet to bring a single shred of hard evidence. It starts to look to be the goto bunch of sour grapes for those denied the victory to which they felt entitled.
Russia didn't make Hillary an awful candidate. She did that all on her own.
The most interesting part of the current anti-Russia hate and fear campaign in western media and political discourse is that it makes a definite turn in imperial ideology from offense to defense.
The ruling class no longer control the entire narrative to justify their interference in other countries.
Hence the crackdown on RT and alternative media on social media.
12
Sorry but rather 5han nothing, we have three indictments and one guilty plea. don't you guys in Russia get the news. it has been a very short time since Mueller was appointed. Three indictments would be great progress, but a gulity plea with a cooperative perp means the grand juries are starting to deliver
7
@ kevin. wires
"you guys in Russia".
Classy.
None of the indictments were related to 'collusion'.
6
Poli Sci 401: Arrogance and Elitism in the Democratic Party
Case study (I am translating): Listen up Bernie Sanders supporters, because I am talking. Normal Democrats are not arguing with you. We are explaining why we are correct.
8
It realize Noam Chomsky is the holy grail to some, but I'm one old, liberal Democrat who doesn't put much stock in what he says. I eagerly voted for Bernie in the Primary, and voted for Clinton later, and I'm absolutely concerned about the Russia investigation, and so are my liberal friends, here in very red Idaho!
11
"Why Don’t Sanders Supporters Care About the Russia Investigation?"
Because Israel, Saudi Arabia, China, and others also influence our elections.
Because we should focus on fair, transparent elections. We need paper ballots, or open source machines, audits, recounts, open primaries, etc
Because the big banks and the .1% continue to fleece us and the political elite of both parties is complicit
Because, despite real evidence, nobody is investigating the DNC rigging the primaries
Because we shouldn't blindly trust our intelligence agencies (CIA, NSA, FBI) since they've lied to us before, repeatedly (WMDs, domestic surveillance etc.)
Because this is a huge distraction while the wealthy get a tax cut and the estate tax repealed, the already terrible healthcare aka RomneyCare gets even worse, the military budget gets an $80 billion dollar increase supported by both parties, lax bank and media regulations become even laxer, the same old political crowd that brought us the Donald mess are still running the show (Nancy, Chuck, Diane etc.), and American military presence spreads ever more across the globe.
Because it's absolutely plausible that the corrupt Dems and hacks like Podesta and Mook, who repeatedly smeared and lied about Bernie, would use Russia and Trump try to deflect from their own shortcomings
Because the US and global corporate oligarchy and the military-industrial-complex have a much bigger influence on democracy in America than Russia
etc.
HRC lost for other reasons.
19
Has it occurred to you that Americans care more about what happens in America? We control our fate. We decide our destiny.
3
Anyone who believes hat the Russian investigation is irrelevant is a fool. It is a dangerous threat to the integrity of our election process and and the future of our democracy. The fact that congress continues to ignore it is nothing less than criminal.
6
This comment is entirely serious and sincere: maybe there weren't (and aren't) nearly as many Sanders supporters as claimed, and of the remainder a significant portion were actually Republican trolls and and an even larger portion Russian operatives.
Yes, I voted for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries.
7
As a Bernie supporter, and consumer of news from variable outlets, I have no idea what you are talking about. The only data out there to support the claim you're making is in the very Russian propaganda you claim to understand better than the dirty "Bernie people". You keep saying "Bernie supporters feel this way about x" without providing any kind of evidence to suggest such a bias. When you make a claim about a group, you need to back it up. If you can't, then recognize your bias and walk away.
The irony of this argument and the mountain of nonsense that has followed in the comments, is that the "Bernie bros" this crusade is using to characterize all Bernie supporters were literally fostered by the Russian meddling that we're talking about (yes, we're talking about it too). Part of Russia's influence campaign involved creating thousands of accounts and groups, many of which claimed to be pro-Bernie. They used these fakes to attack Hillary supporters over social media, literally creating the hostility that many claim to have felt from Bernie supporters during the campaign.
You can argue that Bernie's campaign hurt Hillary. You can even try to blame Bernie supporters for her loss, if you really want to turn a blind eye to everything else (including Russian interference, by the way). But you can't claim that we don't care about Russia. It's just not true. And it reveals that you understand less about Russian meddling than you think you do.
19
I was very much a Bernie supporter and still am. I think income inequality, college debt, access to health care, the environment, global warming, and quality infrastructure are important issues. I voted for Hillary and found Trump truly odious. During the 2016 elections I believed Hillary and our national intelligence reports that there was Russian meddling in the election. I feel it is now the single greatest challenge to our Democracy. I have had an ongoing argument with my mother about the Russian hacking of our election (and others) by using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, fake news web sites, and bots. She doesn't understand most of those things and can't believe that they had much effect. From news reports it is clear that Russia has made a large and effective investment to militarize social media marketing to disrupt Western democracies. The genius of this is that, at present, it is all legal. The weapon of the 21st century is not nuclear missiles, it is the internet. The algorithms that attract you to a site and keep you there by showing you provocative images ("click bait") and keep you there by continuing to show you text and images that align to your interests are being exploited not just by ad executives trying to get you to buy stuff, but by the Russian GRU. In short, I think that lack of alarm about the Russian hacking does not stem from allegiance to Bernie, but rather a generational lack of understanding of the technology being employed to hack our democracy.
8
It simply isn’t true that Sanders supporters don’t care about Russian interference. I am one, and I do. I think many others do. However, it is true that there are some on the left do dismiss the Russian interference issue. I have communicated with Glenn Greeneald and found him completely unreceptive to the notion that the intelligence community might be guilty of overreaching with respect to surveillance yet be correct about election interference. Further, he and others insist that pressing the issue risks another Cold War and nuclear annihilation when Trump’s irresponsiblity with respect to North Korea represents a far greater risk. Chomsky will not even respond to questions. To me, this is simply a grudge by people whose views were totally shaped by the entire Snowden, affair. They also maintain their adoration of Julian Assange, who has revealed himself to be less than a neutral disseminator of useful information produced by whistleblowers and more of a kook with a chip on his shoulder and a personal agenda. Some of the greatest disappointments are William Binney and Ray McGovern who have used VIPS to deploy a half-baked theory that the DNC hack was an inside job. The attitude of The Nation is shaped by Katrina vanden Heuvel’s husband, Stephen Cohen, a lifelong Russian apologist. This attitude is more characteristic of those who are still fighting the intelligence community because of Snowden than of most Sanders supporters. It certainly doesn’t apply to me.
3
Many Sanders supporters are suspicious of corporate media, which has been leading a rant about Trump and Russia. Added to the daily rant is the drip-drip of crazy Trump tweets, which is also covered ad nauseum in the mainstream press. Every election is interpreted as Trump or anti-Trump referendum. Could anyone blame people who care about issues from tuning out?
8
This Independent held their nose (thought about going to the polls with a clothespin on my nostrils) and voted for Hillary . . . but I still have a Sanders sign in the front yard where it will remain until we get the self-serving greedy so-and-so's out of control of our nation and political parties (BOTH of them).
The NYT was in the bag for Clinton as early as she bought her control of the national party. In other words, well before the primaries even began.
This nation need in office intelligent people that are not after personal power and gain, but are instead dedicated to making the lives of our citizens better. Neither Trump nor Clinton fit that bill. As the NYT continues to slam Sanders supporters, this 65-year-old wonders what personal power and gain have been promised the editors, who continue to moan and bewail the election results (from ONE YEAR AGO) and slam progressives trying to work for the people.
18
To a great degree the sense that Sanders supporters were too unquestioning has become part of their persona in the minds of those who were skeptical about his platform — some great and even noble ideas, but whose going to pay for all of them, literally, and how was he going to get a Republican-controlled congress to do so. And there was genuine reason to wonder if his supporters understood the risks decisiveness regarding the primary process and then the campaign. The negative tone some complain about stems from questions about the rationality of these supporters in the face of facts and data. HRC may have been a problematic candidate, but her opponent was going to be and has confirmed he is an utter incompetent given to lying and angry narcissism.
There is little doubt that cooperating with Russia is well within the Trump persona of dishonesty whenever it's to his advantage and keeps his pathetic ego happy. Sanders supporters who failed to support HRC thus had a hand in enabling the incompetent-in-chief. They owe us their outrage at the meddling of Russia in our elections. All of them. If it's there, let us know.
Eclectic Pragmatism — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/
Eclectic Pragmatist — https://medium.com/eclectic-pragmatism
4
Trump wants dictatorial powers and is tweeting his wishes to the Justice Dept who may comply in terror from a ferocious vindictive ego maniac president. Trump wants to be America's Putin and our oligarchs will join him as their taxes including the estate tax repeal , Will the American people stand by and allow Trump to ram thru his dictatorial demands with the terrified GOP congress cowering in fear from those ferocious thumbs and the degrading nicknames that come with them, We shall see as this chaotic regime stumbles along,
1
Probably for the same reasons Hillary supporters didn't care when Debbie Wasserman-Schulz was exposed for rigging the DNC system in favor of HRC.
17
The reason Sanders supporters don't care about Russia is that they are the "left" wing version of Trump supporters. Mostly white and male - and then maybe that 54% of Trump white women equivalent who support them. In their own way - they are still living in 1950s America - and think about employment, race, class and gender the same way. They share the Trump fan's loathing of Hillary Clinton - a projection of their loathing of powerful women in general (the left has hundreds of Harvey Weinsteins, just like the right) and blame Hillary Clinton for anything possible. In fact, when the subject of Hillary Clinton comes up - the Sanders supporter is indistinguishable from the Trump supporter. Sanders eagerly throughout abortion rights component to being a progressive and many of his white bernie bros agreed, he wrote a disgusting rape fantasy essay in his 30s - not a peep about his gender issues from his supporters and of course drain the swamp - start with his wife's land dealings then and release his tax returns. Sadly, they don't care because they are just the Trumpists dressed as leftists.
9
I supported Sanders in the primary.
Anyone who doesn't care about this issue is blind. Trump may indeed have been in a conspiracy to accept help from Russia. Beyond that, Trump has the nuclear codes and has the sole authority to launch nuclear weapons, as we watch him trolling, insulting and blustering at Kim Jong-Un in a stupid display of macho. This is Trump in a nutshell - stupid insulting domineering machismo. Trump may blow his stack and cause millions of people to die. It would actually be a break for this country if Trump can be caught in a conspiracy to betray this country or in obstruction of justice. Anything that gets this ignorant vicious nut out of the White House should be supported - while we're all still alive to tell the tale.
4
Why Don’t New York Times Contributors Understand that Sanders Supporters Care About More Than One Thing Simultaneously (Including the Russia Investigation)?
13
They don’t care because they got played. Once Bernie’s trolls got rolling, all the Russians had to do was emulate.
7
IT's A TRAP! Bannon wants you to get "engaged" on this.
Maybe they trust Mueller's team to do their job and are waiting like everyone else should be.
4
The author has created a blatantly false narrative claiming supporters of Bernie Sanders don't care about Russian interference in American elections. I have to wonder if Mr. Klion is equally mistaken in the belief that progressive liberals don't read the New York Times.
10
Russian collusion with our nitwit President comes as no surprise, including to Sanders supporters. Stirring the Sanders pot doesn't absolve the DNC of its inability to win in 2016.
12
Nonsense.
I am an emphatic supporter of Bernie Sanders and I also wait with baited breath for the Mueller investigation to end with trump and the rest of his miscreants behind bars. Care? You bet!
The NYTs continues to do a disservice to Mr Sanders, and so it goes...
11
The DNC machine rigged their primaries in favor of Hillary. There is unassailable evidence of it. And you expect Sanders supporters to run full steam ahead with their support of an investigation that is primarily being driven by the very same crowd that orchestrated the rigging? Talk about naive expectations. If you place more faith in the honesty and good intentions either Democrats or Republicans then you're a fool.
13
Because most of the "Sanders supporters" we heard from were Russian bots or Trump trolls?
Why else would anyone on the left want a President to get a free pass to emulate Putin and use Russian interference to influence an election toward neo-fascism and oligopoly?
7
Treason. Plain and simple. They don’t care about an attack on America because someone they don’t like was affected. Imagine if will someone being ok with the terrorist chopping off American heads because one guy that got beheaded made speeches to Wall Street. Well that’s Bernie Bros. Except it’s not one person, it’s our entire democratic system. And they don’t care.
3
There is now a whole network of authoritarian right-wing parties that show an amazing degree of deference to Putin, from Austria's FPÖ (which officially signed a cooperation with Putin's party promising to educate the young generation "im Geiste von Patriotismus und Arbeitsfreude", in the spirit of patriotism and dedication to work) to Germany's AfD, France's FN, right-wing parties in most European countries, and then there's Trump. They all share the hatred for liberalism, for the institutions of liberal democracy, human rights, rule of law, freedom of the press, science and rationality. The left must be deeply concerned about this. Those on the left who flirt with the forces of illiberalism - or even naively embrace them as an alleged antidote to the evils of "neoliberalism" - will be judged harshly by history, just like the Communists of the 1920s and early 1930s who effectively helped the Nazis destroy the hated Weimar Republic, and then ended up murdered or imprisoned.
3
We do.
3
To say without the slightest evidence that Bernie supporters are cavalier regarding the impact of Russian meddling/aiding and abetting world class oligarchs like Putin and Trump is a disgraceful pseudo intellectual page of the NY Times. Only a Hillary ideologue would make such a claim.
11
The flaws in capitalism that are mentioned in the article are not just the fault of the republicans. The denizens of the DNC are just as culpable, if not more so. This article is another propaganda effort to further the cause of the DNC by apparently trying to debunk any criticism of the DNC excuses for their electoral loss. Their is no evidence of "meddling" in our elections other than opinion expressed on Facebook. The seeming corruption of Manafort and his ilk, if proved, will be just that, corruption. Despite all the propaganda surrounding this " investigation" of Russia you can't turn corrupt business practice into election manipulation, except through manipulative propaganda like this article. You have to love the NYt s portrayal of these business connections as a Russian conspiracy all the while soft pedaling the connections of the Clintons in the Uranium One scandal.
6
Klion's offers a distinctly leftist approach to Russia. He misses why leftists and Sanders supporters ignore Russia's meddling.
The left-wing American critics, Gessen & Chomsky, have narrow political minds. Chomsky once said Soviet citizens had better knowledge of their situation than Americans, because they knew all news was propaganda, whereas in the US news was considered reliable. So presumably he agrees it's all fake news now. Glenn Greenwald has no interest in Russian narratives, since he's Snowden's writing partner.
Sanders supporters, meanwhile, haven't come to terms with being manipulated by Moscow. In California, Sanders people went crazy after the primary, damning Clinton for voting irregularities, a charge many could't forgive last Nov. Now we know this primary was 1 of Putin's targets, a 'dry-run', voting mishaps his doing. To admit that would be to undermine a lot of passionate fury.
The Putin team also invented and peddled the idea that Clinton assassinated Sanders workers. These were distributed via Facebook and other platforms, and were very much believed. Another hard fact to swallow.
Finally, few Sanders supporters read Wikileaks releases in detail. Had they, it was actually rather mild. As Sanders said, plenty of his supporters imagined ways to undermine Clinton. There's a big difference between talking and acting.
Klion seems to want lefties to reassert their interests, instead of falling for Putin. Fine. But the headline promised something else.
2
LOL. Your grasp of what happened is laughable, if it weren't so sad.
4
I supported Bernie, but I find Putin and russia as detestable as trump and as turkey and erdogan. they are tyrants and bullies. yes there are some decent people in the US, in turkey, and even russia, but the large numbers who support these thugs are fools and worse.
Jill Stein was at the dinner table with Flynn and Putin.
Start there ...
3
WHY? Because she was in Russia on a peace mission? This Russain has got to stop. it is moronic and ridiculous.
4
This is a bogus claim, “The United States-led push for free trade and a globalized economy has resulted in vast, unaccountable flows of untaxed offshore wealth.“ Wealthy Americans have been hiding money offshore for a long, long time. Their efforts to do so have nothing to do with free trade or globalization policies. It’s just greed, and amorality. Why the author took a phony shot at globalization is baffling, and leads me to discredit his other points. Sloppy writing...
4
Probably because they're not as naive and unintelligent as the Hillary supporters. This Russia meddling business has the stink of political propaganda payback courtesy of the Democrats and their henchmen at the FBI.
8
There are no freebies to be had.
Unlike those afforded multi-national corporations and defense contractors?
2
weakest part of column is misleading headline. no factual predicate in column that it is Sanders supporters who dont care ...
7
Who says we're not interested? Wrong. Very interested, and worried that our corrupted system will bobble this, too, while we watch a child molester become a US Senator.
4
This article is a gobbledygook of nonsense designed to get you to think Millennials and other progressives don't care about their country. Or are somehow betraying their values. Don't be surprised when the 'woke' (as if they hadn't been paying attention) Millennials and progressives wipe the Baby Boomers and conservatives from office.
5
See, e.g. Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism.
The American left loved Stalin for a long time. The American left has a history of being infatuated with all things Russian. Mr. Trump just likes power, he has no ideology (apart possibly from profit). The US left ideologically supported the Soviet Union at times.
It may not be politically correct for them now, but it is in their blood.
4
Hmmm. Why don't they care? Because they're too busy rubbing their hands together in glee that HRC lost?
3
Nah, we're just happy we are vindicated in our claims of cheating. We also live under the specter of Trump and his insanity. And remember, before you blame Sander supporters for Trump, more Sanders supporters voted Hillary than Hillary supporters voted Obama by a factor of half.
2
I am a Bernie supporter and I am glad HRC lost, She would have been a disaster, but unlike the present calamity, she would have been sneaky about it as usual.
3
Kimberly: your claim thaat "more Sanders supporters voted Hillary than Hillary supporters voted Obama by a factor of half" is nuts.
Look at the primary results in BHO v. HRC. BHO prevailed extremely narrowly, far more narrowly than HRC prevailed over Sanders.
Were your claim true, BHO could not possibly have won the election.
1
How many angels fit on the head of a pin? While we endlessly debate Sanders/ Clinton, ...The Make America a Chaotic Mess , The Great destroyers, Trump and his merry band, They are unraveling the fabric of our democracy according to the blueprint given them by Putin. Just watch the deferential body language of Trumpy when dealing w Russians. He owes them something. Hold on to your constitutional rights, we are in for another scary year, or god forbid, 3 more
1
Grateful for the intelligent responses by Sanders supporters in the comments of this article.
I am canceling my NY Times subscription and this article is the catalyst. I expect more of my journalism and, though I had experience frustrating bias from the NY Times during the primary season, I still held it in high regard. But the prominence on their website that NY Times places this article seems bizarre to me because it seems so apparently inaccurate.
I haven't read an opinion from an intelligent Bernie Sanders supporting journalist or had a conversation with an intelligent Bernie Sanders supporter (or literally any Bernie Sanders supporter) who doesn't think the Russian interference in the election is important. It seems to be at the forefront of most Bernie Sanders supporters minds, in fact.
This article seems better fit for Salon or The Nation. If this is the caliber of journalism the NY Times wants to promote, count me out, thanks.
9
Trump was going to lose, Russia/Putin said he could make him win. We now know beyond all doubt that there’s only one thing Trump cares about and that is him, and only him, always winning. Trump made one of his self proclaimed famous deals. Trump is a Russian agent. Trump is a traitor. Sure this is all speculation but if this investigation gets railroaded in any way by Trump and his partisan friends I would have to believe it to be true because it’s kind of obvious.
Premise is silly. It has been top story on MSNBC for better part of year. Obviously they care.
4
The old reasion for hating and fearing the Russian enemy was that they were Godless Communists opposed to American free enterprise.
Now you are telling us that we should hate the Russians because their leaders are part of the global capitalist elite? Is this an attempt at satire?
It seems to me that a military conflict with Russia is your objective, with whatever rationalisation necessary to justify it. Would not it be more honest to admit this?
4
Why? Because they were highly influenced and manipulated by Russian propaganda themselves.
2
And like moths to the flame, all the phony "Bernie supporters" come out to make excuses for Putin and Trump.
2
House Trump (the whole family) has been owned by the Russian mob for decades now. And just the other day, we (U.S. gov under DT) awarded the security of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to an ex(?) KGB agent.
Nothing to see here folks, move along, move along.
Oh yea, the HRC/DNC used the rules they wrote to insure that no other candidate could win the nomination, no matter what vote count the primaries produced. Now the HRC/DNC have expelled the progressive wing from the DNC so everything should be hunky-dory.
Nothing to see here folks, move along, move along.
Now comes this essay that has a headline that seems to seek the widining of the corpra-dems and progressives. Hmmmmm
Nothing to see here folks, move along, move along.
6
You actually answered the question in paragraphs 3-6.
1
When both parties are bought off by large donors whose loyalties are to their own pockets, we've got bigger problems than whether Russia planted ads on Facebook that influenced some small percentage of useful idiots.
Don't get me wrong, I'm interested to see the outcome of the Russia investigations.
The patriotism and loyalty- to anything more than their own bank accounts- of many elites (the President, other Republicans and Democrats, business leaders, Hollywood, et al.) is most certainly questionable.
But unless someone can show me that the Russians actually hacked a voting machine or changed state tallies, the story is not nearly as large as the fact that most Americans rightly loathe congress, don't approve of their president, and find both major political parties repugnant.
American democracy is rotten to the core. Rooting out Russians won't fix that.
3
Bernie supporters know this Russia thing is just a made up nothing burger to try to explain why Hillary lost and Bernie got cheated out of the nomination.
8
Why don't Hillary supporters care about how she rigged the primary?
11
Some, certainly not all Bernie Sanders supporters, do not understand the historical magnitude of the moment if they fail to recognize the import in toto of what this Russia Story. This is not in opposition to the comments of Masha Gessen and Noam Chomsky, both of whom I respect and read, and whom were quoted here in the most minimal way.
Made me laugh reading about the Bernie supporters who feel that "Russia is a convenient excuse..." blah blah blah. Hogwash! It's not an excuse people! And you sound like brainwashed Trump supporters! Wake up! Russia would have done the same to Bernie if he was candidate. What would you say then?
The Russia story is not an excuse. It's an incredible, fascinating development in Geopolitics. It's also not apropo to compare to former US meddling in banana belt and balkanized countries. The differences are too many to list here. Go read some history BOOKS Bernie Bros.
The "Russia scandal" is not "keep(ing) tensions alive with an old Cold War enemy." Wow. The actions perpetuated by Russia are keeping tensions alive with a Cold War enemy. This author drank the kool-aid.
2
I'm a Sanders supporter who cares about the Russia investigation. Just saying.
5
This piece is naive at best. Russiagate is of interest to mainstream centrists and liberals and even anti Russian Republicans of McCain’s stripe precisely because it focuses on a standard foreign demon figure. There is zero chance the people in these categories will have any interest in investigating the sordid influence on “ Our Democracy” by the Saudis, the Israelis, or various corporations and arrogant stupid billionaires in both parties. Some of us roll our eyes at Russiagate because we know the heroes of the resistance are perfectly willing to align with the same crowd that lied us into the Iraq War and yes, this includes many Democrats. You aren’t going to get reform from this crowd.
Trump should be removed from office for many reasons, not least his mental instability. If Russiagate does it, fine, but as a vehicle for reform it fails before it starts. If anything it is an excuse to shout down people who show skepticism towards the much loved intelligence community.
2
Obama said the biggest mistake of his Presidential era was the Libya intervention to overthrow Gaddafi, which resulted in mass chaos, the rise of ISIS in Libya, and an unprecedented flood of refugees into Europe.
However, it is very likely that the Obama-Clinton-CIA-led "arming Syrian rebels" program was an even bigger debacle, one that has not yet been fully exposed to the public. If it turns out that, in coordination with Turkey and Jordan and Saudi Arabia and Qatar and Israel, that Obama and his neocon allies (like McCain) were the key factor in the rise of ISIS to international prominence as part of a strategy to fund a proxy army to overthrow Assad, if all the details of those programs are made public? It would be a far more damaging to everyone involved, from the CIA to Obama to the State Department, our "Gulf Arab allies" , Israel and who knows who else.
This is what is likely motivating this propaganda blitz, a truly massive coordinated effort on the scale of the Iraq WMD effort of 2002-2003 - the establishment is really pulling out all the stops.
3
How did you arrive at your conclusion that Sanders supporters don’t care about Russian meddling in the election? Did you do a survey? I don’t know how you can say such a thing with confidence or credibility. Or maybe you are suggesting that Sanders supporters, Democratic Socialists, are “soft on Russia”?
8
"This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump"—email from Rob Goldstone to Donald Trump Jr.
"The Kremlin's foreign ministry sent more than 60 wire transfers worldwide last year, totaling over $380,000, with a memo saying the cash was meant "to finance election campaign of 2016," a report revealed Tuesday."—Newsweek
"I have a very simple message for Russia. We know what you are doing."—Theresa May, Prime Minister of Great Britain, who has now been made aware of the level of influence Russia had in the Brexit vote.
"We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments." —Report form the US National Intelligence Council.
Yeah. The election is illegitimate. Our Democracy has been hacked. Anyone who undermines this is aiding and abetting the enemy. Anyone who stands in the way of the efforts to remove our illegitimate president is part of the problem.
1
It's ridiculous:
Podesta gets ridiculously phished, emails hacked & leaked, dnc dirty, absurd clickbait propaganda seeded & spread on ridiculous facebook.
Meanwhile even after the email server 'scandal' nobody on team Hillary thinks to clean Huma's laptop, which creepy Weiner serves up to the republican FBI director to throw the vote in the final days. What did people think would happen?
The Donald who showed his true colors for decades actually gets boosted close enough to grab the nom with any single Dem fumble, & they give him a half-dozen faux pas.
& even after the live mike, fox completely conquers the country, the Confederacy takes the south & a terribly ironic 3/5ths of the states, the Scotus flipped forever.
& all this after Dubbya got close enough to steal Fla, after Iraq & the Crash, the Obama rebuilding of the nation, the Dems still manage to steal defeat from the jaws of victory, & all they can come up with for an excuse is 'Bernie bros' & Russians?
Americans didn't need Russians to be an utter idiocracy, the voters are their own worst enemy.
6
Russia??? Why aren't Sander's supporters outraged about the DNC's rigging of the Hilary nomination?
7
Muddled, rambling and confusing editorial ... If any politician is found guilty they need to be sentenced ... no mater party, race, nationality or gender ...
2
Because they didn't. Stop scrambling about for justifications for the idiocy of nominating that horrible woman. Don't you get it? WE cost you the election. Millions of us stayed away, voted Stein or even voted Trump to make the point - she and her family are part of the problem. So is Gore, Biden, Pelosi and all the other ancients who have ripped us off, sold us off and otherwise made common cause with the oligarchs and fascists who now own this country. Repeat the mistake and we'll repeat the lesson. Do you hear us now?
4
Is it also Putin's fault for HRC not campaigning in Wisconsin, Michigan, and PA?
5
The voices criticizing this nonsensical piece are EXACTLY RIGHT: I have NEVER met a fellow Sanders supporter who "didn't care" about the Russia investigation, and citing Katrina vandal Heuvel and Noam Chomsky, two of the Left's most tired voices waiting to be replaced by newer and less chastising ones, doesn't prove anything at all.
"OpEd" as in "Opinion and Editorial," is fine, but when the "opinions" are as wholly unsupported as these assertions, it's incumbent on the Times not to print them, or at the least to demand better proofs of the essential assertion. Because none are provided in the text, here.
4
A significant number of Bernie men with "Hillary issues" voted for Trump, were gamed by Russian trolling, and are in deep defensive denial of all that and more. Klion's quoting Masha Gessen out of context, ignores her warning that Trump is modeling his reach for a dictatorship based on Putin's methodical approach to gaining totalitarian control in Russia over the judicial system, the political system, and the media.
9
Voters who supported Bernie Sanders do support the Russia investigation. Who was this column written by? Vladimir Putin? Quit trying to separate groups of Americans. Find our commen ground. We all want to punish those who colluded with Russia in order to elect Trump.
3
This is the most well written conspiracy theory I’ve ever seen.
4
Where's the outrage about Donna Brazile's contention that Hillary had the nomination fixed from the start? Forget about the Russians and look closer to home.
10
Call me when someone finds some hard evidence that Trump conspired with Putin to steal John Podesta's emails. In the meantime, I have better things to do.
5
What a load of nonsense. I'm a Sanders supporter and I care about the Russia investigation as do almost all of my Sanders-supporting Facebook friends. The writer points out three or four Sanders supporters who downplay the Russia interference story and then wonders why "Sanders supporters" don't care?!
Give us a break.
3
There is no scandal (unless it is the creation of Mueller and a cadre of left wing lawyers to attack President Trump). That is why Sanders supporters are not interested. The issue dominates left wing news outlets and Democrat talking points, and the 527s for Democrats,such as the NY Times and WaPo.
Washington is enthralled because it is full of Democrats.
1
Technological triumphalists across the USA have been raking in millions and crowing about the information age they created. And then the Russians and WikiLeaks supporters take advantage of the internet and influence public opinion. The greatest nation on earth was hacked, and by a tiny margin the presidential election was tilted to a narcissistic blowhard. Wow!
I don't think the US will be able to stop this from happing again, however, because we don't want the evil government messing with our internet freedoms. Furthermore, our internet-addicted public will remain gullible and sufficiently conspiracy minded to believe really goofy stuff (chemtrails anyone?).
Anybody want a Federal Department of Information and Internet Management and Truthfulness, with the ability to switch off every internet cable entering the USA? Didn't think so.
1
The left understands that Trump's connection to the Russians is tenuous and, at best, a Washington-swamp sideshow highlighting the mutant Mueller-Comey tag-team.
"Inequity", whatever it might mean to Olympic sprinters or nuclear physicists, is the real issue--for American cultural Marxism it is the focal point for the 2018 and 2020 elections.
2
Which Sanders supporters? The naive progressives who wish to steal everything, or teh adults who are disgusted with the corrupt DNC?
3
Who knows? Maybe they think it won’t affect them in any It might be uncomfortable for Bernie since Manafort was indicted. Tad Devine worked with Manafort in Ukraine to elect President Yanukovych. Yanukovych was a member of Party of Regions, a pro-Russia Party. Who knows?
1
Because there is no evidence. Is that good enough argument for you? And no, Clinton saying Russia!! doesn't count as evidence. For starters, she was the one that got a 150 million dollars from Russia. If anyone is colluding, that's her.
4
I'll never understand the NYT's contempt for Sanders. So they guy wanted nationalized healthcare and free college education - He was also smart enough to know it was going to be a long slog to get there- but at least he had a vision. And if you put the "Trumpster Divers" and "Bernie Lovers" side by side- other than a few social issues- there really wasn't much daylight between the two groups. I even advocated a Trump-Sanders Ticket!
What did Hillary want? That's a hard one to answer because she never stood for anything other than the "status quo." Hillary was an inept politician at best and her policies for open borders and multi-culturalism was threatening to American workers who had seen their jobs disappear and wages remain flat. Her answer to a BLM member requesting help was a flippant, "Find a lobbyist." Her apathy cost her the African-American vote and the vote of many..
Lastly, since when is it the Sander's supporters job to take on the Russian Kleptocracy? I thought that's why we have elected leaders in Congress to deal with this .. perhaps the NYT is suggesting the Democratic leadership is inept and looking for somebody else to take the lead? If that's the case you can at least ask nicely rather than float these editorials filled with subtle innuendo and digs. Next time try "Please" it's always a good place start..
6
It is actually very simple. Admitting the Russian interference would mean admitting they were led by Russian trolls.
4
For all the smoke and hand wringing here, nobody seems to be concerned about what the DNC and Hilary did to Bernie..... Why is that?
And why are none of the commenters concerned about why Hilary was instrumental in selling uranium to Russia, curiously timed with multi-million dollar contributions to the Clinton fund?
Talk about not keeping ones eye on the ball!
5
Trump is under investigation by various committees in the Republican led House and the Republican led Senate. A Republican Attorney General recused himself from the investigations and when the Republican President fired the Republican FBI Director the Republican Deputy Attorney General appointed a Special Counsel, the Republican Robert Mueller.
Soooooo...what do Democrats have to do with any of this? Morning Joe and Rachel Maddow shouting every morning and night doesn't count. With all these Republicans investigating each other why on Earth is Katrina vanden Heuvel "chastising" Democrats? I mean, Adam Schiff gets a bit scoldy on the talk show circuit and its all the Democrats fault? Har har.
The Republican Party is immolating itself and the only thing Dems are doing is rooting it on and munchin' the corn. To lay any of the circus on Bernie supporters or for that matter Hillary supporters, Blue Dogs, Yellow Dogs, Dixiecrats - whatever - is deeply ingenuous. This is a GOP thang and a GOP thang alone.
1
Some of these people like Katrina van den Heuvel and her husband Stephen Cohen are people who were sympathetic to the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev. Somehow they transferred their loyalty to Vladimir Putin, who is an autocrat, an assassin, and a kleptocrat. Some hate Hillary Clinton so much that they are pleased that Russia via Wikleaks stole John Podesta's emails and leaked them. Sanders and the political left are eager to seize control of the Democratic Party, and are waging a war of attrition to to that.
2
The reason is the historical amnesia on the left and the unwillingness to confront the betrayals of the past when so many of leading lef intellectuals defended the USSR and socialism. Never mind that Russia is not socialist; never mind that Putin is a sad parody of Stalin; the left is still fighting McCarthy and anti-communism. Witness how some “liberals” reacted to reminders of socialism’s bloody past by NYT writers: with outbursts of anger that seemed to indicate they have slept through the total ideological collapse of the USSR and everything it represented. Like Trump, Sanders is a blast from the past. He is a populist demagogue, peddling old discredited ideas. The future belongs neither to socialism nor to fascism. Unfortunately, like zombies, bad ideas have the tendency to come back and bite the living, as we have seen in the last elections. Hillary would have been President had it not been for the Sanders sect.
3
While I support Mr. Klion's suggestion for future actions, I can't agree that Berniecrats are uncaring about the Russian interference in 2016. Those actions are a serious challenge to the very basis of our democracy. Believe me, we care and we care deeply. There may be some who still see anti=Hilary as their core position, but most of us know that ship is long gone. Please don't use us as a straw man.
1
For pity's sake can everyone stop moaning about the last election and get busy supporting sound Democratic policies. Run for a local position and get involved!
VOTE for people who support most of your views. Don't stay home because someone fails a purity test. Dems lost local control because many of us stopped voting. If you don't like the candidates coming forward - be one yourself and learn how difficult it is to build coalitions and to get things done.
Talk is cheap - we need action.
2
I'm one hippie liberal Sanders supporter that is very concerned and focused on Putin and Russia's operations to destabilize the west. Anyone who isn't is either young or has no memory. Oddly, the Old Conservative Hawks of U.S. Vigilance have abdicated to trumpie and his envy of Putin's power, and it's lefties like me who are hollering it out at every opportunity. Where exactly are today's Generals on this issue? Mostly they seem to be doing trumpie's bidding. Disturbing indeed.
The notion that Sanders supporters don't care about Putin's power grab here in the U.S. and other territories around the globe is ridiculous.
2
Why didn’t the nytimes care more about Hillary and the DNC superdelegates?
And politically if Mueller is the one to take down trump - years from now, you can only effectively have so many messages. Wasting it on this could endanger healthcare.
Plus as a Sanders supporter we have already been burned with Hillary not being taken out of the race for her reckless handling of her email account.
7
Only when pols on both sides admit the Russia meddling in our election was limited to using FB media to create fake news , and not in "stuffing the ballot boxes" in a digital manner, will we make some progress. Russia capitalized on our own vulnerabilities , and demonstrated to the world how fickle ,frayed, and gullible the electorate is . This is what we should be concerned about. The author posits that Sanders' supporters don't care about this meddling, and doesn't cite proving facts.
3
Why, you ask? Because Russian propaganda contracted by Trump captured their imaginations to this very day. They were their own worst enemies and Trump’s best friends. They still don’t get it even as the very pillars of the republic are being pulled out from under them. All for “free college”. Sad.
2
Oh, dear, you're looking for rational behaviour in Sanders supporters? Good luck with that...
2
The author says "And yet to many observers on America’s political left, questions about Russia’s interference in last year’s election are a frustrating distraction."
What a vague statement! Have Bernie Sanders or any of his campaign staff complained about the investigation? No. Does the author provide any polling data showing that progressives think the investigation is a waste of time? No. A few links to nuanced arguments is not proof of a groundswell of feeling.
Why then, the roundabout attack on Senator Sanders? Those who read the Times' political coverage in 2016 know why: the NY Times was all Hillary and Donald all the time, and Bernie and his issues could go hang. Here's what the NY Times then-ombudsman wrote on September 9, 2016: "The Times has not ignored Mr. Sanders’s campaign, but it hasn’t always taken it very seriously. The tone of some stories is regrettably dismissive, even mocking at times. Some of that is focused on the candidate’s age, appearance and style, rather than what he has to say."
https://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/09/09/has-the-times-dismisse...
Why do I feel that if Bernie Sanders were to announce that he would not run in 2020, he would not have this problem?
5
The first targets of the Russian trolls and fake-new dealers were Sanders' supporters. Their first goal was to create the only scenario in which Trump could win: to divide the Democrats. And they were successful--suddenly she was a war-monger (unlike every white male president before her); suddenly Bernie Bros were spouting the RNC and Trump troll talking-points. They were taken in by the Russians and gave the election to Trump. We are living the results of their credulity. Maybe they feel embarrasses or guilty; or maybe they still believe the trolls.
3
I support Sanders and I have no problem with Mueller doing an investigation. I like the fact that he is not just looking at political tampering, he is looking at exactly the kind of crime that this article want's us to consider. Impeaching Trump would be great but a big exposure of the corruption of the elite is more likely. Money laundering is almost sure to turn up again in this investigation. The Clinton supporters are wrong about us wanting to discredit Clinton. We were really after the DNC and still are. Thanks to Brazile, Clinton has now been shown to have been in charge of the DNC during the primary and so in that sense I guess we are after her. I don't think most of us care about Russian meddling as much because we don't think it was all that effective. We see Clinton as her own problem, a terrible candidate for the times. pushed by a biased DNC who lost because the country neither wanted her or trusted her. Had Biden or Sanders been the candidate they would be in office now regardless of what the Russians did but, the DNC did everything they could to push HRC and here we are today. It is possible that had the DNC operated properly as an unbiased facilitator of the primary election Bernie could have won. It is possible maybe unlikely but we will never know because the DNC was biased and did push the election to Clinton. That is what really makes us mad, not the fact Clinton won.
4
SO NOW MASHA GESHEN and Noam Chomsky are experts in cyber crime? Could have fooled me. She should stick to reporting and he should stick to political philosophy and linguistics. Chomsky is convinced that the way things are done these days is that Trump does something to distract from the real criminals in Congress and his administration who are dismantling the US. Chomsky has correctly observed that the GOP is the most dangerous bunch of criminals in the history of the world. No doubt about that one. But what sort of expertise does he have in cyber crime? Experts have already provided evidence to the government of cyber crimes that were perpetrated. I hate to say it, but on this matter, Chomsky is out of his depth. Which is surprising, since the Linguistics Dept at Penn collaborated with the Math and Electrical Engineering departments to design the first digital computer ENIAC at the Moore College of Electrical Engineering in 1946. But I guess Chomsky was not part of that project.
Sure, Russian collusion must be stopped.
BUT what about the home grown ‘Collusion” that truly affects all our lives? From the horde of US corporate lobbyists that engineer a great wealth & power transfer up to big election donors? Is investigating that too ‘left wing’, or something?
We see legalized collusion between our lawmakers and the corporate mega donors who tether our govt to their subsidies. They direct our laws to their benefit and our loss---in taxes, regulations, jobs, health care, education, etc. Increased profits lead to increased political influence, in a spiral, while We the People lose input to congress.
This is far more pernicious than foreign hacking. It’s so normalized, that our 1st amendment protected news media ignore it. The media profits hugely from fees for the fake news campaign ads that flood our media. They keep campaign finance collusion dark.
Do our voters know that most other democracies ban or sharply regulate private money for campaign ads? All candidates get free media time. Shock?
Our media keeps that dark.
Thomas Frank in ‘What’s the Matter With Democrats?’ --- asks why does the rw win and win even when the Gop benefits a tiny group at the top? It’s the feebleness of the opposition party.”
Both parties need billionaire sponsors.
Al Gore on CNN - “ Our democracy has been hacked by big money long before Putin hacked our democracy.”
Let’s get real and redefine “ Collusion”.
We The People aren’t ‘Left Wing’. We’re left out.
5
Here are some reasons to be skeptical of the whole Russia thing:
1. All the actions that are being considered as coming under the umbrella of "Russia Collusion" such as Russia spreading ads and messages, Opposition research etc - Is this the very first election in USA where this has happened ? Or have these happened before in earlier elections? If they have will they also be considered for investigation ? It is possible that the establishment will try to show some actions and claim collusion, even though the exact same thing may have happened earlier but never questioned.
2. Trump is too dumb to collude unlike the establishment who do the same thing but know how to cover up.
3. The MSM is busy covering up the U-one deal. How is it possible that the sale of 20% of valuable and strategic mineral is sold, and the Clint foundation gets 145 million dollars and pays half a million for a speech and yet no one says there is any connection ? Have you even checked whether the people who made this contribution have any back ground as humanitarian people ?
4. Why is the establishment not doing anything about the whole quid pro speech quo - where they take millions for speeches this white washing this corruption and why do the liberals not care about all this ?
Simply put, the clear and valid perception is the establishment excuses itself of all the rules and those who do not follow it if they are part of establishment. If they are not establishment they apply rules only for this
2
Sanders' supporters should form their own political party. Then they and the media can stop dictating what the Democratic party should and should not do. The Democratic party should represent it's base who vote for them and carry them election after election ... African American women.
1
Spoke like a true "exclusionist", you sound more like an extremist than a welcoming democrat. You do realize our country is a mosaic of all colors and faiths. The democrats need to open that large tent they used to have back in the day.
5
While no doubt fascinating that the editor of The Nation believes that “Focusing on Trump’s ties to Russia alone will not win the crucial 2018 midterm elections", her opinion is of little utility since literally zero people are focusing on Trump's ties to Russia "alone."
Just seems the democrats feel that it's "any means necessary" to counter the blundering, dundering fool and his minions, but there are other countries that have far more influence that distorts the conversation about our country's interests. Now pundits wonder about Russian connections anyone has who doesn't play along and the state is trying to limit access to foreign news outlets that don't tow the line.
Yawn. The Russia corruption scandal is nothing new. The challenge is to develop and implement policies that lead to meaningful change. But even if Bernie had been elected, change would have been slow to come given the current state of affairs with Congress.
Democrats need to understand first and foremost that convenience candidates such as Ms. Clinton do not motivate enough people to vote for change. Today most voters do not identify with either political party since we know that both are bastions of "centrist" corruption themselves. Again, nothing new.
So, please give us sincere people we can vote for who have some sound policy positions that not only address rampant corruption but provide an alternative direction, as well. Trump's populist election, along with the Bernie wave, should tell us that the time for bold new policy initiatives is ripe.
Self proclaimed "centrists" might consider which flavor of populism they prefer not only in the White House but Congress in particular. Indeed, there is substantial policy overlap on both sides. Russia is just another side show that gives journalists a renewed sense of existence.
We need more detail about how we are going to prevent entities from taking advantage off shore tax havens, for example. What kind of tax system do we really want and how do we make it fairer for everyone? The answers are muddled in 24/7 coverage of Trump and the Russians - issues we are all too familiar with. Where's the meat?
1
The Sanders supporters whom I know are very concerned about Russian interference in the election, but more concerned about what Trump is doing now that he is in office.
The past week's Asian trip is a case in point. Many think that Trump is ceding power in Asia to China and are unhappy about it.
We can't change the election, but we can apply pressure to the Trump administration and do our best to stop its worst behavior.
1
The following democratically elected leaders were overthrown by coups fomented in part or totally by the CIA:
2014 Yanukovych Ukraine
1973 Allende Chile
1961 Lumumba Congo
1954 Arbenz Guatemala
1953 Mosaddegh Iran
Interfering in the democratic processes of sovereign nations has been part of our foreign policy since WWII. We shouldn't be surprised that others are trying to interfere in ours. Meanwhile health care costs keep rising along with tuition!
4
https://www.npr.org/2016/12/22/506625913/database-tracks-history-of-u-s-...
There're actually recorded 80 foreign elections that America has meddled with, unashamedly, using our tax payers' money, without telling us.
4
Don't know what gave Klion the impression that we can only care about one thing at a time...and I discredit comments that lump all Bernie supporters into the category of HRC haters. Klion must have a small cadre of progressives in his social circle to support his premise. I, and the others I work with to counteract the travesty of the current administration who chose Bernie in the primaries, did so because we felt he was the best candidate to represent Democrats and we liked his platform. Then when Hillary got the nomination, we supported her. We ALL trust the intelligence that indicates Russia's heavy hand in our elections, past and present, and want to work to prevent it in the future.
It is viewpoints such as those highlighted in this article that further divide our party by assigning labels narrowing motives and viewpoints. Just like there are extremists in any given group of people. The Democratic party has to be inclusive of all of us to survive and regain a strong voice in the direction of our nation. United We Stand, and Divide and Conquer...these are both tropes we should remember. The first should be our motto to overcome the opposition's embrace the second.
1
I don't disagree with this article, exactly, but I think its author doesn't understand its intended audience. While I voted for Sanders in the primary, I don't identify myself a year and a half later as a "Sanders supporter." Like 88% of my fellow Sanders primary voters, I voted for Hillary Clinton a year and eight days ago. Like many Sanders primary voters, I am rooting for Robert Mueller and glad that he's helping expose the corruption and treason at the heart of the Trump administration. The impression I get on my Facebook feed is that this is not considered an ideological contradiction.
I'm also not the only Sanders primary voter who has moved on from Sanders. It's not a change of heart; I just want what's best for the country. Historically speaking, the primary purpose of voting is to resist tyranny. It's always been more of a negative act than a positive one, voting against the tyrant and for the candidate who respects the institutions and Constitutional checks on power. Progressives understand this and would rather focus on unseating Republicans in 2018 and 2020 than on rehashing 2016, but we keep on being drawn back into this debate because we feel it's important that the DNC understands why it lost in order for it not to repeat its mistakes.
I do think that the DNC has only itself to blame for Trump's election - AND I don't think we should tolerate foreign attempts to meddle or domestic agents of collusion. I don't think my combination of opinions is atypical.
6
Yeah, its an entertaining investigation, but who cares about collusion with the Russians when the Democratic party actually colluded to prevent the best candidate in the 2016 election from winning the DNC primary?
5
Why don't I (as a former Sanders supporter) care. Simple: Russia is simply another center of capitalist oligarchy and income inequality, no more or less dangerous to the non-millionaire populace of this planet than any other of the societies that impoverish millions while spawning billionaires like so many tadpoles. It hardly requires my interest in Russian meddling to perceive "the failings of contemporary capitalism." These are evident to anyone really paying attentions to global poverty, species extinctions and climate change. Communism is dead, certainly in Russia and even in supposedly Communist China. The danger of the over-focus on Russia is the possibility of reaffirming the hollow view that Communism is still a threat to America, sustaining that view in the minds of shallow thinkers, and cooperating with the powers-that-be in thwarting any evolution of U.S. society toward a kinder, less-unequal place.
Furthermore, Chomsky's assertion of the history of U.S. interference in elections worldwide is a matter of historical record if one reads beyond the pabulum that passes for US History in schools to genuine critical historians like Howard Zinn.
3
The Bernie supporters are the Trump supporters. Bernie Sanders is just to egotistical to see it.
3
They'd care if you write about Hillary using Russian funding to buy the DNC and deep-six Sanders chances at the nomination.
3
The simple answer to the headline: Sanders supporters got manipulated by the Russians just as the right did. I saw just as much made-up anti-Clinton nonsense coming through my Facebook feed by Sanders acolytes as my conservative friends.
Our ability to parse fact from fiction is low, and the more fired up we get, the worse our discriminating capacity. It's a pretty simple limbic vs pre-frontal cortex functioning of the brain, with a toxic mix of too much virtual reality.
3
The Bros and Babes in BernieLand of course ignore anything but the teachings of Chairman Bernie. He and his ideological soulmate in the Green Party gave Trump the White House, assisted by their buddies in the Kremlin. He quite naturally doesn't want anyone looking too closely at how the Manchurian Candidacy used him all along. Take a look at his salad days in Nicaraqua chanting about evil Yanquis and waving a red flag. He's not changed a lot -- still calling for a dictatorship of the incredibly self-righteous with himself in the leader's seat.
2
"Why Don’t Sanders Supporters Care About the Russia Investigation?"
A great headline to alienate the future leaders, movers and shakers of the Democratic Party. I'll keep this brief otherwise this old man is going to get angry. First, they do care, but.... a few other pressing issues.
Decent healthcare, abandoning the Paris Climate Agreement, student loans, decent wages, and a host of other critical issues that face the young people's future, and they have to "be dealt with too".
And who do you think helped win those elections in Virginia and New Jersey. Young people out there working their tails off to get out the vote. And in 2018 we'll need every one of Bernie's Army to win.
Mr Klion you really should revise your headline..... right away.
2
Russia isn't the only country with a kleptocratic elite. In fact, I would wager that America's kleptocratic elite is far more dangerous to the left than the Russian kleptocratic elite.
That, in a nutshell, is why the left doesn't care for this crusade.
4
This feels like paid content/advertisement from the DNC to create some sort of backlash against Sanders for moving the party farther to the left than it has been since before Bill Clinton was in office. I have seen similar items elsewhere on social media.
How ridiculous for anyone to say I don't care about the Russia Investigation. Of course I care! But I also care how the DNC is handling their business too.
I can walk and chew gum at the same time.
5
According to you " Russian meddling in American politics is, in fact, the product of a long series of bipartisan policy failures. " Maybe Bernie and his followers are more concerned with ending these failuress so the Russians can't exploit them.
2
Bernistas are partying like its 2002, when Bush's war drums were still in everybody's ears, and we all saw the Neo-cons gathering in Washington to enact their long-dreamt plan of appropriating Iraq. For Bernie supporters, Neo-cons are the key, the most enduring boogeyman in American Foreign policy and the biggest threat to America.
Thus, Bernie-folk see the charges against Putin as. . . . wait for it. . . a preparation for war against Russia. Yes, many, if not most Bernie supporters view mainstream Democrats' obsession with Russian election meddling as beating the drums of war against Putin.
Bernie supporters believe America's main enemy is the eternal machinations of the Democrats' Big Money Machine (their broke, actually). . not the Mussolini On The Potomac that should be everybody's worry. They believe that Trump's antics and the Putin obsession to be a sideshow to divert Americans from doing something about the steady march of both political parties towards war and a permanent plan to fleece all our pockets
During the 2016 election, I asked the Bernie supporters I knew to read Homage To Catalonia, which is Orwell's account of Spain's voices of Democracy squabbling among themselves while the 20th century's first architect of Fascism sat unhindered and perfected his plan to destroy his own nation. They couldn't see the connection.
3
If we would say our own US congress is colluding with corporate donors to fashion our laws to benefit the rich and corporations, what’s the reply?
That our own corporations couldn’t wish us harm the way a foreign power would? No? But how much more of our national wealth and power could our US 1 percent elites amass than they now have?
Putin’s privatization? It’s our US politics turn to the right that’s “encouraged the aggressive privatization” of the US economy, “which resulted in collapsing living standards.” We have lower economic mobility than other democracies. Check the Gini scores on equality.
Putin’s human rights abuses? What about our biased, brutal, un-American criminal justice system that ignores the bill of rights?
All this is well documented.
Russian state media? How about USA ‘state media’---the huge Fox News Empire mouthpiece of our dominant Gop party?
And if our own Gop is using voter suppression and gerrymandering to ‘meddle in our elections’, why is that not as bad, or not worse than any Russian hacking in its effects on our lives---and its treachery?
The Gop admits it manipulates and suppresses votes hiding behind the phony excuse of voter fraud. They manipulate voting districts to dominate our state govts. Their rw extremists now dominate our 3 branches of the fed govt.
Real American democracy---too ‘left wing’ now?
1
Because the Sanders supporters know darn well that rightists all the way from Fox News to Russian media operatives was playing them like harps during the election. They fell for it as easily as any despised Trump voter fell for the racial dog whistles, hysterically identifying HRC as the the enemy instead of Donald Trump.
They are no more interested in anything that disputes their victim narrative than they are in taking any responsibility for the results of their rhetoric during the election.
3
This conservative-libertarian agrees with some of the leftists quoted here ( It happens!) that the notion that the Russians stole the election is hooey and not important. What is important is that "they" don't work for us. The entire Washington establishment simply don't work for the citizens at all. We are the suckers whose vote they need to keep the power that they then pedal to the global corporatist elite.
1
Here is the problem: the berniebros are as sexist as the Trump base. Hillary wasn't pure enough for the left wing TRUE BELIEVERS. So, if you cannot get what you want, then smash the game. Trump is a smasher. The left wingers voted for Trump. They believed ALL OF THE RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA...and used it to justify their voting for Trump. And now they have conformational bias to support their choice of Trump. So, of course they do not want to hear that Russia influenced their vote and the election. Essentially, they mirror the Trump base in this regard...they don't care who helped Trump win.
The Trump base and the Berniebros would not care if North Korea helped Trump win. They would not care if the Taliban helped Trump win. They would not care if ISIS helped Trump win. Both the Trump base and the berniebros wanted to smash the system. But neither the Trump base nor the berniebros have a good idea on how or what to rebuild. It is pretty much like the Russian revolution...which led to the last 100 years of dictatorship. Not a few in Trumps base or among the Berniebros would welcome a dictator. Hey, maybe that amalgam of the right and the left agreeing on a dictatorship is what Trump meant by covfefe.
2
The answer is simple: they don't want to admit they fell for fake Russian news and fake FB posts; and they don't want to see Hillary as being able to win. In other words, they don't want to face reality. As per the election.
4
The dog's breakfast of false dichtomies here is not worth listing but this sentence deserves a prize for what not to do:
"The extent of the alleged collusion, which may ultimately endanger Mr. Trump’s presidency, has yet to be determined, but the scandal..,,"
Try the rhetoric yourself as a worthy of respect or not test:
'The extent of the alleged miracle, has yet to be determined'
'The extent of the alleged extermination has yet to be determined'
'the extent of the alleged tomfoolery has yet to be determined'
And of course, as the Times even has an article on, 'collusion' is a Trump defense propaganda term, the endangered presidency is not the issue, and when the republic's democratic process is under attack from enemies without, and from quislings within, the word "scandal" is also as pro Trump as you can get. And Chomsky? Seriously? The broken record of five decades yet to apologize for all recently opened files have revealed about his useful idiocy for the commies over half a century.,
Can't anyone here play the game? I now add David Klion as a reason fascism may have a cake walk to a coup. A man who can not only take out his own position but an entire flank while showing how to fight the enemy.
1
Quite the sensationalistic title for an article that lacked any substantive evidence to back up such a sweeping claim. Perhaps Sanders' supporters both care very much about Russian intervention, and concurrently about the political malpractice that bred conditions conducive to such major collusion and subversion of our democracy. Articles such as this are why I have increasingly started reading the Washington Post versus the New York Times. Although a professed "liberal," I can see why centrist and politically to-the-right readers perceive the NYTimes as increasingly politically biased toward democratic elitism. It is disappointing.
1
Dear Democrats, please stop owning this label of "Left." No one would have dared called you "Left" in the 10 decades since 1910. "Left" is for communists. "Right" is for fascists. And as we've seen, dictators can be either left or right. But they are never Democrats or Republicans. Our 2 parties balance in the middle of the government spectrum in a Democracy. When Democrats seemingly accept this label of "Left", they are accepting a shove, out of the middle, and into an extreme. Start battling back for the middle! You can be socially liberal and fiscally conservative, or fiscally liberal (as most Republican administrations have proven to be despite fierce denials) and socially conservative (as 1/2 the Democratic party used to be when it owned the South). But you cannot be "Left" and expect to win America's future. Democratic values like diversity, inclusiveness, equality, and helping your neighbor in need might be liberal or progressive, or even traditional and common sense, but they are not communist or "left". Please start fighting that label. It is unpatriotic to accept it.
Bernie's biggest nemesis was not Russia, it was the DNC.
1
True, but missing the point. The Russians presumed that Bernie had no chance at all of winning the election.
1
I am surprised how many people are willing to admit they voted for Bernie in the general election. You all realize you're as bad as trump voters and our country is being destroyed because of you? Our courts, including but not only the supreme court, are now lost for a generation. Our foreign policy is in horrid shape. And now we're having a reverse robin-hood tax cut that helps those in republican states... it's all your fault. You should be ashamed.
2
http://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-trump-2016-election-654320
"According to the analysis of the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Survey, fewer than 80 percent of those who voted for Sanders, an independent, in the Democratic primary did the same for Clinton when she faced off against Trump a few months later. What’s more, 12 percent of those who backed Sanders actually cast a vote for Trump."
Yep. You see some of them here.
2
my dog-eared copy of the soviet "apparatchik's guide to harassing american hooliganski" holds a statement like this one ("Far from undermining left-wing arguments, discussing these arrangements perfectly demonstrates the failings of contemporary capitalism...") as the objective of anything, for any other purpose, aimed at the destabilization of democracy.
whether dividing the "unum" though the alienation of the pluribi, the silencing of the voices of free inquiry in colleges and universities, or the distraction of "collusion" - not that there isn't any but by shifting the load to trump, the real, albeit unwitting,
"colluders," the homemade tools of subversion the the reds affectionately call "useful idiots" keep the ball rolling in their direction.
ms vanden heuvel is right "“Focusing on Trump’s ties to Russia alone will not win the crucial 2018 midterm elections..."
the "russian story" will not get "any bigger" as mr klion opines, it is already, since the days of the revolution, as big as it can get in its TOTAL commitment to the destruction of democracy...so rather than looking to trump as a finite cause, let's grasp that subversion predates him and will continue after he's long gone, and turn away from continuing the 2016 campaign to cogent opposition for the future, beginning with 2018.
the bet here is that shoring up our internal structure, in a unified push for health care, equal opportunity, employment (see FDR), etc., is the best defense against subversion.
Here's what I have taken away from all this so far:
1. I now understand why the founding fathers obsessed over limiting power.
2. Money is power.
2
I supported Sanders. I donated 2K to his campaign. I voted for Obama over Clinton the first time and I voted for Clinton this election, as did every Bernie supporter I know, because we had no choice. We, the Clinton supporters and Sanders supporters are working together in Indivisible. I don't know a single person who isn't deeply invested in the Russia investigations both corruption and election tampering. But may I say, will all due respect, I've had up to my eyeballs with Clintons gang complaining. Even during the election, Maddow, Joy Reid, Chris Matthews, Mrs. Greenspan spent copious amounts of air time trashing Sanders supporters because we were just "ruining it" for Clinton. And here we are today, right where I expected we be with an idiot for President. I know hippie kicking is popular amongst the DNC establishment still today, even as the Blue Dog Dems help Republicans weaken banking rules. Yes, we're all waiting on baited breath for Mueller's conclusions knowing Republicans won't do a darn thing about it. Second verse same as the first.
4
Sanders supporters realize that this is all smoke and mirrors. Manafort, Gates, Popdopolous, Flynn and a bunch of russian names we dont know on 24/7 on CNN and MSNBC with the hope that this is watergate 2..Nothing is going to happen, trump does not even use email! Many cable people are going to lose their jobs as they gambled wrong. Even trump hating lawyers I know think this i a dead duck.
1
The never-Hillary crowd can't admit that they helped Trump get elected. To blame Russian-created fake news would highlight the fact that they at best didn't support her after Sanders dropped out and at worst propagated smears, and yes fake news, about her too.
8
And the only-Hillary crowd can't admit that she could have possibly ever made a mistake. They certainly can't admit that Hillary herself was a mistake.
You can explain it away all you want, but Hillary ran and lost. No one else lost for her. It was her name on the ballot. And SHE lost. To Trump. Deal with it.
6
Sanders supporters didn’t mind Trump getting elected, why would they care about the Russia investigation?
5
It's nice to see that the purile hostility engendered by Russian bots during the campaign is still alive and well here. How can you all still be eating up this fake outrage garbage while claiming the Sanders supporters are the ones ignoring Russia? Russia literally fostered the hostility between the Hillary and Bernie camps as part of their influence campaign. If anyone is giving Russia the pass, it's those who are STILL allowing Russian agents to decide their talking points for them.
1
I for one am happy about some of the revelations the Russians revealed about our democracy. In fact, they helped us be more transparent, like Snowden. In a way, they revealed important flaws in our system and how to fix them. Like how hackers help people find weaknesses in their systems and ways to fix those.
The primary process last year was rigged, as voiced and supported by Elizabeth Warren.
Donna Brazile's book, which got very little coverage by NYT at that time (not at all surprising) highlighted the corruption and division in DNC and confirmed it's a rigged system. The Democratic party doesn't work for the people.
If you still can't figure out why Sanders supporters don't care, you still have your head stuck in the sand 1 year later. It's that ignorance, incompetence, not even recognizing or acknowledging one's own mistakes, that tells me people like David Klion cannot think on their own nor would I trust that person's opinions.
Half the commenters in the comment section can write more insightful and illuminating articles than this.
When did news become so polarized that they're not news but propaganda wings for right and left political machines? Any credible news outlets besides PBS?
3
In 1996 American advisers traveled to Moscow and made a huge, unconcealed push to re-elect Yeltsin and defeat Zyuganov through various media tactics. Does no one see the irony that this was part of the U.S.'s laughable attempt to export democracy? Why shouldn't, and why wouldn't, Russia try to do the same?! More to the point, who cares?!
6
I'm more interested in what Sanders himself has to say about the level of entrenched corruption, foreign and domestic, woven through the White House team that has been chosen on the basis of self-enrichment at public expense.
As for the Bernie bros - they are reluctant to admit that Clinton was impacted by the type of propaganda that kept voters home, much of it aimed at folks who'd vote for Bernie or no one.
And they want a pound of flesh for being, in their own minds, cut out of the candidacy by Democratic Party maneuvering. The very maneuvering that we wanted the GOP to use to marginalize Trump, and are looking for in the case of Roy Moore. We don't want parties to choose the candidate, except when we do.
There are large issues to be addressed. But centrally, the Russian connections are both part and parcel of our problem. We have placed people office who are hell-bent on using that office to enrich themselves both legally and illegally, and are willing to hide the fact that they were supported by the machinations of a foreign despot. And while all that is going on and distracting us, others are advancing their own self-enriching agenda on the nation.
The Sanders supporters should keep the eye on the ball - our institutions have bee hijacked by a kleptocracy. But they need to recognize that the solution may not be a Sanders revolution, but a re-building of the Democratic party. An evolution.
5
The simple facts are that the media, including the NYT, are paying much more attention to the Russia-Trump investigations than to the persistent societal inequities that were the main issues of the Sanders campaign. So, this seems a bit of tail chasing.
7
No one with a brain thinks the investigation is unimportant and everyone with a brain knows both the investigation and issues can be equally addressed. Bernie needs to step back and, though well-meaning, will only do more damage to his own goals....he created such divisiveness, even he can't turn it around.
2
Who says we don’t care? My wife and I do, very much. Go Mr. Mueller! Go Bernie!
5
But it's inconvenient for these shills when you don't confirm their narrow view of others. Don't you know that if one opinion piece makes a sweeping generalization about a group that it must be valid?
2
Every Bernie supporter I know, myself included, are deeply concerned with the Russia Investigation. And there are MANY of us in the Pacific NW.
3
Supporters of Sanders could care less about Russia since they know the real meddling in our election was by the Clintons and their allies that stole any chance that Bernie had. The DNC sabotaged Bernie: too bad the RNC did not do the same with Mr T.
6
Many Sanders stubborn supporters turned this election over to Donald Trump by either not voting or voting for Jill Stein.
Why would they care about Russia?
4
You say that, but you can't prove it. It's just one of those lies you tell about the campaign so that you can blame your loss on others.
4
Because they helped put Trump in Office and they liked Russia's WikiLeaks too.
2
It's hard to care when you see corruption everywhere you look--the RNC, Russia and the DNC. One of those hacked emails said that the DNC (who were supposed to stay neutral in the primary) wanted to go after Bernie for his religion. Am I supposed to hate the people who hacked the email or the people who wrote it? Or the other side?
None of this is putting food on the tables of people in the US who need it. Or giving them healthcare. Or sending their kids to college. At least Bernie is still talking about what matters.
3
Based on what data does the writer make these charges against Sanders supporters? What appalling bias. Most Sanders supporters, and I am one, are obsessed with the Russia investigation.
1
Find it disturbing how effective right-wing rhetoric has been with elements on the left...
3
Remember the American left has been anti-Communist since the late 1940s. The Times for decades enthusiastically supported Cold War One against the Russians, including firing employees who took the Fifth Amendment before Communist hunting committees and condemning Martin Luther King for opposing the War in Vietnam.
That a deflection? I was specifically thinking of the here and now.
1
This Sanders supporter does not care about the Russian investigation for the same reason I did not "care about" the Benghazi investigation. Both are politically motivated witch hunts devoid of fact or substance, aimed solely at punishing and smearing a political opponent, in the case of "Russia-gate," Trump. Democrats should be better than this. As Noam Chomsky rightly points out, it is making us a laughingstock on the world stage, as well as needlessly poisoning relations with the second most powerful nation on earth. And don't tell me about the joint intelligence report implicating the Russians in election meddling. That report was a travesty that permanently discredits every bureaucrat who signed it. The so-called Russian "hack" of the the DNC server has been shown to be impossible, and that was the only real evidence of wrongdoing the report even alluded to. If the Russians planted fake stories on FaceBook, who cares? It's Facebook. Focusing on alleged Russian posts on Facebook is like focusing on one person's pee contribution to the New York sewer system. Sorry to run on so, but this article REALLY struck a nerve.
5
The question isn't why Sanders supporters (as if they're all the same) "don't care" about the Russia investigation. The question is why don't Establishment Democrats and the corporate media care about anything else?
Oh, that's right, because discussing the other more pressing and urgent issues such as wealth disparity (or, to be more direct, outright class warfare) might compromise their relationship with their rich super donors. Never mind that these economic issues always ALWAYS lead to fascist or quasi fascist uprisings--best and more convenient to distract and blame everything on Russia. This way you can shoulder responsibility AND keep your campaign contributions. What a winning strategy!
And to suggest that in order to discuss corruption we must do it through the screen of the Russia investigation is so incomprehensibly illogical it sounds almost Trumpian.
Nobody questions whether Russia interfered (they obviously did). But if you constantly assume that it was the determining factor in the outcome of the election--that it had some decisive influence over voter's preferences, you just prove that you couldn't be less concerned, nor have you the capacity to comprehend, the plight of the American public. They're desperate, not dumb.
4
I do care about the Russia miasma. But as a Sanders supporter, I am not a Democrat. And the worst voting troubles happen here, I bet.
1
Russia Investigation? I thought this sort of meddling in each other's domestic affairs has a long history, especially when inviting Russians to meddle as the Trump cabal did. Although the effects of such meddling in the US are demonstrably negligible, (vote for Tump because of Facebook ads? Really?) I figure it's an attempt as some measure of playback for the US role in the coronation of Yeltsin. But that's just me.
The Russian thing will run its course. The evidence will come out. Meantime, yes, you can spend time wondering what the investigators are finding. Or you can do something productive.
1
Why don't Hillary supporters care about the fact that her campaign and the DNC basically merged into one entity in 2016, thereby rigging the Democratic nomination and disenfranchising millions of people?
3
To argue that ramping up tensions with Russia over baseless accusations will help address the race to the bottom that is Neoliberalism is incoherent at best, at worst deranged.
1
As a former Naval Intelligence Officer, Cold War veteran and Bernie Sanders supporter, I am VERY interested in Trump's collusion with the Russians. The column misses the bedrock issue: in the current political environment, everything, including the Oval Office and the DNC, is for sale even to an adversary like Russia. If anything Bernie's message of economic equality is the anthithesis of Russia rigging the 2016 election.
5
I am a trump supporter, if the russia connection is confirmed, prosecute. why the rush to "judgement"? If I were a democrat, I would say nothing until there is real news. If it is real, I will change my mind.
1
Did Klion speak with Yegor Gaidar and Anatoly Chubais? The criminals who controlled much of the black markets in the last years of communism gained further control in the '90s. No one disputes that privatization was muffed; I do dispute that much blame rests with America. But it's true, e.g., that when healthcare was privatized, many people stopped getting care altogether, and mortality and illness rates rose; budgets were balanced via large cuts in welfare; managers often easily took over now-private companies; etc.
But that's only part of the story, and a very partial one, of what actually transpired in minutiae. None of that leads ineluctably to autocracy. Lots of countries think they're special or that they've been wronged. Let's stop blaming "capitalism," or America, or NATO. As for Glenn Greenwald, anyone who takes him seriously is to be pitied. K.V.H. is married to the Putin apologist par excellence, Stephen F. Cohen, a man who reminds me ever so much of Chomsky, even in his mannerisms: He often sighs vexedly when people contradict him, as if to say, "I can't suffer such fools any longer."
Many of these people are socialists who said the same thing about the USSR. Bringing them into the Democratic Party is dangerous. "Far from undermining left-wing arguments, discussing these arrangements perfectly demonstrates the failings of contemporary capitalism." That "contemporary capitalism" has faults is true. That Klion and leftists have furnished solutions I favour is not.
The Russian goal was not to elect Trump but to create cynicism. They have won. Cynicism is democracies mortal enemy.
Democracy is alive and well here in Canada and Russia is not our friend.
Today in Manila Duterte's savage verbal attack on our Prime Minister clearly illustrated that our greatest enemies are the Trumps, Putins and Dutertes of this world. Trump and his minions have no bone to pick with Russia and Bernie's supporters know that their greatest enemy is FOX NEWS and FAUX NEWS which are simply an extension to Putin and Trump's international kleptocracy.
Bernie's supporters are focused and here in 1984 it is hard enough fighting Big Brother with the distraction of fighting who may be a friend or enemy tomorrow. At the heart of Berniedom are young men and women from Russia and the world who are fighting the oppression of Putin and Russia's FOX NEWS and know that if they attack Russia they will be used as an excuse for further oppression in Russia.
Listen to Duterte's rebuke of Canada and the Western Democracies today and his telling us his people welcome the repression and thuggery.
1
Your headline took me aback. Which pollster had finally devised a way to tap onto that amorphous, diffuse, diverse entity known as “Sanders supporters”? How had they screened between the diehard progressives and the many moderates who simply want to keep their health insurance? What technique did they use to find and interview some of the folks who want Bernie to run again in 2020, no matter how old he will be? Did they count only those folks, or did they also include folks who believe he had only one chance to win it all?
Alas, this was not how your reporters divined the opinions of the people promised by your headline writers. The article had nothing to do with the folks who did or will vote for Sanders. It looks more like another attempt by the bipartisan institutional machine to fend off the strongest assault from the left in decades.
2
Nice start, weak finish. Maybe Sanders is the most popular US politician and the democratic left is getting stronger and stronger simply because we are dealing with the real issues and the most important issues first. Is it really possible for us to be strategic, focused, disciplined, democratic, electable, experienced and ethical? YES! So get over it. We don't ignore Russia like the author and the NYT ignore us. We simply know where it stands in our list of priorities and we work on many fronts at one time. Just get over it and look ahead to the real issues of 2018 (which the DNC has already lost) and 2020. Stop misrepresenting us and let Meuller do his job without trying to control our public opinion.
3
Bernie Sanders supporters care about both the Russia investigation and the reformation of the DNC. It's not a false dichotomy. You can want both.
4
This op-ed might have a little more traction if the Democratic Party establishment and the DNC had indicated clearly by now that its humiliating defeat a year ago (in what should have been a slam-dunk election) required radical reform and restructuring. Nothing I have seen — the Senate’s “Better Deal” platform proposal was milquetoast — convinces me that the DNC has learned anything meaningful from its loss. The Russians, Comey, and misogyny may have nibbled at the edges of Clinton’s support, but the DNC’s extraordinary incompetence brought the house down. The Democrats should be focusing on rebuilding a party for the coming decades, not just the 2018 midterms. They’ll need to attract vast numbers of the enthusiastic under-45 voters that Senator Sanders inspired. They after all are the people who will have to clean up the dreadful mess us boomers have bequeathed to them. So the Russians has to take second place to getting our house in order. If not, American politics will continue its gothic carousel ride indefinitely.
2
Russia, no Russia, I just want this nightmare to end. I don't belong here and I'm tired of trying to sort it out. When my interest in the Russian influence investigation totally fades, my last flicker of patriotism will have extinguished.
I'm a Bernie Sanders voter. I am concerned about Russian interference. But when I hear legislators spouting about the sanctity of our country, while we have interefered in over 80 countries elections....
But what really concerns me more than Russia, and what really threw the election, was Operation Cross Check funded by the Koch Brothers which took off hundreds of thousands of minority democratic leaning voters. And no matter how many comments in the NYTimes mention it, it doesn't exist as far as the Times is concerned, or Hillary, or Bernie. I find it perplexing.
And we aren't even mentioning the unbalanced Electoral College, gerrymandering, electronic vote tampering, other voter purges....
All of those had, I would think, more impact than Russia.
Mr. Klion's points are logical and inarguable and all progressives should agree with them. So why don't they? Because at least two of the people he quotes in the article are (widely thought to be) knowing agents of influence for Russia, and they work very hard at convincing their followers that Russia's oligarchs aren't as harmful to us as the American ones. The truth is that big money, like everything else, has been globalized. In Russia there is a unholy hybrid of capitalism, the mafia, neofascism, and the surveillance state, and it's metastasizing to Europe and America. We fight it now or there is no later.
1
As an avid Sanders supporter, who actively supported his campaign , have to say that the two notions - that the DNC & state organizations were in the bag for HRC, and that the Trump campaign conspired with thcampaigne Russians to hack e-mails, using a combination of strategically timed leaks of embarassing but TRUE e-mails demonstrating the DNC bias, along with false implanted misinformation in social media and fake websites - are not mutually exclusive.
However, perhaps in the face of such corruption, domestic & foreign, many are simply deeply suspicious of the information flowing now, which flowed so easily from corrupt sources before.
There is a great cost to corruption : Disbelief of authoritative reporting, political institutions, opting out. Fake WMD intel leads to disbelief of what seems to be indisputable evidence of a sophisticated cyber-warfare prosecution by the Russians uncovered by our intel agencies.
The voter manipulation (see New York, Arizona, Nevada, Mass) during the primary was carefully designed to produce opt-out of newly-energized Democrats & independents (i.e. threats to HRC).
And now comes the NYT times, one of the main suppressors of positive media coverage for the Sanders campaign, to complain that the Russian collusion story-line meets less than wholesale buy-in from the community who watched all this other business happen before their eyes, robbing them of a legitimate say in the election.
That should be some answer to the question.
1
"Why Don’t Sanders Supporters Care About the Russia Investigation?"
Probably because we are just a bunch of Bernie Bros. I think the more intelligent question is why is the left still whining, blaming and fighting each other? Where is the proof that Sanders supporters don't care about the Russian investigation? I care about it. Oh yeah, and I also voted for Clinton in the general election, as I suspect most other Sanders supporters did. Just maybe we could stop scapegoating Sanders supporters? Seriously, the election was a year ago, when are we going to start looking forward?
1
Russia provided far better information about the campaign than the combined entirety of American journalism. Sure, their methods are unsavory - just like the political operatives they exposed.
Funny, as a Sanders supporter I honestly wondered why Hillary supporters didn't seem to care much about the revelations of corruption exposed by the leaks - but a lot about the possibility of Russia being behind it.
1
Richard, the dems and Clintons are no longer in power. You and the Trump supporters are trying to distract the current investigation. If your wishes were granted, Trump will be no different from despots like Mugabe in Zimbabwe and Museveni in Uganda who harass and jail their political opponents.
2
Well I disagree that Berniecrats don't care, it is that you are equating two different Russian issues.
One is the election. Yes, Putin and Pals put a thumb upon the scales. But a $100,000 FakeBook buy and twitter trolls & bots spouting nonsense, pale in comparison to the David Brock media buy out and the DNC elbow upon the election. To equate the equivalence of the two is disingenuous.
Your other contention deals with the Russian Mafia, money laundering, real-estate scams, off-shore tax havens etc. Again, yes, Berniecrats are and have been concerned about these oligarchies and plutocrats for decades. Trump included. They exist on both sides of our duopoly political system. You'll note that the Panama Papers (pre Paradise Papers) were presciently knocked by none other than Mr. Sanders. Ms. Clinton, if you remember promoted and pushed for the Panama trade pact despite Sanders arguments against.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=LrsI0Sw2hq8
If we, Dems., care soo much about meddling, why are we not raising the specter of compromised ballot machines across the country? About compromised voter rolls? About getting the vote out to those that haven't or cant vote? Sure lip service. Nothing else.
Corp. Super Delegates, Corp. SuperPacs., Leftish purge from DNC positions.
Gee, I wonder why they are upset and don't care.
As for the tax evasion and money laundering, I don't see the Center Left (right) Dems. even raising an eyebrow.
Business as usual.
3
Once again, our media is failing us. It's not that Russia is unimportant, it is that it pales in comparison to issues like:
healthcare - 20 million uninsured and 500,000 bankruptcies per year
education - 4 year private school education at $300K or approaching $100K at a state school
minimum wage effectively lower than it was fifty years ago
housing and homelessness
50% of infrastructure sub standard
90% + of Americans want gun control...nothing happens
80%+ Americans want campaign finance reform...nothing happens
60%+ want universal healthcare, instead insufficient Obamacare constantly under assault
50,000 opioid deaths per year, tracking big pharma is relaxed
32,000 gun deaths per year, with 18,000 being suicides - no policies for either mental health or sensible gun licensing, registration, insurance, etc
2.3 million incarcerated - with something approaching 50% in federal prison for basically possession and not distribution, with permanent records that makes them almost unemployable...
And what Trump, Manafort, et al is doing with Russia is not treason, since we are not at war with them. What it likely is - corruption & pay to play. That is emblematic of both parties and is reinforced by the Supreme Court with nonsense decisions like Citizens United or even Robert McDonnell being cleared of bribery despite being caught red handed.
Yet, the media covers Russia nonsense extensively and non stop. Come on.
3
As Chris Hedges, a pulitzer prized winning journalist writes: "Forget Russia. The The Damage to American Democracy Is 'Homegrown and Self-Actualized." We are literally being eaten alive by corporate and financial industries, wealth special interests and lobbies, the lack of accountability and transparency in politics.
1
Hillary supporters HOPE Russia stole the election from them, so they can continue to deny losing the blue-collar working class was their own fault.
Sanders supporters KNOW Hillary stole the election from them.
I don't understand why the author needed 2,000 more words...
3
Sanders supporters are indistinguishable from Trump supporters in many ways, including this one. Remember when both said last year, “it doesn’t matter where he information came from”?
1
Who says they don't? How large is the sample size from which NYT draws its conclusions? Surely one can worry about inequality and corporate welfare AND subversion of the USA by a foreign power, especially because the politicians with their heads deliberately in the sand are the very ones passing legislation expressly designed to hurt the middle and lower classes.
The fact is that, when your country has let you down through the loss of the American dream and you are struggling continually to make ends meet, you stop feeling so patriotic. Even if a foreign power effectively takes over the US, you figure things couldn't get much worse, especially if the politicians who are supposedly on your side ignore the problems you have to confront daily.
I am a strong Sanders supporter and a strong believer in the necessity of holding Trump and company accountable for any and all Russian connections.
Who are you talking about? And who is your article pitched at?
2
I find many of the comments here depressing.
Dismissing the influence of the Russian government, which aims to tear apart the U.S and the E.U. and to undermine the ideals on which they were founded, allows people to avoid admitting that they perhaps bought into the Russian propaganda that so irrationally demonized Clinton.
A good friend was a Sanders supporter who became convinced that Clinton was thoroughly corrupt (as well as, variously, too unhealthy to serve as president, a “hawk”, etc. — though this person did stop short of accusing Clinton of running a pedophilia ring). Before the election, this person railed against Clinton, minimizing concerns over the damage that a Trump administration would do to civil rights, to the environment, to public health, and to the public sector generally. In debates, I was the alarmist, and nothing would be very different under Trump. My friend now avoids politics and national news.
I caucused for Sanders, and it is disheartening to see his supporters still unwilling to acknowledge that after the primaries, there was a huge cost to vilifying Clinton. It combined with voter suppression, ratings-driven reporting, and yes, Clinton’s own weaknesses, to give us Trump. Democrats have much to learn from Sanders in order to truly represent and work for the majority, not corporations and the rich. But, likewise, the Hillary haters might do well to contemplate their own mistakes, which the Mueller investigation is likely to put into relief.
2
How is this even a question? It's pretty straightforward. The "American intelligence community" has a history of outright lying to the American public, and of using those lies to serve the interests of the foreign policy establishment and the military-industrial complex. Maybe you remember something called, uh, Operation Iraqi Freedom? We sure do.
The entirety of the "Russian narrative" hinges on anonymous sourcing from "government" and "intelligence" officials, and those same officials' interests just happen to be served by these disclosures. Moreover, we haven't forgotten the press's unforgivable, blatant dishonesty during their opposition to the Sanders campaign. The "thrown chairs" at the Nevada convention ran on the front page of this website -- an entirely fabricated story sourced from a Clinton staffer. We watched in real time what was streamed inside the convention hall, and just how distant it was from what the press was reporting.
The press has zero credibility. The government and the press have provided virtually no evidence for any of their claims, just vague insinuations, circumstantial tidbits, and appeals to the authority of agencies who use our money to spy on us. Sure, there are concerning things, but where's the proof? Until you have it, the world is facing a bajillion crises that're more important.
Any Russian interference would be trivial if people had faith in our institutions, and if we had a truly representative government of, by, and for the people.
1
I've got news for you; this is one Sanders supporter who DOES give that proverbial "rat's whisker" about the Russian investigation.
Once again, Trump is working overtime in throwing red herrings at the media, with among other things, his. continuing zeal in his witch hunt-disguised-as-an-investigation of Hillary Clinton.
Has the media not learned anything from from 2016?
Those Sanders supporters who don't seem to care about this, don't represent those of us who do care, regardless of whatever statistics say.
1
What's wrong with you? Adults can understand the influence Russia had over the election and be very critical of how Hillary ran her campaign. Most Sanders supports I know are adults.
Question for you: Why are you still demonizing Sanders supporters?
2
Because long after the fall of communism, the American Left still has an irrational nostalgia for Russia.
Sanders supporters don't care about the Russian investigtion because Bernie doesn't care about the Russian investigation. The real question is why doesn't Bernie care?
3
It is easy to understand the republican's shocking lack of interest in the Russian connection - it undermines implementing their sickening agenda - but for those on the left who don't understand that is exactly why it should be important to them it is almost as shocking.
Beside that how can anyone on the right or the left not care about the Russians hacking our election? Now that is really shocking.
1
The journalists and Mr. Chomsky summed it up correctly, this is a revival of the Cold War, if we don’t have an enemy we create one. Most recently they have been in the Middle East, Ukraine, Russia and Iran as we fight a defacto war for Israel and the Saudis while ignoring the multitude of problems created by the purveyors of globalization. We have thrown Six trillion dollars down a rat hole to fight the enemies of First big oil and later the Saudis and Israel. This as we have thrown our own middle class under a bus. Why would any thinking person allow themselves be caught up in this manipulation as Americas middle class and the poor continue to lose ground. Nothing has changed in ten years since the financial crisis except the wealthy have benefited from the bubble blown by zero interest rates leveled on us by the fed to bail out Wall Street. As pointed out in every newsworthy source in the world we are the poster boy for “ meddling” in other people’s politics going back decades; most recently, following the Arab Spring we overthrew the duly elected President Morsi of Egypt after we and our ”allies” in the M.E. deemed he wasn’t pro Israel or pro Western enough, so we stick in a Mubarak substitute and give him free reign to murder dissidents. In Ukraine, Israeli oligarchs backed by us(led by Clinton pal Victoria Nuland) overthrew the duly elected President in what was clearly setting the stage for a confrontation with Russia pursuing the neocons dream of world domination.
Many Bernie supporters hate Hillary and care more about that than justice. They do not accept the results of the primary.
1
It's a given that oligarchs are nothing more than parasites but how does Klion somehow make Russian interference in the election about Sanders and his befuddled supporters at a time when it's only becoming more and more clear from the furious activity of Trump's minions just how desperately Putin wants his nemesis Hillary locked up? If Mueller fumbles or is forced off of the Russia investigation it may not be long before America's football players of conscience are taking a knee to the Russian national anthem.
For many of us the investigation feels more like a consolatory punishment of republicans for outmaneuvering us- once again. Because, “hey, they cheated!”
Theoretically important, I suppose, but mostly just a feeble attempt to gain control of a spiraling, hopeless situation. Hail Mary at its best, Schadenfreude at its worst. And yet, it has my full support...
If the Times is going to report on a perceived lack of concern among progressives concerning possible Russian meddling, they should also report on the evident lack of concern among establishment Democrats and their media allies regarding the revelation that the the Clinton campaign established a significant measure of control over finances, operations, and hiring at the DNC before the primaries began. Aren't attempts to undermine fair elections from within at least as big a story as attempts to undermine them from without?
1
I'll tell you why. Because Bernie supporters bought into the anti-Hilary Russian propaganda, and they are still buying into Russian fake news. The Russians aren't dummies. They created a very sophisticated platform for divisive propaganda. They've obviously done some market research and they know their market. The evidence that Trump connived with Putin is overwhelming. If you don't see it it is because you don't want to see it. A candidate for President makes a secret deal with a traditional enemy of the state, to use the enemy's superior propaganda machine to influence the Presidential campaign. This is treason, plain and simple. There has been nothing like this in my entire lifetime. Watergate doesn't even come close. This is a huge wake-up call, and if you don't understand that then you are asleep at the wheel.
2
Sanders supporters who actually support Bernie Sanders do care about the Russia investigation.
The online phonies who work for the ex-Soviet or the Republican party don't.
Hopefully, that's what you are getting at ... the phony Republican leaning Bernie supporter is the fraud of the 2016 campaign that for some reason the press wants to ignore.
1
Why don’t Sanders supporters care about Russian interference in our election?
Because, in their delusioned minds they still think the greatest “threat” to our country comes from all things Clinton, plain and simple.
2
I voted for Hillary, but I don't particularly care about the Russia investigation because it is largely, pardon the expression. trumped up. (1) there may have been Russian hackers at work, but has anyone investigated the number of right wing hackers who weighed in against Hillary? There was one report in the NY Times about the French election and the number of American right wingers who were trying to influence that election for Le Pen. (2) Those who were committed to Hillary voted for her regardless of the number of memes (Russian or otherwise) they were bombarded with. The Republican hate campaign against Hillary has been going on for decades. (3) There is a group of neocons/militarists who don't want rapprochement with Russia under any circumstances and have used these charges as a means to keep the two countries at odds. There is no reason we have to be enemies with Russia and on that I think Trump is right - whatever other motives he may have in mind. (4) Trump got into a fight with the intelligence agencies from the start of his administration by downplaying their reporting. They are in the process of disciplining him with these Russia allegations to show him how dependent he is on them. (5) I don't think the Democrats should be allowed to use the Russia allegations as an excuse for losing the election. As Donna Brazil pointed out much of the problem lay with the Party itself.
7
The author quotes the editor of The Nation, who says, “Focusing on Trump’s ties to Russia alone will not win the crucial 2018 midterm elections, nor will it win meaningful victories on issues like health care, climate change, and inequality that affect all of our lives.” Nothing in his subsequent dog's breakfast of assertions refutes that argument.
Also, it would be really helpful to their case if the author and his fellow Russia obsessives would provide some actual proof of collusion, rather than a mere collection of inferences. Until then, Chomsky is correct -- they are laughable.
11
Another good question is whyaren’t Trump supporters embracing the investigation? It delivers what they’re demanding. To put America first, we need to shore up our autonomy, make America an independent country, one that’s free from foreigners’ control. To drain the swamp, we need to identify and shut off the murky flow of money (especially foreign money!) influencing our government. To bring decent-paying jobs back to American workers, we need to draw back the curtain hiding rich people’s monkey business, be they Russian Oligarchs or the American elites they partner with. It really is a no-brainer. Come to think of it, why isn’t Mr. Trump supporting the investigation?
4
The lack of mainstream media attention to the US internal meddling in their election, especially within the DNC, has been a big sore point for Sanders supporters. The unwillingness of their own government to “look in the mirror” reduces their confidence and faith in the conduct of the American justice and governmental systems.
5
This column should tell us what to expect from the Times if Bernie seeks the Democratic nomination in 2020 — more of the same dishonest efforts to minimalize and marginalize him that helped secure Clinton’s nomination and as a result of her unelectability, Trump’s victory in the general election.
We have recently learned from Donna Brazile’s book how the DNC stacked the debates and primaries in Clinton’s favor. The time has come for the Times, CNN and other corporate media to take responsibility for their role in giving the Democratic nomination to one of the few people in this country now less popular than Trump.
I hope the Mueller investigation takes down Trump, but the amateurish Russian efforts to interfere in our elections pale in comparison to the concentration of media ownership and political power in the hands of the 1% in my view of the threats to American democracy.
6
Sanders supporters are by and large nonpartisan and sticklers for due process. When we first got a whiff of something amiss within the party we thought was most aligned with our principles, we pursued it, and discovered a web of deceit, corruption, intimidation, media collusion, and subversion of democracy. We became relentless investigators once we realized the mainstream media we had long regarded as having journalistic integrity was, in fact, just a propaganda machine for the establishment. Our overriding concerns have become truth, justice, protection of democracy and the Constitution, and exposing the elite and the military industrial complex for what it is and how it's forcing us into unnecessary wars and global destruction. In other words, we've done our homework, know how the Democrats' Russia obsession began, and know what it's really about. And we are astounded that liberals we thought were allies, who shared our guiding principles, are going along with it, to the point of branding us as Russian trolls and Putin puppets. It's bizarre. We have watched a confounding, frightening scenario unfold, and we understand that what began as Hillary supporting Democrats' desire to see her in the White House, by any means necessary, has turned into something they will deeply regret when it terminates at the point of a third world war and a totalitarian regime we have been systematically set up for. We care, and we clearly care more than most.
6
You answer your headline question fairly well in your own article (while leaving out some key points of which you must be aware), but you don't like the answers.
The U.S. has been meddling in elections and overthrowing foreign governments for decades. We are suddenly aghast at such interference.
Russia didn't elect a man who has been open about his abuse of women and his overall bullying tactics. Americans did, without any help from the Russians. Voters knew full well what they were doing and did it anyway. This is a fully homegrown problem and it must have homegrown solutions. Believing that revelations of Russian interference will solve this coarseness in the American soul is indeed laughable.
As you point out, oligarchs have been running the world for decades. Now we're suddenly concerned? Why? Nothing has changed here.
We are unable to solve the basic electoral problems that got us here. The electoral college, gerrymandering, and voter suppression are real. They without doubt gave Trump the election. (We don't need anonymous sources from within our intelligence apparatus to tell us this.) And we are unable to help ourselves in this regard. This is the real scandal. But we, childishly, look to Russia hoping to find a bad guy to blame for our problems.
George Takei recently tweeted (and then deleted) that sexual assault charges against him were being magnified by Russia. We have lost our minds over this conspiracy theory.
6
This is spot on criticism of this article. While the evidence for apparent collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia is sickening and undermines the legitimacy of an election already compromised by the electoral college and gerrymandering, the source of despair among the left is, really, this coarseness in the American soul that would elect an overtly white supremacist misogynist charlatan who aspires to be a Putin-level authoritarian kleptocrat. And now, the Republican tax plan aims to stomp on the faces of the working and middle classes while annihilating the conditions for upward mobility (onerously taxing scholarships, etc.) It is truly demoralizing. Welcome to the idiocracy.
lainnj writes...The electoral college, gerrymandering, and voter suppression are real. They without doubt gave Trump the election. (We don't need anonymous sources from within our intelligence apparatus to tell us this.) And we are unable to help ourselves in this regard. This is the real scandal. But we, childishly, look to Russia hoping to find a bad guy to blame for our problems.
And this is why the USA is in trouble...even someone who gets the problems with the electoral college, voter suppression, and gerrymandering doesn't understand, or doesn't want to understand, the Russia issue. Did Russia influence the election...YES. Was their influence strong enough to change the presidency...who knows? We will never know. Did the electoral college system help Trump...yes. Did voter suppression help Trump win...yes. Did James Comey publicly re-opening the investigation into Hillarys emails help Trump win...yes. Would Trump have won without all of this help...NO.
The point I don't want anyone to miss is that Trump should not have even made it out of the republican primaries. He was and is so bad, that any reasonable person would not have voted for him. To suggest that Hillary lost because she ran a poor campaign ignores that essential point. Trump was not fit to be President. Period. Hillary losing to John Kasich...yes, call Hillary a bad candidate. Losing to Trump does not prove that Hillary was a bad candidate, it shows that the voters in this country have lost their minds.
1
I voted for Sanders in the primaries but when he didn't win I voted for Clinton. I did this because I have half a brain an KNEW what a Donald J Trump "presidency" would be like. It's actually been worse much faster then even I thought. I have a big interest in the Russian investigations. Why? Because I still love the country I'm currently ashamed of. Because a person who would collaborate with a hostile foreign power to help insert himself into the Whitehouse is a TRAITOR to this country and open to do that hostile powers bidding. I really don't have some "progressive" litmus test for politicians, we can't afford that kind of juvenile nonsense these days. I will vote for either an establishment democrat or progressive candidate not just one over the other. We can't afford to continue playing these purity games given the creatures in the Whitehouse now. Traditional democrats and Sanders supporters need to work together at all costs.
6
Putin presides over a gangster state and strives by every means - war, sabotage, espionage, and manipulation of client politicians - to subvert the "Near Abroad" and return it to Russian domination, while striking at Western democracies to weaken, divide, and destabilize them. Donald Trump's received hundreds of millions of funds from Russian oligarchs and mafiosi close to Putin in real estate "investments" when he was cut off by banks after his bankruptcies. This is on public record. Trump fawns slavishly on Putin and attacks his own intelligence agencies, their conclusions, and their former heads who were noted for integrity and experience ("political hacks, liars"). He chose Manafort, Flynn, Stone, Papadopoulos and others deeply compromised to be his campaign manager, National Security or campaign advisers. He and Tillerson (who has his own ties to Russia) have gutted the State Department; a non-competitive contract as been awarded to a Russian firm founded by Putin's former KGB colleague to assure security of the U.S. embassy and consulates in Russia. "Realpolitik" has meant accepting Russian collusion in Assad's massacres of civilians (Aleppo), and Russian annexation of the Crimea and splitting off eastern Ukraine. But why should America not have a clean president, clearly independent and not a creature of Russian interests? Lifting sanctions to help develop Russian Arctic oil fields will only speed global warming.
4
This Bernie supporter cares deeply about the Russia investigation. Democracy is essential to have a just society - its integrity must be upheld and advanced at every juncture. We cannot abide by foreign interference.
3
You managed to find one person whose conclusions are loopy, Chomsky, and then lumped all Sanders supporters with him with assumptions that make absolutely no sense and are actually insulting. (Bernie in the primary and Clinton in the general here.) Yes of course Russian interference in our elections, 2016 and into the future, matters: on what else but the vote count do we base our governance?!
4
That anyone could claim with a straight face that Russian assistance in the theft of the American presidency is not the most important issue this country has ever faced is dangerously naive, short-sighted, and historically ignorant. If we let this stand, then we as a country DESERVE to be a vassal state of Russia--and so we shall.
Yeah, all that other stuff's great to focus on, and really important, but none of it has a prayer--and neither do we--if we just let the elephant stroll on by. If our republic is up for grabs to the most ruthless, well, there isn't going to be much of a republic for very much longer.
I don't care which side of the political divide you choose--that won't be pleasant. And you and everyone you care about will suffer mightily.
5
For instance, in the 1990s, both the Bush and Clinton administrations encouraged the aggressive privatization of the Russian economy, which resulted in collapsing living standards, a new class of robber barons and a backlash against liberal democracy that Mr. Putin exploits to this day."
This demonstrates the dangers of conflating democracy and capitalism. They are not the same thing. Democracy is a socialist concept. It aims to redistribute political power equally. The version of capitalism that we subscribe to today, which is actually mercantalism, is undemocratic. Free trade can be democratic, but the accumulation and inheritance of wealth is as democratic as the accumulation and inheritance of power.
5
I would like to direct people to left wing commentators like Sam Seder and Cenk Uger who have spent a good chunk of the year talking about Russia much to the dismay of their listnership. Mr. Uger for example has lost subscriptions over his analysis and he has also been a day one believer that something fishy finacialy speaking went on between the Trump campaign and Russian government. Mr. Seder on the other hand has lent the story its well deserved time each time new revalations emerge. Granted both give this caviat and that is yes the Russian government did have a hand to play in Trump winning but mistakes, the Comey letter and mismangement of campiagn funds in the Clinton camp led to her losing but also cost down ballot candidates the Election. So yes there are Sanders supporters out there doing their due diligince on the Russian story but they also understand where else to lay the blaim as well.
2
This op-ed seems to lack any evidence for its headline, or even much focus on it as a premise. It's just clickbait.
This Sanders/Clinton voter is very concerned about Russian manipulation in our media ecosystem but its also not as if the conservative movement didn't already employ similar dirty tricks from Nixon until today even without Russian help.
I'm even more concerned about foreign and domestic hacks of our voting machines and making that system secure and transparent is something the Republican party has been uniformly against. While they hunt for rare cases of voter fraud (when voters cheat), the Trump administration's own Kris Kobach and his ilk throughout the red states have been busy architecting a massive election fraud (when the people who run the systems cheat).
3
I think the polarizing title of this article is unproductive and inaccurate. I am an independent, but would have preferred the choice of voting for Bernie rather than Hillary in the election. However, I am very concerned about Russian interference in the election and our nation's discourse and activities generally. From the standpoint of one of the large number of citizens not in either party, I think the perception by avid Hillary supporters is that Hillary would have won without the Russian interference, so they are preoccupied with that one issue. Bernie supporters and other just generally concerned citizens see that there were numerous other issues that contributed to the Hillary campaign not catching fire and winning the hearts and minds of the citizens. So, many of them in my experience are very worried about the Russian interference, but they are concerned about the numerous other horrible things that are happening right now....perhaps an equally biased title written by a Bernie supporter would be "Why are Hillary supporters still only focused on the election and not helping fight the myriad other destructive activities that the Trump administration and Republican Congress are pursuing that we believe will hurt average Americans"...Let's stop with the bickering and get on to protecting our democracy.
3
I'm a Sanders supporter and concerned about Russian meddling. But it's only one of many important issues. The author is correct, there is a transnational capitalist class, and it include elites from both the US and Russia, and from Republican as well as Democratic ranks. But the hypocrisy around the Russia issue is deep. We never hear a word about the long history of US meddling, or a call for it to end alongside Russian meddling. Moreover, I would still rank jobs, education, and health care as more important issues.
3
You asked why Sanders supporters aren't as focused on Russia. I'd turn the question around and ask why mainstream Democrats, particularly the Clinton faction, are so focused on proving that our elections were compromised to the exclusion of, it sometimes seems, everything else, including the disasterous policies of the Republicans in general and the Trump administration in particular.
I can't speak for all Sanders supporters but I am personally very concerned about the possibility that our president was helped into power by a hostile foreign government--and seems to be far too close for comfort to the head of that government.
While I am interested in the progress of the investigation, and hope it exposes this cancer at all levels, at the same time I am dismayed by mainstream Democrats who sometimes seem to act as if Russia was the only problem that they had in 2016 and that they need to change nothing,
I'd like to see the Democrats get to work, not wait for Robert Mueller to come down from the clouds and wave a magic wand making all that 2016 nastiness, and maybe Trump himself go away. Instead, I'd like to see a good faith effort to unite Democrats and left-leaning progressives, young people and yes working class voters of all races and genders into the sort of tsunami that gave Democrats control of Congress and swept Barak Obama into office in 2008.
1
For too many Sanders supporters HRC was no better than Trump. As much as any Russian interference that fact resulted in Trumps election. If Mueller uncovers info on Trump that leads to his resignation or impeachment Sanders supporters will welcome it.
2
"Why don't Sanders SUpporters Care About the Russia Investigation?"
Uh ... they do? So this article is a bit of a Strawman?
Frankly, as a Bernie Supporter/Hillary Voter, I can hold two different ideas in my mind: It's wrong for well-funded foreign nationals to use money, media and propaganda to anonymously sway our elections. It's also wrong for well-funded American citizens to use money, media and propaganda to anonymously sway our elections.
The KGB and the Kochs? Same problem.
Anonymous money via Foreign Bank Transfer and anonymous money via Citizen's United? Same Problem.
For me, as a Progressive, it's not that I don't care about Russia -- I do -- but I also know that Mr. Trump and all his ills are, at best, the ugly wallpaper in a burning house -- easy to complain about, harder to fix. I want my elected representatives to look into Trump and Russia; I also want my elected representatives to work towards overturning Citizen's United, stopping Gerrymandering, restoring the Southern Civil RIghts Voting Act, challenging the antiquated Electoral College and our idiotic Primary system, and how we can treat offshore bank accounts into convictions for both Tax Evasion and Treason. Oh, and increasing the minimum wage to a living wage while protecting the rights of the American worker with the same facility and enthusiasm they bring to bear to protect the rights of the American owner.
Trump isn't the problem. America having a system that could let him happen is.
2
I voted Sanders in the Primary and I care very much about Mueller's investigation into Russia and Trump collusion. So far I believe that Trump and members of his campaign committed treason. I've never been so disgusted by any group of politicians like I am of Trump's campaign
1
Your whole premise is flawed. My wife and I support Bernie,but we voted for Hillary in the General election. Just as right wingers blame Hillary for every imaginable ill on earth-neoliberals are condemning Bernie for everything that happened in 2016. Bernie supported Hillary and spent months campaigning for her in the General. Please let’s put to bed convenient political mythology.
3
Everything that is wrong with foreign interference can be summarized in one street address: 432 Park Avenue. It is where Saudi and Russian oligarchs dump untold sums of money into luxury apartments that they never visit, squeezed into a building that stretches like a middle finger in the face of millions of Americans who work in Manhattan yet cannot afford to live there. I can assure you that this Bernie supporter takes Russian interference seriously--so much so that I am not nearly naive enough to think that Donald Trump is the only politician acting under the hand of foreign financial interests.
3
There are the Sanders supporters who although they were very disappointed that their candidate was not the nominee did at least vote for Hillary in the general election. Then there are those who withheld their votes.
As a frequent commenter during the primaries I was completely struck by the fact that my support for Hillary was facing about 20 to 1 against her and for Bernie. Now we find that many of those comments were actually Russian Bots. The main goal of the Russians during the primaries was to turn Bernie Sanders supporters against Hillary to the point that in the general election their votes would be suppressed. They were spectacularly successful in this goal.
First time voters were led by Russians to sites that were set up, many falsely in Sanders name, full of lies about Hillary. Because they were newly involved they did not have the history and knowledge to know that these were lies. Sanders was aware of these phony sites, but did nothing to point them out and try to discredit them. In this way he actually profited just as much from Russian interference As Trump did.
Jill Stein was in Moscow with Manafort and Flynn at the table with Putin. Her entire campaign was anti-Hillary. I believe there is a huge story to be found in an examination of Stein's funding.
Those who withheld their votes on what might have been and in fact was for the most part lies and distortions paid for by the Russians are in denial and have no interest in pursuing this further.
2
I’ve no doubt that Donald Trump and his cronies are corrupt and involved in sleazy activity aplenty .
Broadly speaking for Sanders supporters, I’ll say our greatest concern regarding Russia is it’s used to deflect from the glaring failures of the Democratic Party in the last decade . Serious reform and reflection is called for and far too many Party faithful , particularly Hillary Clinton supporters, want to pretend all is well and , were it not for Russian interference and hostile “Berniebros” , Ms. Clinton would be President.
By all means let’s pursue investigations in undue Russian meddling , graft and corruption . At the same times don’t allow Democratic Leadership to use it as a convenient excuse for their own political malfeasance and ineffectiveness. Progressives are ascendant and this is a threat to old guard establishment Democrats. Russia is their shiny object and fear tactic to preserve their status and thwart long overdue Party reform.
3
Russia is a distraction. We need good relations with Russia and China.
We should oppose Trump not because he loves Putin but because he is transferring wealth from the poor to the rich.
1
Why don't people care about the Russia investigation? Because it will amount to nothing. When and if it ever ends, Trump will still be president, the government will still be a laughingstock, and the country will still be going down the drain. Aside from the waste of our tax dollars to fund it, the Russia investigation will have absolutely no impact on the lives of ordinary Americans who are more worried about health care, education, climate change, jobs, and social security. Yes, Russia meddled. We should have been on the lookout for that, as no doubt foreign powers have attempted to meddle in every presidential election ever. Trump and his Republican Agents of the Wealthy are the problem The country faces right now, and Trump's connection to Russia - which I think we have already seen all there is to it - is about as significant as Hillary's emails. Gerrymandering and the electoral college cost us the election, not Russia. Why doesn't the NYTimes care about gerrymandering? Instead of complaining people don't care about the articles you write, write articles that matters to people. We will all be better off.
1
This is a somewhat confusing article. So, we should care about the Russian investigations because they have kleptocrats in Russia? Shouldn't the US worry about home-grown kleptocrats first? They seem to have completely taken over the US government.
The corrupt Russia of today is the logical conclusion of the theory that free market capitalism can do no wrong and needs no laws. This theory is widely accepted in the US and is part of Republican fundamental beliefs. The fact is that capitalism is a powerful force that has no moral compass and left to its own devices will destroy the planet.
Russia offers a mirror for the US; however, a person needs to have a minimum of a chimpanzee intelligence to recognize oneself in a mirror.
2
I am so sick and tired of Bernie Sanders' supporters. They are one of the main reasons we now have donald trump as President of the United States.
3
We are all one same country, Victoria. Free will, free choice, we can be whoever we want. If you don't like that, you can adopt another country.
1
That's it. Keep launching unfair attacks on those of us who supported Bernie. And while you're at it, keep doing all you can to marginalize our influence in the Democratic Party.
Of course, you'll expect us to show up at the voting booths in 2018 and 2020 and vote for the latest centrist hacks who are backed by big corporate donors. And the DNC will tell us: "Vote for our candidates because they are better than Trump and the Republicans. And if you crazy Bernie people don't show up, the failure to take back Congress and the White House will be all on you."
2
They don't care because there is nothing there to care about. When everything is said and done the people who cared will be ashamed that they did. That anti-Russian hysteria is nothing but a kind of mass delusional psychosis - an irrational reaction to grief of losing that election so unexpectedly. After all Sanders supporters know full well who that was who actually subverted democracy in that election. Sanders would have beaten Trump handily and there was nothing Russian or anyone else could have done about it.
There is no Washington consensus of Republicans and Democrats. That is a myth, and Sanders campaign hyperbole. The Democrats, for instance, have rarely been interested in deregulating the banks or lowering taxes. Is Mr. Klion really arguing that Democrats support transnational oligarchies? Or that Democrats supported the Russian robber barons and kleptocracy? Really, David? Mr. Chomsky has been very wrong at least as often as he has been very right. Take, for instance, his support for Pol Pot who murdered millions of Cambodians. All other things aside, Sanders and his supporters are a principal reason that Trump is president. His primary campaign rhetoric was brutal. Trump adopted almost all of it. 12% of Sanders' supporters voted for Trump. Another fraction voted for Stein or stayed home.
Folks on the left harbor illegal immigrants and support extending U.S. rights and protections to non citizens living outside this country, yet get all up in arms when Russians exercise a little free speech regarding an election. Were Russian citizens holding our hands, forcing people to vote one way or another? No. Give it a rest already.
Yes, indeed! At least two Sanders supporters don't care. Thanks so much for telling us about it.
2
Who says they don't? I do! So call Sanders Supporters are blamed for everything but flat feet, or did I miss that article?
btw, I am one of the many Sanders Supporters, like Sanders himself, who went on to support and vote for Hillary Clinton in the general election.
1
I assume that they are resistant for the same reason Trump supporters are. Both Trump supporters and Bernie supporters - not those who merely voted for them, but the ones who are still acting like it's election season - are oblivious to obvious shortcomings and unwilling to hear a single bad word for fear it derails the portion of the political agenda they are passionate about. Unfortunately for Bernie, there are likely a lot of questions about the extent to which he knowingly or unknowingly helped Putin. He certainly ran on a lot of the same anti-Clinton/DNC false narratives that powered Trump, and then some. The entire "rigging" narrative was fake news - it was not factually supported by the content or timeline of the stolen DNC emails. Can't recall the number of "BernieBros" that were reportedly bots. Then there was the earlier issue where he somehow had access to her campaign database, and was all indignant at first when questioned about it. Not great optics, at the bare minimum, and likely to make those still “feelin the bern” deeply uncomfortable.
2
Russian interference in our last presidential election is THE single most important story of that election, linked as it is with the corrupting of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. Throw in the shenanigans of Cambridge Analytica, and it is completely apparent that our once democratic republic has been hijacked. To make it even more appalling, we're not doing anything to keep it from happening again?
What does the reaction of various factions tell us? First, that the Sanders supporters can be just as stupid as anyone.
Second, that Katrina vanden Heuvel can put the cart before the horse. If Democrats don't get elected because of continued Russian interference, "issues like health care, climate change, and inequality" won't get dealt with at all.
Third, that Noam Chonsky has finally, but definitely, gone 'round the bend, and should now be shut in the basement.
As a lifelong liberal Democrat, I'm used to the intellectual shortcomings of the right. I've become rather inured to them. I'm still jarred, however, by the silly ravings of the loony leftists mentioned in this column. They're supposed to be intelligent.
2
It's not that we don't care, it's that we see it as less important than the internal failings of the Democratic Party. Russian meddling may have played some role in the election (although it's not clear how much) but what's far more important is that Clinton had serious flaws, and ran the campaign like she had it in the bag. Nominating Clinton at all was foolish, and her campaign strategy was abominable. Many Clinton supporters are attempting to use Russia as an excuse for the Democrat's failings, and thus an excuse to continue being failures. After action assessments are important, especially when you lose, and the Democrats and pro-Democrat media have used Russia as an excuse to avoid hard truths.
24
The Dems are just a party. That can be cleaned up with the right pressure from its members. We're talking about the country here. We have way too much party over country already. "Excuse for Democrat failings" reveals you as a Trumpie. Enough said!
1
Nonsense. I voted against Trump. If I was pro-Trump, I would be glad that the Democrats are focusing so heavily on Russia, because it prevents them from getting their act together. Your suggestion that I'm a "Trumpie" because I say that the Democrats are imperfect reveals you to be a thoughtless party loyalist, rather than a serious liberal. Enough said!
Another question is “Why don't Trump supporters care about the investigation?” It delivers what they’re demanding. To put America first, we need to make America an independent country, one that’s free from foreigners’ control. To drain the swamp, we need to identify and shut off the murky flow of money (especially foreign money!) influencing our government. To bring decent-paying jobs back to American workers, we need to draw back the curtain hiding rich people’s monkey business, be they Russian Oligarchs or the American elites they partner with. It really is a no-brainer. Come to think of it, why doesn't President Trump support the investigation? It's an effective implementation of his program.
16
Because it is a symptom and not the problem itself. The problem is dysfunctional politics. American politics have become so divisive; wrapped around rigid ideologies that brook no compromise - just ripe for the picking! As far as I understand it, the Russians main effort was to disrupt the political system in the US, and anywhere else it could. The had great success in the US; less success where differing political opinions are still in contact with each other.
Focusing on the juicy details of the investigation is unnecessary - Mueller is doing a good job. What is needed is for the American body politic to heal itself - first and foremost by realizing that we are all part of one nation and we need to stop "siccing" ourselves on each other.
2
Every American citizen should care about Russian interference in our electoral system. The goal of the Russian authorities is to undermine our democracy. They are succeeding!
2
I'm not sure why this headline, which makes a gross assumption about Sanders' supporters without one shred of supporting evidence in the article, appears in the NYT, except, perhaps, its long-standing bias against Bernie.
Of course Sanders' supporters, of which I am one, care about the Russian scandal. It is absurd to assert otherwise.
Further, Sanders keeps his head down and stays on message better than any politician I have ever seen in 40 years of politics-watching. I've often wondered how he can be so passionate and repeat phrases he's been using for his entire political career. The difference is that people are finally waking up to realize that his message of income inequality, health care as a right and the need for free education K-14, rather than K-12, are issues that precisely describe part of what ails our nation.
And btw, the push for an investigation of Uranium One is missing the mark. The real scandal is the top 7 aides to Clinton refusing to cooperate with the IG, and then Eric Holder giving immunity to her top aides in exchange for exactly nothing. And there's also Bill getting a $1 million personal birthday present from a middle east king, whose nation is suddenly approved - by Hillary - for huge increases in sales of arms to his country (sorry - can't remember the specific names. It was the grossest exhibition of pay for play in the nation's history.
But, back to this article, I assume the author of the HEADLINE is a devout Clinton supporter.
7
While legal “collusion” has some weird definition plain old collusion by Trump is public - asking Russia for help and asking Putin to a secret White House meeting were public “collusion” as normal people use the word. Meanwhile the Democrats are doing nothing to help those suffering middle Americans who voted for Trump or to counter the epic gerrymandering that skewed the House and allows Trump to run rampant. Trump supporters are still hoping his craziness will somehow produce change. It won’t, just witness his NAFTA posturing, where he wants to kowtow to the big companies that drove rural Mexicans out of jobs and over the border. And the tax cut that will take more money from their pockets. Why are there no Democrats saying this in a way that speaks to middle America?
1
I strongly disagree that there is "nothing" being done. There is a gerrymandering case coming up to the Supreme Court very soon. There are concerned citizens, many of them democrats working to change gerrymandering laws. This is maybe not sexy enough to push the Trump tweets and Sessions hearings from the front page. The issue irt to NAFTA-- well, there was a large cross section of Bernie supporters who voted for Trump and Republicans or at least did not add their votes for Democrats. As a result the Democrats are out of power and do not have a seat at the table. I guess you showed them! Democrats are vocal on social media in regard to the regressive and oppressive policies of the Trump Administration- I see them on my wall every day-- from Gov. Cuomo, Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, Sen. Gillibrand, Sen. Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Sen. Warren, and other Democrats. As far as I remember from last November, Middle America voted for this. They speak the same language as the rest of us, so I assume they tacitly approve. Maybe Middle America can step away from the Fox News and stand up and protest with the rest of us and join the Resistance.
1
I think the author of this article is trying to make 2 separate but related points: 1.the point that Bernie supporters may have been influenced by Russian meddling (ie, all the intensely polarizing propaganda they flooded the social media with, a lot of it anti-HRC). 2. The author then makes a sharp turn into all the many (legitimate) reasons the Russia investigation is relevant to left interests. He does not in my opinion make the two distinctbut related theses of the article clear enough.
I think both points are important...that Russia intefered, successfully dividing the dems and peogressives, AND the reasons Russia has such a strong interest in doing so are relevant and related.
I hope we dems and progressives can stop the bickering and coalesce around this and the issues we care about. We have more in common than we have differences. We can use the Russia issue to our benefit in 2018 if we stop allowing ourselves to be divided and conquered.
3
Regarding Russian meddling in our elections, we should believe our intelligence agencies, the best in the world, when they (NSA, CIA, FBI in the Jan 6, report) had this to say about their investigation:
"Judgements are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collective information which is often incomplete or fragmentary as well as logic, argumentation and precedent."
In other words, the intelligence "assessments" are not based on any "proof" of Russian guilt but rather on "fragmentary" and "incomplete..argument..logic.. and precedent." In other words "just guessing."
1
As Bernie voter it's not that I "don't care" about the Russia investigation. If a member of the Trump team, or Trump himself offered a quid pro quo to the Russians in "exchange for something of value" then they broke the law and should be prosecuted.
But the current "investigation" has become hysterical, swallowing up hour and hours of news time, offering mostly speculation, while serious issues have been ignored.
Targeting Black Lives Matter for harboring "racial extremists" erodes all of our First Amendment Rights. Allowing Google and Facebook to black list socially progressive, independent news sites is government censorship with a wink and a nod.
Meanwhile we are going into our 17th year of continuous, undeclared war. During this time we've created a culture of war that obscures reason and ignores basic constitutional norms, to say nothing of the economic and moral implications of these wars.
All of this is made more possible and more pervasive under the cloud of "Russia Gate". A $150,000 worth of Facebook ads gets enormous attention, but the lack of an accurate vote count in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan gets ignored. Warnings of digital vote tampering from 15 years ago, similarly ignored. And the ever present Black vote suppression remains standard Red state policy, yet we are told that the real threat to our democracy are the Russians, not those who rob Black votes.
How about congressional hearings on those issues ? That would be news.
3
Why? Why Sanders' supporters don't care about Russia's assault on our country's political system? Because it would give credence to the notion Russia's attempt to get Trump elected succeeded as their meddling in our social media flipped those 'swing states'-- the ultimate reason why Hillary Clinton was defeated.
And by the way, Russia's meddling in the 2016 election was the 'fait accompli' of the 'death by a thousand cuts' that was initiated and something that plagued Hillary Clinton her entire public and political life,since the moment she set foot on the 'political stage', one reserved for decades and decades for only men, back when her husband Bill Clinton got elected president.
Since that day, being a woman attempting to shatter a glass ceiling, she's had a target on her back, and one Bernie Sanders, too, took square aim at.
And let's also not forget, these are the same individuals who were, and currently are still loaded down with Student Loan Debt, a burden Sanders promised to relieve if elected President. As I've said a hundred times, these Millennials didn't know Bernie Sanders from Colonel Sanders when the Democratic Primaries began. And too, it was Hillary who beat back that challenge by their 'pied piper', a result of her winning the Democratic Primary race.
5
I'm a Sanders supporter and recognize the ever clearer picture that there was more than collusion with Russia, but actual treason is the most significant political issue confronting the nation since Benedict Arnold. We have by a fluke of the Electoral College elected an autocrat who has been on a mission to undermine our democracy through incessant attacks on the third (our judiciary) and fourth (the press) estates. His adulation of Vladimir Putin is striking as are his attempts to work with the Russian dictator in eliminating sanctions ("adoptions" aka the Magnitsky Act freezing Russian oligarch assets in the West) as well as appointing Russian-friendly person like former National Security Adviser, Michael ("Lock her up!") Flynn, and Secretary of State Rex (Russian "Order of Friendship") Tillerson. It should be clear to any thinking American, especially Sanders' Democrats, that Donald Trump represents an existential threat to our democracy that we've never before experienced. With a a Republican-controlled Congress unwilling and unable to respond due to fear and their own greed in undoing New Deal and Great Society programs while transferring even more public wealth into the private hand of their political patrons, we are facing an imminent takeover by an authoritarian oligarch using the a version of the 1930s racist "politics of grievance" and "other blame" to undermine our democratic institutions. We, and Sen. Sanders know, "It's the kleptocracy, stupid!"
43
David, for Sen. Sanders' supporters to ignore the Russia investigation is not wise at all because Bernie himself had admitted as you quoted him in your article that "Inequality ,corruption, oligarchy and authoritarianism are inseparable ."
So I, as a longtime member of the Democratic party and after voting for Hillary in the last election, strongly believe that Bernie Sanders who's a self-described "democratic socialist" and a "New deal-era American progressive" should use his influence to ask his followers to join hands with our Democratic party members to say in unison that Hillary lost her election last year because of Russian meddling in our electoral process beside whatever Bernie's supporters think about whatever she lacked as a candidate.
Sen. Sanders also must declare to his followers that the Russia investigation that is going through in the Congress and outside by Mr. Mueller should go through its full course until Trump is forced to resign from his presidency that he didn't deserve to win. Hillary did.
And that statement by Mr. Sanders will definitely make us all in the Democratic party happy as we strongly believe like many in the Republican party's 'Never Trump' movement including Sen. John McCain that it was totally 'illegal' for Trump to ask for Russia's help in an open forum to find Hillary's 30,000 missing emails.
We now know that Putin did extract lot of personal campaign related emails from her computer and got them published through Wikileaks' .
4
I am one of many Sanders supporters who have been following the Russians' interference with our elections and support of Donald Trump since the very beginning. I am completely ashamed of the positions taken by the Nation, the Intercept, the NY Review of Books and others who seem to me to resemble those leftist who could so easily forgive Stalin.
The title of this article left out the "some of."
2
Comey testified that he could not find any evidence that Trump colluded or that even one vote had changed because of the Russians. Mueller attack on Manafort is about money laundering and not registering something back in 2012. No charges were filed. There was also a report he is looking into something for the Turkish government. Whatever happened between Turkey and Flynn happened in December, after the election. That should have been sent on to the Justice Department and not part of the purpose he was assigned to, investigating to find any collusion. Mueller has all of the information Comey had to build on. He has had months to look into this. He continues to investigate. If he had anything on Trump, he would have already leaked it. This is a distraction. It could make a person wonder if his purpose of carrying this on and on is less about the truth and more about weakening a presidency. After all his investigation of a beauty contest in 2013 and a business dealing in 2012, he has one person plead guilty to lying to the FBI about something that wasn't even illegal. He has indicted Manafort about his business four years ago. It is time for him to arrest someone for colluding with the Russians or shut down and go home.
Actually, Mueller is a fine professional and does not suffer leaks unlike the Trump White House. He is methodically building his case. It took two years for the Watergate case to come together and I believe that it is important to be patient. You don't know all the facts, much of which is under gag orders and charges have been filed in regard to Manafort (you don't post bail when there are no charges). The investigator and prosecuter will use what they find that ensures conviction and/or a bargaining position for information and for them to testify. The fact is the three under indictment right now have already testified on information that proves the inner circle of the Trump administration have lied under oath-- committed perjury. However, their net cast is a wide one and I believe there will be a crowd large enough to fill a few paddywagons when it all comes together. Btw, lying to the FBI is a crime.
1
The first most important thing is stopping or slowing the Trump led de-construction of pretty much everything the left holds dear.
Following that, the Mueller investigation is a necessary process, but it will take time and at its best its only going to remove a couple of creeps. How would you feel about watching Mike Pence getting sworn in as the next President?
What is alarming is how the DNC establishment still talks about Sanders supporters as if they're examining a specimen in a jar. The continuing deafness from the DNC is the single most worrisome thing to this Progressive. In order to stop and reverse the Trump train Dem's have to solidly defeat them at the polls. Period.
So where is the leadership? Where is the love? Where is the welcoming of Bernie and is supporters into the DNC? What would that take? Where are the "mea culpas"?
The deafening silence.
3
The die hard Bernie supporters I see on Twitter are remarkably antagonistic to the Democratic Party. They demand the Party turn around and appoint only the Sanders anointed. Sanders is not a Democrat so that is not going to happen.
1
For years now the Democratic establishment has been busy distracting us from the issues that really count but that annoy some its largest financial supporters. They want us to stay silent about issues like the power of Wall Street and tax evasion. Instead the Democratic establishment has tried to keep us occupied with marginal issues like gay marriage and transgender toilet rights.
The Russia investigation is just the newest of those efforts. There is no doubt that people like Manafort have some shady sides. But they are not so important that they deserve to be the focus of attention. There are a lot of issues that are more important.
1
This is simple: Sanders supporters do not care about the Russia investigation because they don't want to find out that something deeply sinister prevented Hillary Clinton from being POTUS and that they, in fact, might have had something to do with that by fanning anti-Hillary flames. Enter the Bernie Bros. and massive social media slander. Sanders' supporters want to believe that he should have won the Primary. In fact, Sanders ran a great campaign. He raised a lot of money and got out the crowds. They just weren't big enough to beat HRC, but they refuse to acknowledge that. On top of that, if Sanders supporters have to confront the possibility that Russian hackers messed with the voters in the States of Wisconsin and MIchigan with so much Fake News that many voters not only stayed home but swung to a third party candidate, they they have to admit that the election was polluted in deeply complex ways and that this pollution affected Clinton, Sanders' opponent. And if that isn't enough, Sanders supporters also have to ask themselves why Putin would want a man in office as opposed to a woman and how that might drill down to Sanders himself. All of that said, by far the most compelling reason is that Clinton called Russia's involvement early on in the debates and no one took her seriously. Sanders wanted to be POTUS. His supporters wanted him to be POTUS. So much so that they didn't care whether Russia was polluting the election. The whole sorry mess is shameful.
53
Yes, enter the "Bernie Bros", who were invented by Russian agents during the campaign to foster hostility between Trump's opponents.
It sounds like you're the one who needs to hear more about Russia's sinister influence. You don't seem to understand it very well.
4
Even Paul Krugman used labels lie Bernie Bros and other choice name calling.
4
We care. We are also just busy winning local elections, having conversations, and building power from the grass roots so that voters won't be tricked again, by either lying Republicans, mealy-mouthed Democrats or those meddling Russians.
There's policy solutions, there's social media fixes, and then there's old-fashioned, person-to-person organizing to build a resilient base that knows what's what. All are necessary. Only democratic socialists really seem to care about all three.
20
I agree with you but there's one essential element missing:
When you go on Breitbart, there is a comments section after each article with robust features that allow for a far more integrated engagement than on places like here, WaPo etc.
We need to have these features as well.
This holier than thou attitude of the Bernie supporter is exactly why some progressives, poc, and others find Sander's and his supporters, unsupportable
2
Sanders supporters don't care about the Russia investigation because it's mostly about providing Hillary Clinton with a respectable reason why she lost the election. Without Russia, Hillary's loss to Trump goes down in history as not only a one-time public repudiation but a continuing humiliation as the Trump presidency careens down the road.
Sanders supporters would rather Democrats' energies be expended in rooting out the favoritism and corruption in their own party. Why worry about Russian meddling in the general election when they can't even get a fair shake in the primary?
8
I supported Senator Sanders. But I would not think of speaking for all of his supporters, nor do I think of his or any politician's supporters as a monolithic entity. As I can only speak for myself, I will explain why I do not think much of the Russian investigation.
Let me put it this way: I do not think Russia is a very important issue. Why? Because I am more worried about what the Trump administration is doing in terms of gutting environmental regulations, of harming asylum seekers and undocumented persons, how they work to undermine women's bodily autonomy, normalize and justify sexual assault, taking away people's healthcare, gutting welfare for the poor, undermine workers rights, removing net neutrality, expanding our nuclear arsenal and threatening our press.
In other words, I prefer to talk about issues that actually affect ordinary people.
I am not interested in tax returns, emoluments, or Russian ties. Yes, these things are 'important' in that they are ethical challenges to our political norms. But our opposition to them only serves to make ourselves feel better. It does not (and this is crucial) actually make people's lives better.
This is my principle in a nutshell: If a government seeks to do something evil, it is far better for them to waste money then it would be for them to spend it efficiently. If Trump wants to drain the treasury by enriching himself or build a stupid wall, let him. Don't lose focus on the actual harmful things he is doing.
4
As a Sanders supporter, I do care about the Russia investigation and the work that Mueller is doing. However, I feel that Russia is not the only force compromising our democracy. I think that many governments, major corporations, and other entities are all probably doing exactly what Russia has been doing in regard to manipulating social media and public opinion. I think Trump should be brought to justice for explicitly colluding with a foreign power, but fixating the dialogue on Russia alone is ignoring the greater issue. Half of Trump's Twitter followers are fake accounts, and not all of them came from Russia.
7
Socialims has never had so much support, in at least a vague,misunderstood way, as it has with Millennials. Poll after poll shows they are not too hot on the more important democratic tenets of the US Republic. They think speech should be limited, but only on those they disagree with. They think the press should be censored when it critiques, the wrong way, their leaders.
In these ways, they are very much like the Trump Nationalists in the Repub base. They dont like other opinions being expressed, and being protected.
Sanders fans for the most part dont understand the deeper threads of the Russian meddling issue. Its not just about the election. For the first time in history, we're seeing an infiltration into our normal systems like never before.
Its not hypocritical for us to be concerned. Thats a simplistic, narrow POV.
2
Noam Chomsky really is blinded by his anti-westernism. I think the Bernie sanders brigade which are by in large middle class college educated Americans are intellectual descendants of him and they have now come to represent what is 'progressive' to the point where a deeply conservative expansionism aggressive autocracy almost openly trying to interfere with our own democratic process becomes a non-issue.
It is tragic.
7
Government by billionaires, for billionaires. This is the fundamental ideological link between Trump and Putin and their cronies. As this article realizes, there are economic and ethical issues that extend beyond the influencing of the election.
2
The far left hates the concept of conspiracy because it believes that impersonal forces and not individuals shape history (in fact, both do). The biggest problem for Sanders supporters generally, and left-wing intellectuals specifically, is that their ideas don't command a majority in this country or anywhere else in the world. 2016 was their best chance -- it's conceivable that Sanders would've beaten Trump (though I doubt it). The far left's future is cloudy, because it simply won't/can't confront some issues that working class Americans care about, and that only Trump speaks to. It doesn't matter whether the left spends more time talking about Russian interference in the 2016 election. That will not help it move its agenda forward. The people it wants to appeal to simply don't care.
1
It's interesting that even the people concerned about this don't seem to be looking at how it stands to cause the most damage to the US and that's national security. We have a president who openly called for help from a hostile intelligence service while his campaign staff solicited damaging information from sources known to be connected to this same government. And considering the vast sums of money so many people in and around this administration, including the president, stand to make from business relationships in Russia, people need to be asking what means more to these people, their country or their money. I'm betting on the money. That so many Americans are unconcerned about any of this, especially the ones who knew all of this and voted for him anyway, doesn't bode well for the future.
4
The reason why Sanders voters don’t care about alleged Russian Meddling is because the key Russian act that allegedly stole Clinton votes was the revelation that Clinton stole Sanders’ supporters votes. Hypocrisy isn’t an admired trait.
Also, Sanders voters have never really bought in to the New Cold War hysteria that has completely revamped the ideology of the Democratic Party around an aggressive foreign policy & Red Scare initiative.
Finally, and most importantly, Sanders voters are focused on the election of 2020, not the election of 2016.
2
The answer to this question is quite easy. Bernie Sanders supporters are eternally grateful to Vladimir Putin and Wikileaks for giving them the ultimate "out" for the failure of Bernie's primary campaign: HILLARY STOLE IT! The well-timed release of the first hacked DNC emails just before the convention immediately gave rise to the "stab in the back" theory for Bernie's loss. The fact that Bernie got 3 million voters fewer than Hillary in the primaries could then be conveniently ignored and renewed progressive outrage justified. We were treated to the spectacle of Bernie Sanders trying to rally his troops behind the Hillary campaign while being booed by his own faithful. "Grow up!" Bernie seemed to be saying, but no one was listening. They took their toys and went home, voting for Jill Stein or staying home for the general election. In Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania they cost Hillary the election and got Donald Trump elected. Putin played them like the children they were. Precisely like the same progressive voters who cost Al Gore the election against George Bush, the Bernie voters will forever hold their hands over their ears, close their eyes and chant, "No we didn't elect Trump! No we didn't elect Trump!"
7
But you see gerrymandering will make it the same: democratic president, republican congress. Nothing will get done except the rich will continue to take more and more from the un-rich. Until the economy explodes again. They've already killed all of the safeguards put into place after 2007. And the next time, the riots will begin. Those are for our children and their children. Apparently, republicans don't have any of those.
2
We don't care about the Russia Investigation because it's a distraction from real problems. The Democrat establishment and media talk about it as if Russia hacked into voting machines and changed votes. The reality is that if they did anything (there's still a glaring lack of evidence), they simply released true information about Clinton and the DNC. True information about candidates and parties, in fact, is a good thing for voters, as it makes them less ignorant.
It has also been confirmed that Clinton and DNC colluded with Kremlin operatives as well, funding "the dossier". When looked at honestly, this whole Russia business only validates the concerns of Sanders supporters - that establishment Democrats are just as corrupt as Republicans.
Finally, the greatest irony of this all is that the US government is constantly meddling in foreign elections. Heck, we even invade countries and kill democratically elected leaders if it suits us. We have no grounds to complain. If we didn't want Putin to allegedly be able to tip the scales toward the worse of two candidates, we should have made it so easy by nominating such abysmal choices who have so much dirt to be easy dug up and displayed.
American voters are ignorant and deserve the terrible government they create every time they go to the polls.
27
The giveaway of Skyler Paul's screed is the way he says "Democrat establishment". The only people who use this sort of language are the descendants of Richard Nixon and Joe McCarthy.
More generally, I think the article confuses most Sanders supporters with the fringe known as "BernieBots" who flood the comments section of magazines like The Nation with predictable rants against Hillary Clinton that in many cases could have been written by Steve Bannon himself. The reason they're not interested in the Russia investigation is because their few (if any) concerns about Putin and his intelligence agencies are overridden by their hatred of Hillary Clinton. As the old cliche goes, the enemy of their enemy is their friend, or in this case at least someone they don't feel comfortable criticizing.
On John Oliver's show last Sunday night, he rather brilliantly skewered the Trumpites' version of "Whataboutism". All that the critics of the Russia investigation here are doing is engaging in that sort of tactic in a way that's familiar to anyone with the remotest knowledge of history. Their core message, which boils down to "You think our country's so innocent?", is of course indistinguishable from the one used by the master of "Whataboutism", Donald Trump. But then great minds often think alike.
3
Three voters live in my household, all Sanders supporters during the campaign because of his positions on human rights, economic justice, freedom of choice, climate change, and electoral integrity. Although we were disappointed when he lost the Democratic nomination we believe his consistent progressive message helps to renew the party and keep it faithful to its humane tradition- and we voted for Clinton. We are aghast at the duplicitous and treacherous betrayal of our country demonstrated by Trump's enthusiastic embrace of Putin. It is shameful.
3
Nonsense.
I was a Sanders supporter and I support the Russia probe. But I fear that Donald Trump will fire Sessions and Mueller and pardon everyone. And I don't expect that the Republican majority in Congress is interested in pursuing the Russian probe in the capacity of a separate and independent equal legislative branch of our divided limited power republic exercising oversight in defense of the American people and their Constitution.
Moreover, I see the Russia probe from two different perspectives.
First, the failure of the Obama Administration to deter, detect and effectively defeat Russian interference in the 2016 American Presidential campaign and election needs to be investigated. In order to determine the nature of the failures and identify the culpable individuals. Followed by putting in place measures so that it does not happen again.
Along with making Russia pay for what happened at a time and place of our choosing and by whatever methods match the harm. Deterrence is essential. Obama telling Putin to "Cut it out" is laughable. Trump's love affair with Putin is disturbing and disgusting.
Second, identifying and prosecuting and removing from office any Trump campaign and administration officials who colluded, collaborated, cooperated and conspired with the Russians in their interference.
2
Hear, hear
As long as people fail to connect the dots between the global rich and powerful and the propaganda and lies being stuffed into the heads of the rest of us, the rest of us will fail to take the only action they fear:
voting for candidates who can and will do their job properly.
Learning about the Russian interference has been very educational. But I don’t know any Democrats who are blaming the Russians for all of it, most people don’t oversimplify as some members of the media seem to think. The Democrats I know are acutely aware they need a multipronged strategy for 2018, including voter engagement, good candidates, good policy, and good messaging.
They are not so stupid to think that they don’t need to counter dark money’s propaganda and voter suppression.
I like this article because it makes the essential connection between American and Russian dark money.
1
Perhaps this Sanders voter missed the memo, but the issue of Russian meddling in our election (or anyone else’s) is highly troubling. It fits the frame of kleptocrats in any nation deciding the fates of others — without their knowledge or consent. Any limitation on one person, one vote is just plain wrong.
Yet, Putin and his fellow kleptos worked to undermine our democracy. The fact that the “winner” of the presidential election will not call them out speaks to the validity of the charges, but also to the common interests of the kleptocratic classes across the world.
As we have seen the rich avoid their fair share of the tax burden, beginning with Reagan, and watched them accumulate the vast majority of global wealth, how can we not call them out?
I appreciate Mr. Klion’s point of view, but I already saw his point long ago.
5
Mr.Klion, give up your hope that Sanders Democrats are looking to re-fight the 2016 primary. Almost all of us voted for Hillary Clinton. Bernie Sanders did not put ideas into our heads, he articulated our ideas and made us realize that our ideas and values speak to all Americans.
5
Since I live in Vermont, nearly everyone I encounter every day knows and supports the very popular Bernie Sanders. This headline attempts to put us all in one thought box. In fact, the millions of Bernie supporters around the country are all trying to work as effectively as we can in the face of an amoral, cruel regime that is beholden only to corporate America and the super-rich.
Please come to Vermont and speak with the many Bernie supporters about our diverse and thoughtful responses to the criminal behavior of the current oligarchs in power. Then report what those of us who comprise diverse and growing progressive movement have to say.
3
Why? Maybe because it's a waste of time and maybe we are the only sensible group out there. There is no substance to the collusion accusation. But, Russian meddling? Of course the Russians tried all sorts things to upset/influence the process. I think they have been at it for years with the only change being the means of attack.
The real issue, for everyone, is the despicable behavior of the DNC. Clean that up and we Bernie supporters might come back. Continue down the "Russia cost us the election" route and we will surely have another Trump win in 2020.
4
Back in the day, Sanders openly advocated for unilateral disarmament against the Soviet Union. I'm no fan of nukes, but that was a breathtakingly shocking statement. Either Bernie didn't understand the balance of power then, (and he still doesn't), or he's plain stupid, which I don't quite believe, or he's a real fan of the discredited idea of Communism.
Birds of a feather flock together; Bernie's supporters, especially the senior ones, are perfectly aware of his preferences.
While the GOP would have made him into hamburger if he got the nomination instead of Clinton, I'm not sure Putin would have minded if Bernie won instead of Trump.
2
Huh. I voted for Sanders in the primary and I'm deeply troubled by the Russian intervention.
I rarely agree with Chomsky when he comments on U.S. adversaries. He tends to LIKE them. He's more on target when he criticizes the U.S. itself, because of course there's much to criticize when the U.S. has its fingers in so many pies. But the two together -- being too kind to a dictator like Putin while harsh about the U.S. discredits him.
I think the same of Julian Assange, who seems to apply his radical transparency almost solely to the U.S. and now has been caught currying favor with the Trump people, explicitly. Of course, we knew he was helping Russia help the Trump campaign, but now it turns out he was talking to the Trump campaign, and trying to curry favor. Presumably, he sent similar fawning emails to the Kremlin.
1
The quotes in this article may actually be from Sander's supporters, but they certainly don't reflect the feelings of any of his supporters that I know or even see posts from on the internet. His support does not come primarily from the traditional, intellectual left wing in this country anyway, as the intellectual left wing in the U.S. is like the proverbial tree in the forest that no one sees fall.
Our media is pretty much dominated by the right wing of the American eagle and corporate right of center interests. How many people actually read The NY Review of Books? Is Noam an anchor on MSNBC?
1
Thank you for exploring this, it has puzzled me to see FB posts by my fellow-Sanders fans that feel the Russia involvement is made up. For some time, I’ve felt that a section of the activist Left is no longer bothered by governments that are authoritarian — not interested in issues of democracy, except in our own country. The problems of the legacy of colonialism subsume the problems of a lack of democracy, perhaps because the issue of race and indigenous genocide are our issues — we’re the colonists! Our awful history of supporting dictators abroad seems to have taught us the importance of self-determination, but not of democratic values. I, too, remember cringing when we sent right-wing economists to Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, urging them to abandon the social safety net, to not go toward democratic socialism ... I think it made Russians desperate enough to be seduced by a new dictator. We live in a world where authoritarian governments have enormous power, as do corporations and the very wealthy — they seem to meet at some common point. Fascism could be the result, I fear. Yet, now is the time of the rise of a new African American movement, a new women’s movement, and all-gender equity. We could move toward new forms of humanism — cooperatives, small farms, distributive energy, with democracy, labor, civil rights, and the environment to underpin us.
Well you buried the lede, and the article's title is misleading,. Your quote from Bernie Sanders at the very end of this piece makes this evident.
Bernie' quote expresses what for me has been the primary concern; a me-first ethic encourages the aggrandizement of the world's resources into dragons' hoards. Such hoarding deprives others of their basic needs.
This inequality encourages authoritarian tendencies to protect "What's mine." So whatever happened to the common good and cooperation and sharing? Why has the Golden Rule become those with the gold get to rule ( and use ruling to get more gold)?
Bernie condemns this corruption. The Russian investigation as it "Follows the money," and the Paradise Papers disclosures shine light on it. Progressives aren't ignoring the Russian influence issue. They aren't ignoring the issues Donna Brazile raises about the DNC either. They aren't ignoring what this I'll-conceived "Tax Reform" signifies. There is a need to take a broader view.
2
I️ am more than open to seeing what Mueller turns up, but for now I’ve not seen anything that genuinely looks like foreign corruption of the political process. Am I️ supposed to believe that $100,000 worth of Facebook ads (half spent after the election, and of the $50,000 that remains half of that spent in deep red states) swing an election where Clinton spent $1,000,000,000,000? Really? That’s just absurd.
So far the public trial has been about ‘ties’ to Russia, as if the international super-rich don’t all have ties to each other! No clear, credible arguments for explicit Kremlin involvement have been made which explain how it happened and what ‘Russia’ really stood to gain. Nothing described even seems to have been truly illegal. Notice that the Manafort claims/indictment have NOTHING to do with the election per se.
The fact that the most ardent Russia conspiracy theorists almost never even bother to differentiate between Russian citizens, Russian IP addresses and actual agents of the Russian government is a serious dent in their limited credibility. The fact that the ‘Russia’ developments are cheered along in an explicitly partisan manner doesn’t help.
I’ve yet to see good intellectual arguments for why eliciting Russian help (which BOTH campaigns apparently did, if indirectly) is fundamentally different to the vast corporate control of our government (a fact that had real and actual effects on Americans everyday, and yet is rarely talked about in the media).
Let me summarize: The fact that America lacks moral authority but still expects to remain a world leader is a running joke these days among the intelligentsia of most nations. The open ideological warfare we have made against each other in the USA, defined by divisions along lines of religion, income, race, education and politics have transcended the supposed benefits of our liberal democracy.
We were a grand experiment that multiculturalism, meritocracy and ethics are better than war, tribalism and grift. We've failed to show that even under the best of circumstances, humans can transcend the baser instincts that have held us back from achieving our own ideals for millennia. It's now every man and woman for themselves.
Sanders' candidacy was a true grassroots movement that tried to show that some Americans are still motivated by passion and idealism, while the Clinton campaign allowed itself to succumb to incompetence, skullduggery and the influence of an entrenched kleptocracy that hides billions in offshore wealth while insisting that minor political differences, rising home equity and 401k's are more important than global human rights.
A dark time in human history is descending upon us. The only way forward is to allow the younger generation to find and embrace ideals we've long abandoned. The millennials once found hope in Sanders. The treacherous politics of our own leadership has demoralized and defeated them. I'll die before it gets fixed. Good luck, kids!
1
Should the question be why the right does not care about the Russian Investigation? Sanders did not make it to the finals because of Hillary. The party running our government has little concern to find out what happened but yet we ask why Sanders supporters are not vocal about Russia? We have a president that can't bring himself to say anything negative about Russia but we ask why Bernie's supporters are quiet? The question should be why are we so impressionable that the Russians could influence our elections in the first place. We really should be concerned about the influence of social media on our lives. Like the Ghost of Obama still permeates our presidents psyche I guess we need someone else to blame our shortcomings on. So why not Bernie's supporters?
1
I'm sorry, Mr. Klion, but you have completely missed the point (not unusual for a Clinton supporter). No one (or at least no one of significance) is saying that the Russia investigation is "not an issue". It most certainly is an issue, and the best thing any of us can do is sit back and let it play out. As long as Mueller continues to have a free hand, the smart thing for Democrats to do is sit back and let him do his job. The GOP is doing their best to politicize it, the Dems need to to everything they can to DEpoliticize it. What comes out will come out, some voters will care and some will not.
In the meantime, though, the Democratic Party has a job to do - showing that they know how to govern the country. They need to grow up and stop acting like a bunch of children still whining about why Hillary lost. No matter what happens with the investigation, there will be no do-over of the election. There are very, very serious issues facing the country that need to be addressed. And the job of the Democratic Party now is to show the voters that they have the ideas and the policies to address those issues. About 135 million citizens sat out the election because they felt that neither party had any answers. By focussing exclusively on Trump and Putin, the Democratic Party is telling them that they were right.
2
It's very simple. For Trump, admitting to the Russian influence means he didn't win on his own. For the Bernie supporter it means Clinton didn't lose on her own. In the world of the aggrieved it's important to define the right victim and for the Bernie dead-ender it's not Hillary.
2
Baloney. Where's the poll? I think the premise of this article is wrong.
I voted for Sanders, then Clinton. Every Sanders supporter I know thinks the Russian intervention was destructive and troubling. And if there's collusion, it's treasonous.
(By the way, as a Sanders voter, I am not responsible for the opinions of Noam Chomsky)
Some times articles are entitled in such a way for the purpose of attracting a certain readership and this appears to be one of them. I don't know why this is necessary, especially when the article winds up saying precisely the opposite of what is suggested in its original question. Of course, Sander supporters are concerned. If one of your major concerns is inequality, how could you not be.
We have a great number of people in this country, though, who do not care or are simply ignoring the apparent intrusion by the Russians in to our politics. Some of these people are in elected positions. Most are Republicans. This would appear to be a concern to every one but it is not. The Russian involvement, which seems certain by all accounts, even if collusion with the Trump Administration cannot be proven, is merely a symptom of the overwhelming failure of our government over a period of many years. There is so much money in politics now that it is absolutely ridiculous. If we really look around it is pretty obvious that wealthy people control the entire world. The current state of affairs reveals that enough of them have figured out how to band together and rip it off, and they are doing it. Our own government now looks like a crime family in action. Concerned? Absolutely disgusted!
1
Must be nice to have a spotless mind such as yours, Mr. Klion. None of the voter bases you discuss are as monolithic as you portray them. You should really dig into the gray areas, because that's where you'll find the Russians interfering. They really don't care who gets investigated or convicted; their Mission 2016 was accomplished, and they're no doubt going to keep finding exploits to polarize the nation even further.
To their credit, the moderates (such as there are) in both parties are trying to foster a calmer and more reasoned discussion. But those who benefit from the shouting (the companies who own both conservative and liberal media) will unwittingly aid Russia in destabilizing the American political system. It shouldn't come as a surprise that they're quite content (albeit shocked) that they were able to drive the wedge so deeply.
There should be no defenders or apologists for Russia's actions. It would be ideal to start at the top, of course, but that seems unlikely. Again, some benefit from the increase in volume and invective and don't hesitate to question the legitimacy of the whole government infrastructure--as if it was something external to ourselves.
To put it bluntly: if we don't take responsibility for our actions, individually and collectively--if we continue seeking 'safety in numbers' and retreating to our respective 'safe media' spaces, rather than meeting people with different views *one-on-one* and stop trying to convert them--we're in trouble.
1
Bernie fans desperately want to believe that Clinton couldn't have won the election even without the Russian interference, and that Sanders could have. It's a toxic fantasy. It simply isn't true.
2
The embrace of Russia is disgusting and, perhaps, treasonous - but not unexpected from a ruthless, inexperienced team. I think millennials know this as do most sentient beings. The thing is, Hillary's team paid for some of the same type of info, i.e., the famous dossier, instead of trying to run purely on the issues. So there is some commonality between the two campaigns which is called hardball I guess.
I think we are coming to a point where this type of behavior, no matter the source, is disdained by millennials, if we must generalize - at least those who lean more left than right. So their apparent jadedness is to be expected as they watch the two parties rip apart and reform into something not expected by those of us who existed before Reagan.
1
I agree with Chomsky. The US has a nefarious history of intervening in other countries’ elections and actually overthrowing governments, so this case of Russian interference is like the chickens coming home to roost. Hey, I’m all in favor of investigating the possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, but Democrats need to be prepared for either of the two most probable outcomes: one is that Trump’s underlings (Manafort, Flynn, etc) are found guilty, but Trump himself gets exonerated, which Trump and Fox News will spin as an I-told-you-I-didn’t-personally-collude. The other is that Trump is found guilty, and President Pence takes over, immediately uniting again the GOP behind him and ramming through their agenda. Dems, be careful what you wish for.
The issue of Russian meddling in the 2016 election is a proxy for questioning Trump's fealty to Russian interests over those of the United States. But we really don't know what this means and may never know. Is our President moving to lift sanctions over Ukraine in return for a permit to build an eponymous tower in Moscow? Sounds plausible, but it's doubtful that Mueller's investigation will find that out.
Mueller's investigation may well find proof of money laundering by Trump and Co. on behalf of Russian mobsters. But no one will be shocked. That likelihood is already baked into this presidency.
Trolling on FaceBook has helped Russia advance an agenda of dividing the US and making us less effective and more withdrawn internationally. But our public discourse was poisoned by divisive and isolationist elements within the US long before the Russians piled on. It's hard to get worked up over that.
I find Trump to be morally bankrupt and utterly unAmerican. For me the real Russia scandal is that our President clearly prefers the values of and friendship Vladimir Putin over Angela Merkel. Mueller's investigation won't fix that. Only a new election will.
1
The huge crowds Sanders drew had nothing to do with the Russians. But they did speak to issues many felt needed more attention.
Those issues still need attention. And so does Russian interference.
They are not mutually exclusive. You can do both.
You might as well ask why many Democrats are ignoring those issues and focusing only on Russia. Maybe that's true. But it's not going to get us anywhere.
Winning in 2020 requires concern about Russia and concern about the issues Sanders raised--and people responded to.
3
I can't fathom how the reporter deduced that Sanders' supporters were not interested in the Russia investigation. All Berniecrats I know are intently interested in the concept of fair elections free from outside interference. However, while the Clinton/DNC appear obsessed with Russia, my focus remains on the DNC and the rigging of the primaries. Of course, interference from a foreign power is of great concern but efforts to disrupt our democratic process from within are just as appalling. Democracy is a very fragile concept and it depends, to a great extent, on trust. When we can no longer trust our political parties and our election process, democracy can not survive.
Unfortunately, Establishment Democrats and their followers are as blind to the truth of the primaries as many Trump supporters are to the concept of Trump campaign collusion with the Russians.
48
The fact that the establishment preferred HRC is no surprise, but it also doesn't mean she beat Bernie illegitimately. If even Democrats aren't concerned about the interference of Russia, then we are doomed as a country to the consequences.
2
I work with and interact with white working class voters on a daily basis. Let me assure you that the whole question of Russia is the farthest thing from their minds. While I may personally care about Russian meddling in the election and Trump's coziness with Putin, most of us who work with our hands and shower AFTER work want the following:
-A decent paying job
-Affordable health care
-Affordable child care
-Affordable education for our kids and grandkids which results in good job
Until the Democratic Party addresses these concerns, it will never reclaim its position as the party of the working class.
20
As long as the demographic segment- identifying themselves as white working class pretend the Democrats haven't in fact championed the four elements of policy that you enumerate in their platforms and policy, Trump will continue to run his 'bait and switch' shell game along with the rest of the GOP. The "working class whites" showing up for Trump rallies appear to be cheering for lies and button pushing hate memes spewed from Trump's tweeting little mouth along with empty promises and grandiose lies. So they may want:
"-A decent paying job
-Affordable health care
-Affordable child care
-Affordable education for our kids and grandkids which results in good job" - but they're getting higher taxes and no health care plus complete withdrawal by the US from any leverage for jobs and economic growth through trade. The working class being set up to resent others by the boss is the oldest trick in the book and you're letting your friends and colleagues get snookered. By Trump no less. Whose 'coziness' with Putin comes across more like a subordinate flunky and slave than anything approaching warmth.
4
I think you’ve missed the entire point of the column. Nobody working class, not just white working class, will not have any of those things - democrat or republican policy - until we address the policy issues that have been brought to the forefront because of the Russian investigation.
3
But that was what the Democratic Party was offering in 2016 and still offers today. Trump ran on being Trump. He had slogans, not policies, and he's still governing that way.
And that really is what his hardcore supporters want: government by slogan.
1
I was an ardent Sanders supporter, and I am very interested in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Frankly, I hope the investigation does undo the Trump presidency. David Klion's op-ed essay misrepresents the views of several progressives. He insinuates that they do not care about the serious threat posed by Russia or the security of our elections. Klion quotes Katrina vanden Heuvel, yet discounts her sensible point that liberals and progressives need to focus on the important economic and political issues confronting the U.S. So, I am all for investigating what happened in 2016, but I also believe that getting to the bottom of this scandal, while important, is not the main issue facing our country at this moment.
10
While some who have supported Sen Sanders like Susan Sarandon are unrepentant about the outcome of the election, it is doubtful the majority of his supporters are unconcerned about Russian meddling, at least at the grassroots level.
DNC needs to grow up though. Whatever dispute between the Clinton camp and the Sanders camp, the current reality, 2018 and 2020 are more important. People like Donna Brazile need to go away. They are just as selfish as the Republicans.
Quoting Glenn Greenwald doesn't help. First, was he a Bernie supporter? It is difficult to put him in a political spectrum. Maybe anarchist?
I have a lot of respect for Chomsky as a linguist. Politically, he is too idealistic than pragmatic.
In conclusion, your title "Why Don't Sanders supporters..." is too much a clickbait, Mr Klion. That is beneath NYT standard.
28
You're not getting the point. Establishment DMC is part of the problem and the left wing knows it.
2
I am interested in seeing Trump’s tax returns and, from them, indications of the foreign interests that are influencing a president who continues to side with Russia over the opinions of American intelligence services and past presidents of both major parties. I am glad there is an investigation and I hope it continues. But as a voter in a barely representative democracy, I am most interested in seeing the facts for myself and drawing my own conclusions. Neither the Clintons nor the Trump family seem especially willing to trust the voters to know and decide how are government is being run.
16
I voted for Saunders in the primary, then Clinton in the general, and am very concerned about Russian intervention in our elections. At the same time I don't think that intervention was a deciding factor. Of more importance were the great number of people who did not vote, the lopsided gerrymandering that rebukes the idea of fair elections and election laws and practices in various states that prevent minorities and others from not voting. Taken together, along with our own leaders' intransigence on election reform, there is no way the people's choice can be elected.
33
Barbara, I think that "Russian intervention in our elections" added significantly enough to the "great number of people who did not vote" by stirring the pot and getting sufficient numbers of people to be disgusted enough not to vote (a form of voter "suppression"). Don't forget HRC won the popular vote across the country, but Trump became president by winning just enough of a majority in key places to game the electoral system, and she was caught blindsided by having ignored people in those critical places. Who knows where (...) the Russians who created fake ads on Fb got the list of possible targets for their ads. This is a fascinating and eye-opening analysis: https://medium.com/startup-grind/how-the-trump-campaign-built-an-identit...
2
Let me count the ways in which this piece is irritating:
1) Which Sanders supporters do you mean - or are we all the same?
2) "..it seems clear that the Russia story is only going to get bigger." Notwithstanding that "clear" is the word in American foreign policy talk which often signifies the opposite, this may well be true. Or, on the other hand, it may not get bigger, or it may even diminish. Why not see what the Mueller investigation comes up with? Unless this a mushroom cloud situation?
3) American democracy is already being stolen right from under our noses in broad daylight through shoddy elections, strict constructionist money=speech (obviously) SCOTUS rulings, corporate control of media and an absence of campaign finance control. Against all that, Russian meddling is going to stack up how high?
4) Tell Ukraine about Russian meddling. If we can't even counter fake narratives of Russian troops and heavy weaponry taking chunks of Ukraine, maybe we should start there and work our way up.
5) Let's practice what we preach. Or do we grant licenses to meddle on a selective basis?
6) When it comes to the architecture and exploitation of tax havens, Russia is not better or worse than other places where there is money. It's not a Russia issue.
7) The big kleptocratic elite that is sapping this country is the military industry, which takes such a perverse share of our budget that it can only be justified by having enemies everywhere. Hmm... just sayin'.
77
What about the $150,000,000 Bill and Hillary took from Russian concerns? Does that not mean anything to you?
2
Sp, what about Wikileaks?
Wikileaks has traditionally been warmly regarded in progressive circles, but now we are being told by many sources they are a front for Putin. How do we know this, and for how long has this been the case?
I have no idea if the NYT, is correct in saying that Sanders supporters are really not worried about aspects of the general election being manipulated by Russia. And it seems awfully silly to suggest that concern about foreign meddling (which the British, and Spaniard, and French are also worried about) has mainly to do with making Hillary Clinton feel good about losing the electoral college, so hopefully nobody is really as petty as to suggest all that. What I do believe is that Sanders supporters, or progressives, or whatever you want to call them, shouldn't take the elitist high road of dismissive disinterest until they know whether or not the Russians were also meddling with them, and their perception of what is unbiased information.
10
I'm not uninterested. I assume the evidence is there, and I assume Mueller will turn it up in due course. I am hopeful that the system will work, though not all the way confident.
What I find alarming: Trump's obvious fascination with dictators. I never thought he was running for president. The corruption embodied by his family, and its economic ties with Russia. Those are much more threatening than fake social media posts.
All of this is serving as a smokescreen for Kobach et al's project to disenfranchise large sectors of the citizenry. That also is alarming.
20
I supported Bernie initially and Hillary once she became the candidate. Curious how your opinion was formed. I and the other Sanders supporters I know are following the Russia investigation CLOSELY. I believe you would have a hard time finding anyone more devoted to the truth and to justice being done to any who participated in the Russian attack on our Democracy than I am (And the other Bernie supporters I know).
39
What about the $150,000,000 Bill and Hillary took from Russian concerns? Does that not mean anything to you?
2
The reason leftists don't want to put too much faith on or attention on the Russian investigation is that it's demobilizing, encouraging us to sit back and let Mueller do his work. We've got our hands full and have plenty to do to fight the outrages Trump brings down every day to be able to afford to wait for Mueller to bring him down.
9
I read this essay closely. I noted that it quoted four authors, none of which claimed to speak for Sanders supporters, and none of which said they did not care about the Russia investigation; rather, they wanted it to be viewed in a larger context. Then, at the end, I read Sanders's condemnation of "inequality, corruption, oligarchy, and authoritarianism."
And, somehow, from that, your editor came up with ... that headline. As if that was the key take-away from an otherwise worthy essay.
30
This is one Bernie Sanders supporter who takes this very seriously. It is not merely the interference of Russian in our election, it is the fact that the current President and his administration appears to be a criminal enterprise. The connection to Putin and other Russian oligarchs would appear to be the tip of the iceberg.
If the rule of law does not apply to the President and members of his administration, then there is no rule of law in this country.
So, yes, I take this investigation very seriously.
35
A bizarre essay that constantly undercuts its own thesis.
But as for the question in the title, Sanders' supporters have it exactly right. Let us keep our eye on the ball. The biggest threat to America comes not from without but from within, from our own kleptocrats -- a word the author uses twice for the Russians but shies away from our own. Compared to the amount and scale of business corruption in the US, the Russians, oer any other country for that matter, are patzers.
Look at the tremendous damage being done bu the GOP -- to the environment, to the rule of law, the fairness of the vote -- none of these are happening because of any Russian actions, but are a core part of the GOP program to impoverish and enslave us in the service of the obscenely rich, that would have happened anyway when they came into power.
So yes, let Mueller's investigation continue, but let us not forget the real goal of a truly democratic government.
25
Many voters are simply becoming hardened to the fact that they have little or no chance of being heard over the roar of big money influence peddlers, whether they come from Big Pharma, Wall Street or Russia.
23
This is an absurd story. A capricious hit piece on the left.
The only people I know who aren't following Trump's collusion with Russia are those on the far right who are in complete denial. Agreement among all our national security agencies that this occurred somehow galvanized our attention.
The case is in fact a spectacularly valuable object lesson, for those of us on the left, in the middle, or really anyone still capable of observing and learning, in how power in this country works and the degree of to which our democracy has eroded.
A hugely important "teachable moment" in American history for all of us.
It is not hard to follow this at the same time we follow in depth the many train wrecks Trump is hastening.
15
Investigation and publication of all the Russia-US business and banking connections involving Trump campaign and White House staff and cabinet members, by both the media, especially the dogged connect-the-dots reporting and analysis by Rachel Maddow, and special prosecutor Mueller are doing what Bernie Sanders couldn't do. No matter how many times he repeats that Big Money and the 1% have stolen our democracy and control most of the wealth in the U.S. while working people work longer and harder to get by, drown in student debt and go without healthcare, it wouldn't get the attention of those working people without the almost daily "follow the money" revelations. The Russia investigations are the best possible education for working stiffs to understand how the rich get richer with the help of our government while Republicans call us "losers" and "takers" if we're not playing and winning the insider game. While Sanders himself is using some of these revelations in his own progressive movement, progressive Democrats should use them more effectively in their opposition to Republican tax cuts for oligarchs and plutocrats and in their push for universal, single-payer health insurance. Thanks, Russia, for showing us that our system is rigged.
12
The article's headline doesn't align well with its content. The headline suggests it will explain Sanders' supporters reticence to accept the seriousness of Russia's interference. The article explores reasons why they should.
The Times should explore the headline's suggestion, because these reasons aren't hidden. In California, the Dem's primary was treated by Sanders supporters as a fiasco. They blamed Clinton's team for voting irregularities. On election day, they still did.
Now we know Russian hackers manipulated the primary's voting rolls, which prevented voting randomly. Sanders supporters find this embarrassing. Ditto Russian invention & spread that Clinton's team assassinated 5 Sanders staffers. Some Sanders supporters believed it. The Russian investigation brings this painfully up.
Wikileaks stories were the basis for Sanders supporters protests at the Dem's convention. Few read them, which would deflate. They just knew what they said. To accept these were Russian efforts to sow disunion is almost self-incriminating.
Unfortunately, the commitment Sanders generated among idealists led some to lose perspective. The Russian investigations are a blast of reality.
3
From some of the comments, it seems that Russian propaganda has succeeded in pushing several story lines: that Russian interference never happened because the intelligence community is lying, that it isn't important if it did happen because it supposedly didn't influence the election, that Russian meddling is trivial compared to other problems, that both political parties are equally corrupt, etc., etc.
Discouraging.
8
The author explicitly addresses one reason and alludes to another why I can't get behind making the Russia investigation the number one priority for the country, and, especially for those on the left.
The first is that right-wing hawks are obsessed with Russia. The most militaristic, imperialistic people are the ones who are the most obsessed with Russia, probably because Russia is one of the few countries in the world powerful enough to stand up to them. Their agenda is inimical to just about everything the left stands for. Why should the left make sacrifices for its enemies' causes?
The second is related to the author's attempts to argue that we shouldn't let supporting the hawks bother us because one the traditional bogeymen of the left, the oil companies, favor a less hostile approach to Russia. This is a blatant misdirection. The oil companies might not have a problem with Russia, but the gas companies definitely do. And the gas companies are the ones pushing for a ridiculously confrontational stance towards Russia.
In fact, the entire conflict with Russia in Syria and in Ukraine is almost exclusively related to control over the supply of natural gas to Western Europe. American gas companies are trying to muscle Gazprom out of the European market. Everything else is just window dressing.
The gas companies and the military industrial complex seek to use the investigation to cow Trump into submission. What does the left gain from helping them with their crusade?
3
Generalize much? I wrote in Sanders rather than vote for Hillary or Trump and I care deeply about Russia's collusion.
8
To the Bernie left, the DNC favoring Hillary was a crime against humanity, but Russia actually influencing the election is a non issue. The Russian's affirmed their fantasy that Bernie could have won and they aren't going to bite the hand that fed them that.
I call it the Bernie left because it is not more progressive than those of us who actually want equality and justice, and see equality as the road to a more just economy. The Bernie left is willing to sacrifice women's rights at the altar of their economic agenda. I fail to see that as more progressive and I'm sick of the contempt with which they treat us equality progressives.
9
The interference by Russia is real, but it only built on the unfairness of our electoral system to deliver a highly engineered result: 70,000 strategically placed votes. Much of what they are alleged to have done would have perfectly legal and SOP if done by the GOP.
The more important feature of Russian interference is its support for Fascism and religious fundamentalism in the US and Europe. That is not being faced by much Left with the result that only the antifa factions of the Left are engaged in mobilizing people against the alt right and confronting it directly.
3
I don't know why Mr. Klion thinks Sanders supporters are not interested in the Russian scandal. Everyone I know who would have voted for Bernie Sanders or thought he was the best person in the race is very interested in the outcome of Mr. Mueller's investigation and how it will play out. The things Mr Sanders often talks about are continuing problems for our country and he believes they need to change.
5
I supported Sanders, but like many others who did, I'm not a cultist; I simultaneously have concerns about Russian influence in this administration.
Shrieking, however, serves no useful purpose, particularly when it encourages our new civil war.
Trump was elected because the sag across large parts of the country was ignored by Washington, a town filled with smugly prosperous public servants.
Trump noticed; Sanders noticed. Schumer and Pelosi didn't and don't.
The nativist demagogue won, because so many are being hurt by large, implacable forces.
Sanders is rational; the D.C. Dems are hoping for the best. And Mueller, to get back to the Russians, seems to be doing his job.
We care, but its hard to stir the sludge the national Dems have become.
13
Perhaps Bernie supporters don't want to find out that Russia helped push Bernie in the primaries by spreading anti-Clinton propaganda and stolen document leaks, to create exactly the kind of havoc that happened.
14
I didn't need Russian propaganda to know that Ms "I'm With Her" wasn't with me.
I just read her website and watched her sell her soul at fundraisers in the Hamptons.
2
Also blaming Russia is too convenient a distraction for taking on election fraud, voter disenfrancisement, and increasing corporate control of elections through both Citizens United and the machines themselves. A Dem-driven Red Scare is far more expedient than working to fix these other parts of our democracy that have breaking down for some years before this election.
13
The Russian investigation isn't owned by Democrats. The fact that many people were hoodwinked by Russian propoganda isn't a fake scare tactic.
1
There are so many reasons to not follow the mindless masses into constantly screaming Bengazi... I mean Russia... at every turn.
This literally started as one of a long long list of excuses Hillary used to blame everyone but herself for losing the election. After a year of constant lies and slandering from Hillary's campaign, the last thing anyone wants is to listen to another year of the same campaign rhetoric long after she lost.
RussiaGate is the theory of everything. Russia has been used to discredit anyone criticizing Hillary, no matter how legitimate. It is also their excuse for discrediting anything not convenient to the DNC party elites and their corporate masters. Raise a serious concern like her warmongering or racism, and its #FakeNews until you cite actual proof and then it becomes "useful idiots" or "you are a Russian bot". Real people have been banned from Twitter as bots for criticizing Hillary. Russia is blamed for Black Lives Matter, NoDAPL, even for the sexual abuse allegations against George Takei. It is a laughing stock to anyone no enthralled to the Hillary machine.
But the biggest issue is that Bernie supporters are acutely aware of rigged elections as the entire DNC primary was an affront to democracy. We all knew it, DWS resigned over it. Brazile has turned whistleblower. We care about the integrity of elections, but don't believe a word of someone who only claims to care while supporting a rigged primary.
How many times can Dems cry wolf?
16
What a sorry take on the situation. What terrible lies do you refer to? Rigged elections? At least in California, Bernie supporters may still believe the primary's voting irregularities were a Clinton plot. If they paid attention to what Russian investigations found, they'd now know it was a Russian 'dry run', and the random problems hit both Sanders and Clinton supporters. Bernie supporters seem to forget he won caucuses, the least representative elections. Clinton won the popular votes by more than Obama beat her.
3
The biggest mistake the DNC made in hindsight, is accepting Bernie Sanders as a candidate for the Democratic primary. He isn’t and wasn’t, a Democrat. That being said, I’d have voted for him if he’d been the choice, would you have voted for Hillary Clinton?
2
You're a study in contradictions.
You say you "care about the integrity of elections", but you don't believe in "RussiaGate", which is actually about the integrity of elections.
You say that "the last thing anyone wants is to listen to is....the same campaign rhetoric'. And all you can talk about is "the campaign".
You've got to stop looking backward, and move on.
You're so consumed by your anger that you cannot see clearly who your real enemy is. Trump, not Hillary.
3
But we do care..........
3
Misleading title on an excellent analysis for why Russia needs to be the focus for leftists. "Why Don't Sanders Supporters Care about Russia" is a negative overgeneralization. David Klion makes valid points about Russian oligarchs hogging the wealth, American corporations wanting Russian natural resources, and Trump officials mired in this geopolitical quagmire, the interconnections being of interest to all leftists, including Sanders' followers. We need to. E unified in our opposition against these blood sucking oligarchs.
5
I object to this article. I voted for Sanders at the Alaska convention and I donated heavily to his cause. I held my nose and voted for Hillary. I support the Mueller investigation and my mine priority is to avoid an apocalyptic disaster brought on by a two year old. The fate of the democratic party pales by comparison.
23
mine is of course main
Rule #1: Anyone who says they "held their nose" is a phony.
What I learned about Bill deBlasio's 2 to 1 romp to a second term is that the comment board of the NY Times is infested with Republican phonies alleging to be Democrats who love ever candidate EXCEPT the ones that happen to be running at the time.
I figured this out last March, I won't be the last.
1
I worked on the Sanders campaign and with election integrity groups during the Primaries. Two weeks ago the purging of well over 100,000 voters in Brooklyn, alone, was recently declared illegal by the State Attorney General and the Brooklyn Board of Elections. Illegal purges and forged signatures on party registration forms were statewide. And nationwide. The demographics of the purged voters and illegally switched party affiliations disproportionately affected those more likely to vote for Senator Sanders.
This is relevant to one reason it appears that many Sanders supporters are less fevered about the Russian investigation than their mainstream counterparts. Though a number of journalists - none of which had any background in election fraud - condescendingly dismissed the rumors and rumbles during the Primaries, professionals in the field understood that the 'irregularities' that occurred at key turning points in the Primary election were not a 'nothing burger' and many of my fellow Sanders supporters have understandable anger at the DNC. As we have seen from a member of that leadership recently - with good reason.
So the #RUSSIA! defense - while clearly not a nothing burger, either - finds less sympathy because they distrust the attempts to pass off blame for their debacle.
That said, every Sanders voter I know certainly does agree with Bernie about the threat of world oligarchy and DOES care about the Russia scandal for that reason - as Klion hopes that we would.
27
The NY voter purge was predictable. The rules are too old, should be changed, but they weren't designed against Sanders (you have to be a Democrat of at least 6 months to vote in the NY Dem primary). NY is an outlier in this, so you can't generalize. But what's sad is the voting irregularities in the primaries were actually Russian tests. So the continued fury against Clinton, based on these problems, is totally misplaced.
Perhaps its time to take a breath and remember Sanders isn't a Democrat.
1
Taking tribal identity out of it for the sake of discernment, the purging was strategic - do you think Putin wanted Sanders to lose so Trump could beat Clinton? How about the forged signatures on registration cards that changed party affiliation? Did Putin have plants across the country in boards of elections - they would have to have been at that for years, for those employees did not materialize during the Primary process. In California, Alex Padilla, Secretary of State, wrote a new election protocol handbook, distributed (inconsistently) to polling districts - while the official instruction to poll monitors directly contradicted those instructions. That, and the fact that college neighborhoods and 'artsy' neighborhoods (UCLA and Silverlake, for example) were positively epic in their numbers of purged or registration flipped voters. The resulting chaos required weeks of post-election recounts - during which hundreds of thousands of ballots were thrown out for technicalities specific to Padilla's work to obfuscate the process. Putin? Or was Alex Padilla, a faithful Super Delegate, gunning for higher status in the Clinton administration?
Perhaps it is time to take a breath and remember that prejudice is the greatest enemy of perception.
1
What Sara said.
>Why Don’t Sanders Supporters Care About the Russia Investigation?
Because...they do.
The premise of this piece doesn't hold water. While Bernie Babes are angry about Hillary Clinton's sense of entitlement to the nomination--to the point her campaign colluded with the DNC--we voted for her anyway. The idea that we don't care about Trump's obvious partnership with Russia to leverage the electoral college (because he certainly could not win a plurality of actual votes) is simply wrong.
1
Whether one shares Sanders’s views or not should not be the issue. The issue should be what Putin is doing to the west and how Trump is getting him there. This is everyone’s problem now.
9
FWIW, this Sanders supporter is very interested and actively supportive of the Russia investigation. I know a great many others who are as well, and are intently following and/or promoting it.
10
A very well reasoned, cogent and important analysis.
4
I was a Sanders supporter and I care about Foreign influence so I'm not sure what this is all about.
The real death of democracy occurred under GWB. Trump and the contemporary GOP are the logical conclusion of Citizens United.
Foreign money is pouring into our elections only you can't know how much.
12
The reason Sanders supporters don't care that much is because we would be dealing with very similar issues if Clinton was elected. The republican controlled congress would be out for blood, and talk of a Clinton impeachment would dominate the news cycle. Trump and Hillary were just two sides of the same coin.
9
Illogical. Republican attacks are senseless. So what if Clinton would be attacked? To say she's like Trump is simply foolish.
2
No, they’re not. Not at all.
1
I disagree with the author's recommended priority. The self-enrichment of the kleptocrats is only part of the picture. The mission to destabilize the US and the world began in the Soviet Union and is alive and well in today's Russia. The effort goes well beyond the election. The priority for both the left and the right should be exposing and stopping the breadth of Russian efforts.
6
There is a couple of problems with the Russian investigation:
Before Putin became Tsar of Russia he was in the KGB; lying is his stock in trade. He has been trained to lie with a straight face. Trump is a naif.
We do this kind of thing all the time to other countries, so we have zero credibility when we protest that it has been done to us.
Regardless, this is the sort of thing we should make very, very painful to the countries who do it to us. As in, we are going to seize all of your assets in our country for a number of years because you tried this, painful. We need to make it so painful that most countries will not even consider it. This is a big deal because the success of the American democracy rests on faith in the results of an election. If that faith comes into doubt, we are in serious trouble. Regardless of who conspired with who, Russia must pay a very heavy price for its meddling.
2
Why not just title this piece "What *Else* Have Sanders Supporters Ruined?"
I phone banked for Sanders, then I phone banked for Clinton. And like most Sanders primary voters, I went to the polls for Clinton in November. (After all, only 12% of us voted for Trump.) Every other Sanders supporter I know thinks the Russia investigation is a huge deal.
Klion has found two liberals who don't care about Russia's meddling. Not a strong basis for a pretty extraordinary claim about 13 million people. You know what doesn't help unity amongst Democrats? Treating half the party like it's the children's table.
19
Will,
I was in agreement upon first read. It did come across that way.
On second read.... maybe not.
Here is David Klion's tweet:
https://twitter.com/DavidKlion/status/930596647976943616
1
The NY Times has had it in for Sanders since his campaign started.
The headline, most likely written by an editor, not the author of the column, is yet another attack on Sanders and what the Times editors apparently see as his mindless, Russian-influenced, unrealistic, freeloading, closet-misogynist supporters.
The Times' bizarre attacks on Sanders and the economic left would be funny if they hadn't given us President Trump.
They are even less funny when you realize they may give us a second term of Trump.
4
The Russia investigation is important the way the Watergate investigation was important. I hope there are no Bernie Sanders' supporters who think we should not have investigated Watergate because Nixon won in one of the biggest landslides in history, so any wrongdoing "didn't affect who won".
When "All the President's Men" (so to speak) are willing to blatantly act illegally and improperly to help him win, that is ALWAYS worthy of investigation. The fact that a foreign government tried to influence our election is not that surprising. The fact that the campaign of the candidate was meeting with representatives of that government and changing the Republican platform to what that foreign government wanted is shocking and appalling. Foreign governments will always attempt to influence elections, but having a campaign work with them is illegal and improper.
And like Watergate, the Russia investigation isn't just about the crime, it is about the cover-up. Firing Comey to stop an investigation? Lying to Congress?
Anyone who says that they "don't care" about the Russia investigation is saying that they "don't care" about democracy. Democracy is about more than winning elections and politics. It is about the rule of law and no person being above the law.
4
The biggest reason that Clinton lost is that many Democrats stayed home. Russian meddling was a factor but not the whole reason. Sander's supporters knew that a Trump presidency would be bad but felt they could not support the status quo.
10
If it were a choice of the status quo or going off the cliff, a sane rational person would go for the status quo....Clinton was not an ideal candidate by any means but she would have made at least a competent POTUS who would not sell the country to our chief foreign adversary....
1
"Russian meddling was a factor but not the whole reason."
You actually think that "Russian meddling" rose to the level of such importance as to be classified as not merely the whole reason? How about, at best, it was almost insignificant? For hard numbers see the number of purported Facebook ads from Russian bots compared to the total amount of advertising there. Please. Get a grip and get some perspective.
As a Sanders voter:
It is way down my priority list.
On top of my list of my concern is the take over by big money of the Democratic Party.
Take the recent NY Times story on Governor Cuomo:
"Cuomo, a Master of the $50,000 Fund-Raiser, Bypasses Small Donors"
quote:
"Since the beginning of 2015, Mr. Cuomo has raised over 99 percent of his campaign money from donations larger than $1,000.
Mr. Cuomo has accumulated more than 25 million. FROM THE RICH
Mr Schumer's record is even worse. His top ten campaign contributors are all from Wall Street.
The rich that donate to the Democratic party to not have the best interest of the working Americans at heart. The Wall Street crowd financing Mr. Schumer is interesting in maximizing corporate profits on the back of workers. The rich got rich by spending their money on where returns are maximized and that includes buying politicians via campaign contributiosn.
And the idea that campaign donation do not influence those who receive them ins laughable. They do.
I.e. until the Democratic Party returns to the mode where it is funded by million of small donations by working Americans rather than the ueberrich
my number one concern is not with Russia's meddling but with the rich taking over BOTH parties.
Is that clear ?
75
So Schumer receives contributions from Wall Street but Trump hired Wall Street. Does anyone think Mnuchin who was CEO of Goldman Sach is sec. of Treasury because he was board. Or Tom Brady or Wilbur Ross out of the goodness of their hearts. Tillerson has restricted Exxon stock so he did not have to divest yet he is over in Russian hammering out a half-trillion deal for Exxon. Give it a rest.
2
Clear and amen!
You make a good case for amending the US Constitution to take $$$ out of politics and government, but until that happens, money calls the shots...on both sides
1
I think you missed the reasons entirely. The reason is, I believe, that we don't know what happened. We are waiting for the special prosecutor to flip enough people to get to the truth. Bernie people are evidence based and non conspiratorial.so we are waiting to see what the facts are before going out on a limb. If you want people who make wild accusations like that you're looking in the wrong places in the wrong party.
24
David Klion sites a few people who are skeptical of the Russia investigation, and generalizes to apply that to all Sanders supporters, even though Senator Sanders himself draws a cogent point from the Russia story. Russia's interference in our society, not only our election, is serious and many Sanders supporters are aware of it. I think there is a concern that too many democrats will place their hopes in the Mueller investigation to prove Trump colluded, and then all will be made right. That will not happen. Democrats need to focus and what they stand for, and need to figure out how to oppose inequality, corruption, oligarchy and authoritarianism. Mr. Klion, some of us care about the Russia investigation, we just don't obsess over it.
26
How can corrupt, oligarchic, authoritarian Democrats oppose those things?
3
There is a big difference between caring about this investigation as opposed to being totally preoccupied with it. The current democratic establishment party is looking upon the results of this investigation(a rather big gamble)to being their sole ticket in turning around their fortunes and increasing their chances in winning upcoming elections. Sanders knows that the vast majority of the electorate are more concerned about what is going to happen to their healthcare, their jobs, growing inequality, money in politics and the environment, the Russian investigation is well down their list of prioriies. The investigation is progressing on its own, Americans do not need to be reminded about the importance of the Paradise Papers, and other scandals that require embracing to understand America is in serious trouble.
If this government had never been elected, this would not have been an issue and the country could have moved on in dealing with more pressing problems, instead it is scandal after scandal. For the Clinton crowd and democratic party to keep blaming everyone else, including the Russians, is getting tiresome. Clinton and the DNC lost it all by themselves.
36
The question is not whether Russia worked to facility Trump’s election but rather: why? Is the resulting domestic distraction and America’s withdrawal from international affairs the sufficient outcome or does Trump owe the Kremlin his service? Chaos or cunning, that is the question.
3
I think we who supported Sanders in the primary care more than others about Russia particularly since Bernie was also underhandedly treated by the DNC. Everyone knows now he would have won & that of the candidates he sincerely cared about the people more than his ego. I'd still take Bernie over all if them any day... That is of course unless Biden runs.
8
You haven't seen what Biden would be running on, apparently. Please read a breakdown of his recent speech in Chicago. https://www.thenation.com/article/joe-biden-positions-himself-as-the-ant...
1
Quite the loaded question in the headline. This Sanders primary voter deeply cares about these issues, as do others that I know. Yes, Clinton ran a weak campaign, as Klion alludes to, but said weak campaign was then kneecapped by Russian meddling. Despite her campaign's failings, she quite possibly could have squeaked out a victory absent said meddling, but we'll of course never know. Klion's argument seems to be yet another update of the tired old claim that, if only Sanders didn't run and/or exist, Clinton would have won, and it's no more convincing than any of the other attempts made to prove that claim.
20
I have a very, very simple answer -- and a fact which has irked me from the moment he latched his campaign to the Democratic Party to begin with.
BERNIE IS NOT A DEMOCRAT. It's not a surprise, then, that his supporters are, relatively speaking, still more intent on fulfilling the "white working class" pledge instead of either A) supporting the larger party's efforts of all-important racial progressivism, or B) dropping their INDEPENDENT white man for either a woman or message of greater (read: vocal) solidarity.
12
It was not only Republicans who bought into the claims that free markets and private enterprises are the wealth creators, while government mostly is a big costly drag on the economy. The Democrats thought that way too, although they tended to justify the costs of government as assuring improved quality of life. After three decades it is clear that government is far more crucial to a free country and to keeping in that way by moderating the excesses of capitalism, the distortions of markets, and the short sighted and selfish ways private enterprises work.
6
If the object is to persuade Sanders supporters, the article should have been entitled less antagonistically and more accurately "How the Russia Investigation Should Matter to the Left." Mr. Klion does not actually explain "why" Sanders don't care about the Russian investigation; and that assertion is actually false. Sanders supporters do care about the Russia investigation. They just frame it differently, as an "also" rather than the central issue. Mr. Klion makes a compelling case, however, in terms most Sanders supporters would take to heart, for considering the investigation of Trump's relationship with and fondness for Putin's kleptocracy as central to dangerous structures of power and wealth in America and around the world. It does a great disservice to an argument that is not condescending and insulting to lead with a heading that is. That's fairly petty, continuing to fight the last election's Democratic primaries, and no way to unite people against forces that threaten us all.
7
Is it possible Sanders' supporters don't want to hear about Russian interference because Sanders himself was also a beneficiary of that interference? He didn't ask for their help, but he certainly got it, and continues to. Sanders himself admitted this at one point, but he needs to disavow it more forcefully.
3
Of all the things to reach for: the notion that at this late date Sanders somehow owes a more forceful disavowal of intangible gains from Russian interference. Are you for real? That's even worse than the article's gratuitously condescending headline. Please get over blaming Sanders and Sanders supporters for Clinton's loss. It is not helpful. Democracy is about the competition of ideas and candidates. Not about lining up behind a party's anointed candidate. Any candidate who is weakened rather than sharpened by competition is simply proven a weak candidate. Hillary beat Bernie. She failed to beat Trump. There are many lessons to be learned, but one of them is not to continue to fight a battle on the one hand already won and on the other one already lost.
The central issue is not Russian interference in our election. The issue is Trump essentially hiring the Russian government to do so. It is OUR president's attempted subversion of democracy that is important to this country, not Putin's. It is as close to treason as a president has every gotten. Everything else is secondary.
4
Clickbait title. As a Sanders supporter and a voter concerned about the Russian influence on the election, I’m amused by this piece. I always find it difficult to stomach the repeated attacks on progressives (with Chomsky and Greenwald named in several hit pieces I’ve read) as being uninterested in the Russia/Trump story. Both Mr. Greenwald and professor Chomsky have had the same views for years regarding the larger issue of corruption in politics, national security and big business. The election meddling needs more evidence available for public consumption if serious allegations are to be brought and upheld as truths. The evidence of corruption in government and the corporate sphere is overwhelming. Many progressive journalists and scholars have shown for decades how bad our system of revolving door politics and business relationships is. Until both parties begin to address the problem in their own front yards and stop hiding behind clickbait attacks on the vocal but truly concerned opposition, they will only slide deeper into the rabbit hole of corruption.
26
Who says that Sanders supporters are not interested?
They are interested in the Russia connection, but they're savvy enough to know that the Constitution does not provide for do-over elections under any circumstances. No matter what, we will not get to vote again and choose Hillary.
Furthermore, even if His Self-Centeredness is removed from office, the next three in line are Pence, Ryan, and Hatch, all of whom could still do some real damage to this nation.
Meanwhile, the mainstream Dems getting all worked up about the Russia connection are at the same time failing to take care of business, the business of connecting with the general public and finding candidates at all levels who will have broad appeal, not on some superficial focus group level but as people who understand and have practical ideas for solving the day-to-day problems that this nation faces.
By all means prosecute the current Republican administration if malfeasance is found, but from where I stand, I see Sanders supporters running for local offices and taking action towards damage control on the state and local level.
By the way, assuming that the Russians did interfere with the U.S. election, it would almost be poetic justice, considering the ways that our C.I.A. has interfered in foreign elections ever since the end of World War II.
140
" it would almost be poetic justice, considering the ways that our C.I.A. has interfered in foreign elections ever since the end of World War II."
This is simple whataboutism and, like most of its kind, distracts from the real issue at hand.
We are not Russia's only enemy and Russia interferes with a lot of elections.
They played a role in Brexit. Theresa May has warned them against interfering with public opinion as she tries to negotiate terms for withdrawing from the EU.
They have been supporting right-wing populist groups in Eastern Europe and those groups have been having success in elections. Not so much success in Western Europe, but that doesn't mean there has been no meddling.
It's not coincidence that Russian meddling enhances the messaging of native right-wing media. It also seems designed to stir up the passions of the right-wing fans of that media.
It's not either or. Democrats have to use better messages, recruit good candidates and get out the vote for every election. They also have to care about foreign interference, whether it's from Russia or some other source.
I have to wonder if there is a subtle Russian influence in making Sanders' supporters less concerned bout the issue. Is this another attempt to manipulate?
1
It's worth noting that op-ed contributors don't generally write their own headlines. Responsibility for the misleading, click-bait title more likely rests with the editors. There is little in the body of the piece - such as polling data - to support the headline. I suspect most Sanders supporters care deeply about Russian meddling. One can't expect them to care as much about Mrs. Clinton's defeat as her supporters do. That factor alone would explain different levels of interest in the investigation, assuming such a difference exists.
Pdxtrann has it right and says it all. It covers the gist of it and needs to be printed in the paper as a rebuttal. Thank you Pdxtrann.
Sanders supporters are not monolithic. I voted for Bernie but would have strongly preferred Elizabeth (or Joe, or Al, or literally anyone but Hillary).
Some of us care deeply about the Mueller investigation - and want to see everyone who got into bed with Putin tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail (a punishment much far more horrible than we moderns can imagine, but absolutely appropriate for the traitors who betrayed this country).
Furthermore, the American political left fought the good fight during the Cold War - but once it was over, we let down our guard, and allowed the agents of a capitalism-run-amok to rape and pillage the former Soviet Union. And at the depths of their depredation, dishonor, and suffering, the Russian people tragically turned towards authoritarianism and Putin. I can't help but blame us - as in the US and Bill Clinton - a least a little, for that.
We had a choice. We could have encouraged Russia to become more like Sweden - humane, socialist, peaceful - as Ms. vanden Heuvel's husband, Stephen Cohen, the eminent Sovietologist, urged at the time. We instead encouraged it to become more like us - materialistic, ruthlessly capitalistic, and savage.
We vainly imagined that liberty won the Cold War; but what many of us discovered, in hindsight, is that liberty, when divorced from notions of virtue and economic solidarity, leads inevitably to authoritarianism and corruption on an epic scale - and thus, to Putin and Trump.
9
This is a naive view of Russia. It's people have never experienced democracy, and the shock treatment so regaled was almost inevitable, since the alternative was go straight to kleptocracy. Urge it to become Sweden? Have you visited or talked much to Russians? It's like saying Americans could be Swedish.
Aren't you ignoring the number one reason Sanders supporters want to ignore the Russia interference issue?
The Russians didn't only help Trump, they also helped Sanders, whether intentionally or not. Without the Russian interference, Sanders' losing effort would have been smaller than it was.
Sanders' supporters don't want to face the fact that he also was made an unwitting ally of Putin and Trump.
Also, leaving the Russians alone or denying the Russians' activities means Sanders can continue to benefit from Russian trolls and bots, free of charge.
16
"Without the Russian interference, Sanders' losing effort would have been smaller than it was."
-The Democratic party secretly putting their thumb on the scale for Hillary..
That's an issue Sanders-haters seem to want to ignore.
Ironic to hear charges that we don't care about Russians meddling in our election by many who seem to not care about their own party meddling in it as well. I (and the other Sanders supporters I know) care about both.
1
That’s completely false. If it wasn’t for DNC corruption Sanders would be president now.
1
I fail to see the logic in your argument.
It's simple: if Russia influenced the election, then people might stop paying attention to what a poor sad victim Bernie was during the primaries.
Sanders supporters are diverse, so it's odd to write an editorial that casts the lot of them this way. Sure, there's a bloc with no interest in anything but Government Corruption and sees everything else as a conspiracy to distract from that. But can't we focus on the majority that doesn't?
3
Yup. Article rings true. As I reflect on the Sanders-supporting friends I recall they don't care about Russian meddling. They 1) deflect (like Trump supporters) and mention something irrelevant. Or, 2) they have no comment on this, but are activist on several other topics. Also, 3) they have wrongly stated in the past several times that there is nothing to discover in a Russia investigation. Still waiting for Glenn Greenwald in particular. Finally, similar to Trump supporters they will not eat their words.
14
Thank you so much, Ally. I have had the same experience so I am dumbfounded at the resistance to the idea.
5
The supposition of your opinion piece rests on the following phrase:
"The extent of the alleged collusion, which may ultimately endanger Trump's presidency, has yet to be determined...."
Factually speaking, It should read:
"The alleged collusion, which may ultimately endanger Trump's presidency, has yet to be determined....
Maybe evidence will be found and maybe it won't but, as of now, there is zero evidence of collusion.
As an Obama Democrat, perhaps I should appreciate this piece but as someone interested in the truth, journalistic license with the sole purpose of creating an unsubstantiated narrative is unfortunate.
21
Mr. Klion seems very concerned about Russia for corruption and no doube rightly so in many areas but are we so free of corruption and tax cheating that we feel justified to lecture Russia or any country on morality. When we give the elite tax reductions and cut safety nets for the underprivileged we have hardly qualified ourselves for climbing into the pulpit and orating as if we were examples of morality.
r
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4
I am one of the people who doesn’t care about the Russia investigation for the simple reason that there are much more important things to investigate. Why, for instance, does the US support the crimes against humanity committed by the Saudis in Yemen? And this generalizes— 15 years after the Iraq War no one in any high position has been held accountable for that crime or the torture policies— in fact, pro torture members of the intelligence community are now cited as patriotic heroes.
Russiagate might lead to Trump’s impeachment. Given the atrocity of the war in Yemen, that is like nailing Al Capone for tax evasion. Fine. But the system that regularly produces bipartisan support for American war crimes will remain untouched.
13
The assertion that Clinton policies led to the rise of Putin is incorrect. It confuses privatization with governance.
The Reagan and first Bush administrations paid much more attention to Eastern Europe than to Russia after the wall fell. We offered no stabilization funding, no assistance forming a democratic government, writing a constitution, or developing civil society institutions, as we did in Poland and the Baltic states, for example. They tacitly regarded a weak, chaotic Russia as in America's interest.
Be that as it may, privatization was necessary. The author seemingly forgets the Soviet system had become dysfunctional. Privatization was the only viable way to rationalize state industries that were producing next to nothing while bankrupting the state.
Privatization likewise did not cause the halving of Russian economic output. On the contrary, the weak state, with its attendant lawlessness and existential uncertainty, made productive investment impossible.
This country could have done more to foster democracy in Russia. We didn't, and we're paying the price. 'Twas ever thus.
5
So Mr. Greenwald doesn't want Americans to pay too much attention to the Russian interference story? That seems like another very excellent reason to pay very close attention. Clinton got three million more votes than Mr.Trump. and presumably Mr. Greenwald finds her to be responsible for that. I don't find it confounding at all that this nation's crippling misogyny, coupled with trump/Russian rigging, produced the result we got. These Sanders succubi on the democratic party need to start their own party. Theycan call it the "free lunch bunch". They'll claim to have simple, certain solutions to complex world problems, solutions that cost nothing.
8
"These Sanders succubi on the democratic party need to start their own party. "
Careful what you wish for. I'd be delighted to join a new party, i think we should start one too. Have a nice 2020.
1
This is another edition in the "why won't the Sanders supporters shut up and behave" meme. There is an investigation. If that investigation reports serious wrongdoing then we will support holding those who have done wrong accountable.
I worked for Sanders in Iowa. I worked legal protection for Clinton in New Hampshire. I don't need lectures from people who make excuses right and left for the worst run Democratic Campaign in my lifetime. Today I learned that payday lenders, with the assistance 9 Democratic Senators, are in the process of passing a law exempting them from usury laws. So I am going to call every one of those Senators and make my voice heard.
I don not apologize one bit for focusing my efforts on that instead of Russia.
81
Good points Bill. This article is basically asking the Sanders crowd, "Why don't you take the Russian meddling claims as a foregone conclusion, irrespective of any evidence that may (or may not) be produced by the Mueller investigation?" So far there is zero evidence that the purported Russian election meddling swayed a single vote. There is also zero evidence that Trump colluded in any way with Russians on the purported meddling. On this topic at least, the NY Times is every bit the propaganda machine that Democrats claim Fox and Brietbart to be.
3
More power to you, brother! Well put.
1
There is also the matter of possible treason, which seems to be the course Mueller's investigations are headed. Has anyone considered the implications of Donald Trump and friends working hand in hand with Putin & Comrades to sabotage the democratic campaign in order to win? Does anyone realize what this really means?
Did the people in question, by opening their door to our sworn enemies, by using organizations like Wikileaks and others, compromise the secrets and values of their country?
We should not rest until these questions are answered.
6
I dispute the author's contention that Sanders supporters do not care about the Russia Investigation. Mr. Klion cites a few people such as Katrina van den Houvel, Masha Gessen, and Noam Chomsky.
Sorry, citing a few well known people hardly constitutes proof of his contention. A poll of Sanders supporters showing lower interest in the Russia Investigation would be powerful evidence. No such evidence is provided.
Until polls confirm his headline assertion, I will disregard his opinion.
10
Jill Stein seems to enjoy the support of Putin. Perhaps Bernie Sanders has some political or financial connection as well.
Maybe Robert Mueller will have some news about Democrats as well. Bernie did benefit from DNC leaked emails and he and his wife seemed almost Trumpian in their ability to predict their release.
It sounds far fetched but anything is possible these days.
4
This is a hair-splitting question, that allows the author to parse out different "left-wing" groups as being foreign interlopers in the Democrat party. The truth is that on all sides of the spectrum there are people who care about the Russian investigation and those who don't. You will find and did find many expressions of failing to care in the way you assume should be the modal way, but it doesn't mean much as an interpretive tool or as a means of parsing into groups by those who care or don't care in certain ways. The question you pose in the lead seems like a subtle dig at Sanders supporters, in effect, you are trying to say they're a little wacky and unreliable, they don't care about the same things as the establishment blessed "left" does, or more specifically, they aren't clintonites, and therefore they aren't us. Personally, I see the Russia investigation and all its tendrils as part of the great unveiling of the establishment way of doing business. Right now it's hitting the stooges of the oligarchy hardest, but, I hope, it will reach to all those who have been fooling us for so long on both sides of the phony two party system that's stealing our government from the people.
93
The author infers assumptions of normalcy and heterodoxy, and in doing so belies the arrogance and elitism that undermined the HRC campaign. That campaign used its final moments together as a team to draft a white paper that blamed the loss on a "perfect storm" of events including Russians. Maintaining a dichotomy that juxtaposes (A) what they like to imply as being normal Democrats and their own Russian theory for the election loss, with (B) Bernie Sanders supporters and a perceived lack of enthusiasm for the Russian theory, is key for the people within the Clinton machine to maintain their relevance, and their earned position in a political patronage pyramid that no longer has any reason to be. It takes a bit too much fairy dust to think that all of this is coincidental, rather than being yet another angle that the members of the Clinton network are using to maintain their clutch on the levers of power.
2
The longer all this goes on without a hint of actual collusion the more I agree we look like laughing stocks to the world. Diane Finstein signaled to the world this past weekend that she has seen "no evidence yet". She is the ranking minority leader of the senate intelligence committee. That speaks volumes for where we are at right now. Mueller has charged folks with stuff but all of those charges have nothing to do with collusion. Not good optics for all the grandstanding that has been done around the topic.
16
A presidential candidate publicly invited a foreign power to hack his opponent's emails. Substantial evidence suggested that a presidental campaign manager laundered millions of dollars in payments for his work on behalf of politicians in a foreign country. Evidence emerged that the US National Security Advisor was going to kidnap a legal resident of the US on behalf of a foreign government. An Attorney General repeatedly contradicted his own sworn testimony before the Senate. A President asked an FBI Director to call off an investigation, and when the Director didn't, the President fired him. Given all that, if a country did NOT undertake a deliberate, careful, and thorough investigation, that is when that country would be "the laughing stocks to the world."
2
"Without a hint?"
"Nothing to do with collusion?"
Okay.
We appreciate the punditry but let's let Mueller carry on. I think you will be surprised.
We always have corruption in politics, but these days it feels like we have barbarian at gate of Rome, while Roman army is too busy fighting each other.
In short, we have corruption legalized via "Citizen United" and both parties are continuously chipping away campaign finance laws. Result, we have system that is not listen to "We the People" but few wealthy donors. Today's politician lie on campaign and once in office, they do what their donors ask them to do. We can see that with Obama and now, Trump.
Democrats and Republicans are more focused on fighting ideological wars. Real war is corruption in system that does not give a fair chance to outside ideas that can only be represented by a candidate that is not from either party. In addition, both parties control debate rules via election commission (made of 4 Dems + 4 Reps) that does not allow outside ideas to show day-light during discussion. When that happen, we independents might care about Russia/Clinton. Otherwise, it's a blatant disrespect to your democracy by hyping up people about non-issue. Make fellow Americans fight ideological war, so politicians can continue that shenanigan and backroom dealing.
9
So you are saying what? That we shouldn't care about Russia because you don't like Citizens United?
Now, if you don't think the 2016 election, or even the 2017 senate election in Alabama, is not showing that we are clearly being exposed to "outside ideas," then you are completely insane.
But you won't need to worry about a thing, because if we follow your lead we will never have another free and fair election because you will do nothing to protect our system from Russian meddling.
1
The last paragraph says:
“Inequality, corruption, oligarchy and authoritarianism are inseparable,” Mr. Sanders said in a recent address. “Around the world we have witnessed the rise of demagogues who once in power use their positions to loot the state of its resources. These kleptocrats, like Putin in Russia, use divisiveness and abuse as a tool for enriching themselves and those loyal to them.” For Americans who broadly share Mr. Sanders’s views, this should be the real lesson of the Russia scandal.
That is ONE lesson.
Another lesson is that we have TRAITOROUS AMERICANS (the Trump family is just one example) who will associate with anyone who will help them to scam the system at the cost of all of us, financially, politically, and socially.
Those who say that we should pay more attention to the costs that the Trump administration is exacting in terms of the environment, our political system, and progress in our society need to understand that mature people can handle more than one thought at a time. They should also understand that getting the present administration out of power accomplishes several valuable results at the same time.
Whatever gets Trump and Pence (and their Republican enablers) out of power and gone in the most expeditious manner is to be desired. Maybe it is a s simple as flipping the House and/or the Senate in 2018.
How about we work hard to get that goal accomplished. Then we can work on the rest. Bernie supporters: vote for all Democrats.
16
I can tell you why this Sanders supporter doesn't care about the Russia Investigation. It's not that I don't care about the Russia interference. It's that Russia is only a symptom of the problem I see.
I care about the fact that we have a such poor infrastructure with respect to voting that our votes are certified accurate by people who never verify the accuracy of the counting sofware post-election so there's no way of knowing if it was right.
I care about the fact that all statistical evidence I can gather points towards electronic voting machines being rigged. I care about the fact that in the Dem primary the voting machines in many states were rigged to HRC's advantage. I care about the fact that the Republican primary voting machines in many states were rigged against Trump. He won, whether by overcoming
I care about the fact that tens of thousands of citizens in my state were denied their right to vote because Kris Kobach mandated the use of the flawed system to remove them from the registration rolls. A system that systemically removed citizens that were more likely to vote against Republicans than for them.
Yes, I care about Russia. But the fact that we cannot accurately assess the vote counts in our elections is my main concern. Why the mainstream media is not leaves me mystified.
ShowMeTheVotes.org
22
I will never understand this, Beth. Democrats fight every day for voter access and against voter suppression. Russia fought to get Trump installed. So how will ignoring Russian interference help fight voter suppression, since Trump is now in charge? How can you not see that ignoring/dismissing this interference makes our voter processes worse? Cambridge Analytica? Targeting software? None of this is unrelated.
8
I care about the fact that those fanatical Bernie voters enabled the lies that bought HRC down. They would rather have the bust than worry about a reactionary supreme court, the triumph of Citizens United, the role back of women's rights, minority voting access and gay people rights to live unmolested. Their core support was amongst the privileged white esp male pseudo socialists attracted to Bernie's offers of helping them economically, and they happily sacrificed everyone else' safety for their self indulgent petulance as their privilege would protect them from the consequences of the bust. The word that describes them best is narcissism and the consequence complicity.
1
I'm not saying we should ignore the Russian interference or that it's makes no difference. I'm saying it's a symptom and the root cause is our shoddy election processes. It makes little difference to me whether it was the Russians or Karl Rove or the Koch brothers behind voting machine manipulation.
1
This article references only four leftist political writers to substantiate the sweeping assertion of the headline "Why Don't Sanders Supporters Care About the Russian Investigation?" I have no choice but ignore that assertion in lieu of more thorough polling.
Most Americans regard Trump's infatuation with Putin as downright weird, but more than that, it is seriously ominous coming from the Commander in Chief who, by the way, publicly begged Russia to release any damaging information they might have on Hillary, a request that appears to have been granted via Wikileaks.
Given that Trump Jr. has boasted of his father's extensive business entanglements with mega-rich Russians through the years, it is natural to ask questions: where are Donald Trump's loyalties? With the USA, or with his personal bank account? It is a legitimate question under these circumstances.
But Trump adamantly refuses to release his tax returns and reveal business contracts, and I get the impression that Trump would rather be impeached than reveal that information.
Paranoia? Conspiracy theories? You better believe it.
18
This piece also distorts the positions and the arguments, particularly of Masha Gessen, that the author characterizing as supporting his views. He's completely wrong on that, missing Gessen's point that there are those using 'concerns' as an excuse to further restrict free political speech and curtail liberties. E.g. Trump calling for an special prosecutor to "look at the Russians getting control of Uranium One." A lie hiding inside a distortion, motivated by a deflection manufactured by a distraction over Trump's vulnerabilities to being indicted for multiple counts of violations of money laundering, The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Emoluments clause, and obstruction of justice.
5
TRUMP IS A RUSSIAN OLIGARCH!
After his last bankruptcy 11years ago who but Putin & his kleptocrats could have financed him. It's obvious! Read investigative reporter, David Cay Johnston's work. "Follow the money" was a Watergate theme. I expect it's part of Mueller's playbook too, else why bring in the Enron heavy-hitting investigators?
2
What I’ve hear from listening to many of the pro-Bernie people mentioned in this article is not that they don’t care about whether Russia meddled, but more that they are suspicious the DNC-controlled media outlets are using it to avoid talking about reforming the party.
Seeing as how the big reveal that Russia supposedly is responsible for was showing the world how biased the democratic primary was, I don’t think it’s unfair to steer the conversation towards the content and implication of that information rather than simply speculating about the motivations of the alleged source.
19
Translation- there are Saunders supporters still litigating their primaries versus looking at the critical condition of our democracy under Trump.
7
The writer accuses some on the left (Sanders, Vanden Heuvel, Chomsky) of missing the bigger point about Russia while the writer himself misses the bigger point about Russia.
And what they all are missing is what the Republicans have learned and honed to a fine art: you can't govern if you don't win elections first.
To that end the Democrats' focus on Russian meddling in our elections should be a far greater concern than ANY of the domestic economic issues the far left believes should be of primary focus.
If anything, they should be embracing Hillary who said she supported a $12 minimum wage (agreeing 80% with Sanders's call for a $15 one) and who said the day after her loss that the integrity of the election was intact.
Well, I guess even Hillary can be wrong once in a while.
2
The writer does NOT accuse Sanders of missing the point. In the last paragraph he quotes Sanders speaking "the real lesson" and says that Sander's supporters should get with that program.
1
First Bernie supporters were racists, then they were sexists, then they were all against Hillary in the general. I’m sorry Klion, I have never met a Sanders supporter who doesn’t think Russian involvement is important. That includes myself and all of the many Sanders supporters I have met and talked to . Maybe you are confusing Sanders supporters with House and Senate republicans. Is this another false accusation of Sanders supporters from the Democratic party? Is this article going to be used to justify blocking progressives out of the party?
41
Unfortunately, I have met many Sanders supporters who don't think it is important and who seem to be terribly naive about it all. And even more who are Sanders/Stein supporters. Some think it is just an excuse from Clinton, many are bitter, some so distrustful of our own government they would almost rather believe anyone else and some push RT and other Russian outlets and fake pages as much as many supporters of President Trump do.
3
"I have never met a Sanders supporter who doesn’t think Russian involvement is important...."
Oh man, I have, Mark. Friends of mine. I will chalk this up to good old Midwestern decency (because none of them have been local), but there are plenty of them, sorry to say.
1
Really. How many you have met?
1
1) Because anyone who is not completely caught up in Trump mania this seems to be much ado about nothing.
2) All sorts of people and countries try to manipulate American voters. We should be more concerned about the Koch brothers meddling with our elections than Putin.
3) This is almost entirely based on claims by US intelligence services which have been known to be both dishonest and incompetent in the past. There is no reason to trust them as a source, much less trust news reports based on anonymous claims.
30
Ah yes, let’s ignore the findings of our intelligence agencies and take Mr. Trump’s word for it. No doubt his obsequiousness toward Putin is based on sincere admiration and nothing else.
1
" No doubt his obsequiousness toward Putin is based on sincere admiration and nothing else."
Given Donald Trump that seems perfectly plausible. As for ignoring our "intelligence agencies", what we should ignore is the information they are leaking to the media.
First, because they are not only our "intelligence" agencies, they are also our propaganda agencies. So anything they say is colored by what they want the world to believe.
Second, because they are incompetent. There is no reason to believe they really know who is behind the hacking any more than their claims about anything else. The folks running these agencies are many of the same people who told us Saddam had weapons of mass destruction based on the flimsiest of information. These are also the agencies who have been responsible for giving a army private free access to sensitive state department memos, a contractor access to a wide variety of sensitive intelligence, had an employee able to spend years stuffing his closet with vital secrets including some revealing its most powerful and sensitive hacking tools and it had those tools spread all over the internet.
Third, as Senator Schumer famously warned, you shouldn't pick a fight with the intelligence agencies because they have a lot of ways to get back at you. Trump picked a fight with them and we should be very suspicious of the information they are selectively sharing about his Russian connections. They are very good at political propaganda.
1) This isn't "Trump mania." It's about the sovereignty of our election. That you don't think it's a big deal doesn't mean it isn't a big deal.
2) Good lord. You cannot ignore attacks on our country just because other undermining forces are also at work. We can walk and chew gum at the same time.
3) Yeah, no reason to trust anything. Up is down. Nothing matters. Congrats, the truth is dead propaganda has worked on you.
1
David Klion conflates two issues: Russian interference in the 2016 election, and the Russian-money-related corruption of the kleptocratic Trumpsters. The corruption of the Trump crowd is a real and serious matter. The Russian election interference in 2016, if real, was pretty ineffectual. I say, "if real," because, as seems to be forgotten, in that oft-quoted January intelligence report on the subject, the NSA said it had only "moderate confidence" in the conclusion. In governmentese that means "no confidence." If indeed they were the ones who revealed Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's emails about how she did in Bernie, well, that was something we should have known. No one has charged that the documents were anything but genuine. The Clinton party is in effect arguing that if only they had been able to hide the truth longer from their fellow Democrats, then more of them would have voted for Hillary. The fault lies not with the Russians but with the Clinton crowd. Katrina vanden Heuvel, Masha Gessen, Noam Chomsky, and Glenn Greenwald are not naive about Russia. They are intelligent enough to distinguish between what is important, and what amounts to an unwillingness to face the reality of the 2016 election..
58
Curious that you conveniently forget that it was the DNC that put Bernie on the ballot. Since he was not a Democrat there was no demand from the Democratic party grassroots that he be a candidate. What the DNC did was to promote Bernie by giving him a platform of equal stature with the most admired woman in the world
Bernie didn't win the nomination because Democrats didn't want him as our candidate. And knowing what most of us do about Bernie and about the way Republicans win, we thought he would have lost massively. There is also no reason to think that the same Trump/Russian collusion would not have operated in the same way and probably with worse results had Bernie been the candidate You might want to keep that in mind for the future.
Hillary basically ran on Bernie's economic message and that was because his goals are mostly Democratic Party goals. So there is either no reason to think that is a winner for Democrats or there were antipathies and bigotries that affected the outcome. And, unless you accept misogyny is legitimate, they would have held for Bernie too. My personal opinion is that the demands of Bernie's young supporters were a huge turn-off. They might want to rethink that.
Many of Bernie's supporters were promoting Russian lies themselves so naturally do not want to admit being duped.
2
The January 2017 report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded that the U.S. intelligence community has high confidence that Russia interfered--not "no confidence." Russian interference is continuing, including on social media, and this interference is a direct threat to our democracy. We know that Guccifer 2.0 is the online persona of Fancy Bear, a GRU hacking team--this isn't speculation at this point.
Regardless of who the Democratic candidate is in 2020, you can be sure that Putin will intervene on Trump's behalf. That should be a problem for every American. As another commenter said, you can't govern if you're not elected.
1
Hillary was attacked by the GOP, as expected, and by Russian meddling. Bernie was attacked by the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Really, which is worse? They were both trying to influence the outcome. Neither should be allowed. Period.
I think most people outside of the 37% of the electorate that is loyal to Trump is supportive of the Mueller investigation. Those who are not content to ride along with the vague agenda and messaging of Schumer, Pelosi, and Feinstein, and the shadowy influence of Clinton aligned PAC's, however, are concerned that the Democrats are much too sanguine about the results of the investigation being a magic bullet in the war to recover from the assault on democracy and justice being waged by the Republican administration and legislative majority.
Russian meddling in our elections and sources of information is bothersome, but it is not nearly as troubling as the voter suppression, tamper-prone election machinery, gerrymandering, propaganda, corporate influence, and government administration by corporate shills that is taking place domestically.
When the Democrats start taking those matters seriously instead of playing along as the Republican-lite brand of quietly corrupt companions to GOP usurpation of the public will, I am sure they gain the support they find lacking for their party. But instead of blaming the Bernie supporters for not falling in line with their weak and corrupt bag of tricks, perhaps they could ask themselves what is stopping them from focusing on the issues that are eroding the power and security of the 90% of the population that cannot afford to fill campaign coffers with gobs of money.
34
"Russian meddling in our elections and sources of information is bothersome, but it is not nearly as troubling as the voter suppression, tamper-prone election machinery, gerrymandering, propaganda, corporate influence, and government administration by corporate shills that is taking place domestically."
Russian meddling is just as troubling as the domestic factors, because we can't know the extent of it's effectiveness.
1
How about they are both serious, and related hand in glove with the moral turpitude that enables Republican indifference to the security of our elections, foreign corrupt influence and opioids pumped into our nation from Afghanistan as well as Big Pharma (The Sackler family's Purdu & McKesson Industries and other players).
2
Democrats and Republicans are more focused on fighting ideological wars. Real was is corruption in system that does not give a fair chance to outside ideas that can only be represented by a candidate that is not from either party. In addition, both parties control debate rules via election commission (made of 4 Dems + 4 Reps) that does not allow outside ideas to show day-light during discussion. When that happen, we independents might care about Russia/Clinton. Otherwise, it's a blatant disrespect to your democracy by hyping up people about non-issue. Make fellow Americans fight ideological war, so politicians can continue that shenanigan and backroom dealing.
3
"“Inequality, corruption, oligarchy and authoritarianism are inseparable.”
I strongly agree. But authoritarianism can take many forms, for example like Democrats who are anti-trump in persona.
Inequality, corruption, oligarchy all grew during the Obama years, although the authoritarianism was presented with a warm, friendly personality.
10
As a Sanders supporter, I care about any foreign actor trying to influence our elections. I also, by the way, care about the US doing the same thing at home (e.g., voter suppression) and disrupting elections abroad.
That said, I don’t believe that Russian interference is the reason Clinton lost. She didn’t need their help. She was quite capable of losing the election on her own.
90
As another Sanders/Our Revolution supporter, I don't think we can forget (or forgive) Comey's interference in the last stage of the election.
6
Sanders supporters holding their breath and staying home on Election Day didn’t help either.
6
As I said above. As long as someone they don’t like lost the full extent of what the Russians ARE STILL DOING doesn’t really matter. At least not to Bernie Bros.
1
There are many problems and concerns about a Trump presidency for working Americans. We should work to alleviate all of them with urgency. One of them is the fact that someone antithetical to their welfare was elected president quite possibly through the assistance of a foreign enemy. This can never be allowed to happen again. It is fundamental to the welfare of all Americans that what happened is fully investigated..wherever it leads. We cannot ignore or minimize theft of our sovereignty. To do otherwise is unthinkable.
4
Mueller's investigation will uncover anything relevant regarding Russia's interference in our past election. If Trump was involved his team will handle it through our legal system. We've been down this path before with Nixon and history tells us that a full investigation takes a few years. Patience is a virtue.
Congress seems to be investigating how Russia used social media sites to divide us. Hearings are being held. Time will tell if anything meaningful comes from these hearings about how we can prevent interference going forward. The US isn't exactly innocent when it comes to interference in another countries elections so the constant complaining can feel a little hypocritical.
We have bigger issues on the home front that needs to be addressed. Inequality, lack of affordable housing, the increase in healthcare costs, traffic, lack of funding for our public schools, concerns about climate change, our failing infrastructure and the list goes on. Our political leaders should be able to multitask and come up with solutions to our issues but so far neither party seems to have a plan.
80
But the Democratic Party platform addresses your questions on policy. Yes, they have a progressive plan on health care, infrastructure construction, environment and energy, education, and human rights. Because the Democrats do not control Congress does not mean they do not have viable solutions.
4
There isn't a single priority that you've listed that is being or is going to be addressed by the Republican side of the aisle, which is intent on destroying ACA and eliminating all estate taxes and nearly all other taxes on the rich, creating a deficit driven crash. And you wonder about where the 'increase in healthcare costs' is coming from? Or the inaction on the "infrastructure?"
4
"Time will tell if anything meaningful comes from these hearings about how we can prevent interference going forward. "
The GOP isn't looking to secure our elections. They are looking for tips on how to manipulate it more effectively. Russian may have done a few things they haven't thought of yet.
3
The "real lesson of the Russian scandal" is that the Democratic party will do anything but admit its betrayal of the public interest in favor of its large donors, which has not gone unnoticed by voters.
Voters who support Sanders' positions are not likely to achieve their goals by devoting their energies to Russian facebook posts, denouncing Russian kleptocrats or working to "clean up the influence of foreign lobbying on Washington" when American corporate lobbyists work tirelessly to destroy what remains of American democracy.
64
I think if they admit there was interference it means they did not have legitimate grassroots groundswell support.
Note I do not believe this is true (I voted for Bernie in the primary and was very excited by his campaign and the movement), but I think just like Trump can't admit it because it would undermine his victory, the left can't either because it would justify their loss.
My dear friend is constantly disputing the idea that Russia interfered, excusing or denying it with a couple of different ideas:
1) it's a smokescreen/not true at all/not to the extent that "they" say
2) the US has done terrible things, why don't we care about them
I don't understand either of these denials and I fear that the post-truth era Trump has helped along (it was always there, simmering) has infected far deeper than we imagined. Facts are facts, and Russia did interfere. Democracy is at stake. Yes, other factors are at play (voter suppression, for one) but that's no reason to deny the obvious.
Glenn Greenwald, Julian Assange, Jill Stein, and others who promote the idea that Russian meddling is insignificant have done a real disservice to my friend and many others.
14
I'm not sure they are promoting the idea that Russian meddling is insignificant as much as they are promoting the idea that our election process is suspect due to a number of reasons. The Russians are only one factor in many. That doesn't mean it's insignificant, but that the real problem is elsewhere. We need honest accurate fair elections where everybody is allowed to cast their vote.
Greenwald, Assange, and Stein also were witting and unwitting pawns in the Putin/Mercer gambit, and have functioned under the senile apprehension that there is anything vaguely 'left' or 'progressive' in the thugocratic kleptocracy of Putin's Russia.
8
Sanders understands that it is not enough to be against Trump. He understands that we need to build a positive vision of our American future -- which is why he's not rehashing last year's election, but proposing strong policy initiatives that show what the Democrats could stand for if they shed their allegiance to corporate power.
For the record, Sanders and his supporters are *not* against the Russia investigation. On the contrary, we want the Russian interference with the 2016 election fully investigated along with possible Russian collusion with Trump's campaign. At the same time, we are skeptical that this investigation alone will stop the danger posed by Trump. Our problems will not cease even if a smoking turns up that conclusively links Trump to Putin to hacking to tit-for-tat deals. Why? Because the best-case post-impeachment scenario features a smarter, or less impetuous Republican administration headed by a more dangerous man named Pence.
35
But no one is saying that "this investigation alone" will solve all our problems with Trump. You are falling into a trap. We can look into collusion and interference without ignoring other issues. Believing that we cannot means we will do nothing about either.
3
It's not just a "Russia investigation" - it's an investigation into Foreign Corrupt Practices, and Trump's international money laundering business, along with his open baldfaced conflicts of interest and flaunting of Emoluments prohibitions. Pence is just as guilty as Session of provable perjury. A good deal of the Saunder's discounting, then, winds up coming across as a form of regressive denial and guilt over throwing their vote to self-promoting drones like Stein, aka the Nader denials post Gore 2000, saying "Gore would have been equally bad." Bad as Iraq? I don't think so.
11
I don't understand what this has to do with supporters of Senator Sanders. Unless it's just another opportunity to stamp your feet and blame them for everything that's happened in the past 18 months.
There are a lot of Americans of all political leanings that are very skeptical of the Mueller investigation. We certainly support the effort but many of us are not holding our breath anticipating an earth shaking outcome. The guilt or innocence of the parties involved is irrelevant when you have no faith in the process.
The real question is why aren't Americans as a whole up in arms that our electoral process is so clearly vulnerable to foreign interference? I'm hearing a whole lot of "Lock Her/Him/Them Up!" but not so much as a whimper about securing the electoral system.
199
"Securing the election system?" I think that's what you meant to address. The "electoral system" as in 'Electoral College,' has never worked, and did not work to prevail in its original intended function, which was to protect this nation from outside sovereign interference in our free and fair open elections. Instead it is easily gamed and use to give one man's vote in Montana or Alaska ten to twenty times the weight of another voting in California or New York.
6
BC, Isn't the reason we're not hearing anything about securing the electoral system directly related to our current president and his enablers denying - or ignoring, in the case of the enablers - that there's an issue? Lots of people who don't have control of the levers of power are eager to address these systemic weaknesses, but with the current administration engaged full-time in deflecting and diverting attention from the issue, it's pretty hard to get anything meaningful done.
2
Recognizing that "our electoral process is clearly vulnerable to foreign interference" is the key issue, but ignoring the specific involvement of Russia in the election of Donald Trump is a willful failure to understand what happened. This is a coup of kleptocrats, and we have to stand against it.
1
Why are Sanders supporters constantly being criticized for imaginary misdeeds? The Democratic party needs to have a vision to offer voters not merely the anti-Trump alternative. This is a judgment call that reasonable people can disagree on, not cause for attack.
120
It's just the headline that strikes that petty accusatory note. Mr. Klion's argument does not.
1
There are so many reasons this is not really taken all that seriously by so many on 'the left'. First, Russia attempting to meddle in US politics has been going on for generations now, as has US attempts to meddle in Russian affairs. It's not new; it's hardly even news. And in context of the US track record of regime change and illegal wars, it truly is 'laughable', as Chomsky says. Furthermore... The fact that the 'Russians' were trotted out so quickly and efficiently after the 'hack' (or leak, as classified by Wikileaks) seemed such an obvious attempt to cover up the details of the emails, which suggested that the Democratic Party process was skewed in favour of Clinton... Which has now been utterly proven to be true. PLUS the fact that even President Obama said that even if Russia HAD meddled, they did not affect the result. And then of course there are the many instances in which the government has outright lied to implicate a foreign power (Iraq, Vietnam, North Korea, etc.) So many reasons not to take this thing at face value.
26
You’re choosing to believe Trump over our intelligence agencies. The Russians have done well.
1
There are even more reasons to question and discard the arguments made by your post as Russia's 'attempts to meddle' was methodical and weaponized by psyops and troll farms still operating in comments boards throughout the media. If you know how to trace web ID's and source code this is pretty obvious. Obama has since walked back his comment that "Russia did not affect the result." Chomsky still thinks Russia is a leftest theology and not a Mafia state kleptocracy that Putin used to steal his $200B nest egg comprised of the the assets of the Russian people stolen by Russian oligarchs and organized crime and then appropriated in large part from them by Putin and those loyal to Putin.
7
I disagree with the assertion "MG" from Toronto makes, and reject that he has the slightest authority as "speaking for" or being a "spokesperson" for the articulating "the left." That phrase is almost tantamount to declaring you're a Bannon supporter. Or asserting that "You're not a racist" (which "those people" always seem to be accusing you of).
1
These are interesting points, and additional good reasons for concern about Russia's influence in American business and politics. But for the left not to consider election interference itself anything to worry about - irrelevant, overhyped, a convenient excuse for Clinton's loss - is bizarre to me. The Russians seem to have succeeded in their mission to sow discord and division not only because those on the right don't want to believe they've been played, but because those on the left don't want to believe THEY'VE been played either.
14
I was a strong Sanders supporter. When he did not prevail I supported Clinton, as did Sanders. I was very concerned about Trumps’s affinity fir Putin right from the get-go and am astounded at an American who eas not.
17
My experience with supporters of Bernie Sanders was that many were quite invested in discrediting HRC even after she was assured the nomination. The first batch of Podesta emails that became a media circus at the DNC forced the resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and a few others. It became further fuel for the true believer's fire. Many praised Wikileaks and had trouble criticizing the growing evidence of Russian interference. People were, and still are, responding to the Russian/Wikileaks/Trump disclosures based on seeing what they want to see. I have little confidence that Mueller's report, regardless of its ultimate quality, will change many minds on the right or left. It is the narrative that matters to the most ideologically inclined.
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Huh? Sanders people are perfectly justified because what you call "assured the nomination" was theft. Wasserman was a train wreck. Wikileaks is to be praised, as any entity that does good should be. Your notion "growing evidence" is more like growing bleating of sheep. YOU are seeing things, not Sanders supporters. The most ugly ideology is that of the indoctrinated status quo ie yours.
2
I dont understand what anything on the article really has to do with Sanders and his followers. The author points at the perspective of many groups of people and glances over Sanders supporters, yet somehow the entire headline misleads into making it seem like this is about Sanders supporters and the Russia investigation, when that is barely mentioned in the article itself.
I dont really care whether you supporter Clinton, Sanders or Trump, what concerns me far more is the fact that people read any of those three names and immediately draw conclusions on the content of the articles without event reading it.
People have become so entrenched in their own personal bubble that they have started to dismiss anything outside and that is a terrible approach to solving problems or really understanding the issues people face, much less a country.
3
@rdelrio
Unfortunately- everything [politically and legislatively] has been stripped away from us as citizens- and the only thing left to fight over is ideology. Some mighty slim pickens...
3
I’m a Sanders supporter and I care about the Trump/Russia investigation. I also care about Medicare for all and I care about the outlandish concentration of wealth in this country and in the world.
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I can't speak for other Sander's supporters, but quite frankly, I personally am very concerned with the Russian meddling. If there is anything to the uranium deal that was illegal, then let the truth be known. So far, there's no definitive facts other than what I consider innuendo. On the other hand, the Russian meddling has been been determined to have occurred by not just 1, but 17 US intelligence agencies. I just don't see the correlation between those 2 separate incidents. As long as Mr. Trump remains in his current role, he will do everything in his power to prevent any further sanctions against Putin. Where there's smoke, there's fire, and the interesting theory that Putin has something over on Trump could very well be true.
12
The headline implies that Bernie supporters are heretics for not "believing" in RussiaGate.
Despite what the pundits say, his supporters are no more a cult or a monolithic entity than are the supporters of other politicians.
Plus, not all leftists in this country are even Sanders supporters. There are plenty of people who think his ultimate function as a candidate was to herd disaffected people into the Democratic Party and into the voting booth for Hillary.
So please, credit the so-called heretics with a little nuance and ability to think critically. Speaking only for myself, and based on the evidence so far, I do think that Trump and his kin and associates had some pretty seamy dealings with Russian oligarchs, not least because the high-end Manhattan real estate empire at the center of their world is a prime place for foreign tycoons park and/or launder their money. I hope the Mueller investigation, like the Paradise Papers, opens many cans of many worms.
Do I think that Putin literally "hacked" the presidential election, or swayed undecided voters through the placement of some truly cheesy Facebook and Twitter ads? No. And frankly, the Democrats' complaints that "Russia" is sowing social divisions in the US is laughable on its face. This red-baiting trope has been going on for about a century now. How about they take a good long look at the manufactured wealth inequality in this country, and admit that the big money which controls them is the real Enemy Within?
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And once again Ms. Garcia earns her green check by telling it like it is.
You know she’s right.
1
The far left and the far right (i.e. the Republican party) are not terribly different in most every regard. The political spectrum in this country is less a spectrum and more of a broken circle, with the far left and right virtually touching in terms of policy extremes such as embracing Russia. More importantly, both extremes are deeply antithetical to what this country has been and should be in the future.
15
Good heavens, MJL, where do you get your faux news? This is nuts.
10
First, name even ONE person "on the left" who "embraces Russia."
Second, there is NO "far left" in this country. At all. Period.
2
Okay, fair point (though I'm a Sanders supporter who cares very much about the Russia investigation), but the real question is "Why don't Republican members of Congress care about Russian meddling in our election, and why are they suddenly all wound up about the Clinton Foundation?"
Given that these people are the ones who can really do something about this issue, I think the focus needs to be on them.
18
These days the stakes are so great and there is so much to care about that any reasonable person must pick their battles.
If you find it convenient to believe that Trump is the only problem facing us, then I guess trying to nail him for collaborating with Putin makes sense.
If you doubt that conclusive evidence will ever emerge or that, even if it does, impeachment by a Republican dominated Congress is unlikely, you might reasonably decide to care more about some other issues.
Katrina vanden Heuvel gets it right when she says, “Focusing on Trump’s ties to Russia alone will not win the crucial 2018 midterm elections, nor will it win meaningful victories on issues like health care, climate change, and inequality that affect all of our lives.”
40
Who says the resistance is "focusing on Trump's ties to Russia alone?" I and others can, and do, pay attention to more than one topic.
1
I am a Sanders supporter. (And yes, I voted for Clinton in Nov. 2016.)
I care deeply about the Russia investigation. I have confidence in Mr. Mueller, and am patiently awaiting the results. I have no illusions that this investigation is guaranteed to end Mr. Trump's presidency (despite the mounting evidence of improprieties of people within his campaign). The most important outcome of this investigation will be an understanding of how foreign nations (including Russia) can influence U.S. elections - which all Americans of both parties should be concerned about.
The answer to countering Mr. Trump is at the ballot box - in 2018 and 2020.
But we must all acknowledge that Mr. Trump legitimately won the election in the electoral college. And we, as a nation, must look in the mirror and seek to understand why. The Russian interference in the election (especially on social media) certainly had an impact. However, I have not seen evidence (and hope this is not the case) that actual votes at polls were tampered with.
Far too many Americans were, and continue to be, ready to fall hook, line, and sinker for propaganda, disinformation, convenient scapegoats, and conspiracy theories. This is clearly true on the right. But the left is not immune to this either.
46
Most reasonable thing I've read since November 8 2016. Agree on all points.
3
We don't have to acknowledge that Mr.Trump "legitimately" won. Have you ever heard of voting machines and their eminent hackability? We know the Russians accessed voter registration and vote count databases. If you have a state where the vote count was illegitimate and hacked, then the electoral goodies are invalid.
1
I was a Sanders supporter who also voted for Clinton in the general election. I do care deeply about Russian interference, and I hope that Robert Mueller finds the evidence to bring Trump and his minions down. I also hope that the Congressional committees complete their reports with recommendations to prevent or at least reduce the likelihood of interference in 2018 and beyond (though the partisan politics I have seen in the hearings make me doubtful this will happen).
But if all Democrats do is oppose Trump and support these investigations, without devising a meaningful, progressive message that holds corporations accountable for the financial and environmental damage that they do or building a strong agenda to reduce income inequality and roll back the corrosive effects of money in politics, it won’t matter how robust the country is against foreign meddling. There will be nothing to defend.
194
Because of the ease of world trade, of travel and of moving cash from country to country, the new robber barons have few boundaries that they cannot fly over in first class. One reason Trump's harangues about that Wall are galling, beyond wasted money, and the insults to many decent but desperate people who walked across our boundary with Mexico -- if you have a lot of money, it doesn't matter who you have robbed.
Klion is correct - the influence of oligarchs with "plundered fortunes" on our own country is destabilizing, and the ability of the wealthiest to move and hide their fortunes with relative ease mocks the concepts that led to the founding of this country.
The hysteria of the McCarthy era and decades of institutionalized fear of the USSR seems to have been replaced by utter cynicism by most of our political elites - Bernie not being in that bunch - about where their money comes from. Whenever there's big money there's influence, we know it, and we either reform the system or watch the Plutocrats plunder.
Katrina vanden Heuvel IS right that the obsession on proving a specific Russian-Trump connection is myopic. If it is proven, Dems still must develop political support and power, and a convincing working agenda, to preserve social and financial safety nets and reduce wealth inequality.
If Trump were to be driven out of office at 4AM tomorrow, by 9AM it would be business as usual. Same donors, same lobbyists, same influences.
55
“Why Don’t Sanders Supporters Care About the Russia Investigation?”
Why doesn’t the media care that there is a vast amount of evidence that indicates votes totals are being manipulated in our elections?
Why would computerized election fraud be out of the realm of possibility when we have overt manipulation: voter suppression, gerrymandering, big money, and a stolen Supreme Court seat?
Statistical and pattern evidence from exit polls indicate official vote counts are not legitimate. Exit polls are the international gold standard. Our State Dept. uses exit polls to verify elections in other countries. A discrepancy above 2% raises a red flag and an investigation and recount follow. It has led to elections being overturned in the Ukraine, Serbia, and Georgia.
Vote counting has been outsourced to secretive, right-wing companies. The ballots, memory cards, and source code are off limits to the public, the candidates, and in most cases election administrators. Recounts and audits have been rigged or stopped – the latest example being the three recounts requested by Jill Stein. Lawyers for Trump and the Secretaries of State went to court to stop them and they succeeded. The system has been set up for concealment.
Uncounted – Computer Security Expert Bruce O'Dell
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ai_971yvwBY
O’Dell: “I see the same patterns that I'm trained to detect and prevent in the financial services industry running rampant in the election services industry."
(cont’d below)
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(2 of 2)
O’Dell: “Essentially there's no independent audit and control for the tallying systems. If a vendor walked into a bank and said you can’t look at our code, we won't allow you to look at an audit trail and independently test our systems they would either be laughed out of the room or, alternatively, we would call the FBI figuring that it is such a breach of fiduciary trust that no one [in finance] could possibly think it was acceptable behavior. The fact that it is not only tolerated but rampant in the procurement process for election systems I think is unconscionable.”
Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pisBdNLmo-A
We need to follow the example of other democracies. Canada, Australia, Japan, and European countries count their ballots by hand. An Austrian court ordered a re-do of their presidential election because some votes were counted without observers present. Germany and Ireland went back to hand counting after realizing the vulnerabilities with computerized voting.
A must read on history of computerized voting:
https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election/
“In 2009, [Germany's] constitutional court upheld the basic principle of the public nature of democratic elections. By ruling that the vote count must be something the public can authenticate—and without any specialized expertise—the decision directly challenged the use of computers in elections."
#DemocracyDemandsTransparentVoteCounting
85
Hillary didn't steal any Bernie votes. We voted for her because she's been working for families, social justice, workers since the 60's. Voter suppression in the South and West only aided Trump. The primaries were transparent and Berniebots need to grow up. Thanks for Trump.
We hate him and he's giving us a Yuge tax break.
29
Winchestereast,
Stephen Spoonamoore gets it: "This is not a Democrat/Republican [general election/primary] issue. This is a democracy issue."
Republican Stephen Spoonamore, Computer Security Guru, Election Theft with Voter Machines
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BX6vcoIZdA4
"If you actually care about a constitutional democracy where every person actually votes, that the vote is validated, and the people who end up in office are reflected on the basis of the way people voted you care about this issue. If you don't want people to vote, and if you don't want people's vote to count, you want to rule without owning it by a mandate, then you are very supportive of Diebold.
"We've had numerous elections in this country now where you use Diebold election machines. What happens with the vote is way off: 5, 10, 12 percent from the actual polling. These statistical numbers are impossible and the problem is Americans must come to the realization that there are people in this country who want to steal elections and we must stop them."
Authoritarian governments count their votes in secret, not democracies.
14
While I respect vanden Heuvel and Chomsky, they do not speak or stand in for the diverse array of Bernie supporters. I was one of those supporters. I care deeply about this investigation. I appreciate the ways in which this op-ed highlights exactly why we should all care.
211
Please don't generalize. I voted for Sanders in the primary and just as determinedly for Clinton in the general election, and I care very much about the Russia investigation.
It's only fair, however, to ask why the writer and complainants like him don't care about the (non-existent) investigation of home-grown interference in our elections (plural).
I would argue that voter suppression in all its forms did far more to deliver victory to Republican candidates all the way down the ticket than did Russian interference.
349
If you would google it, you'd know that the writer does care about voter suppression and intimidation. We old folks are a little tired of doing all the work.
12
I personally think that Sanders supporters refused to vote for Clinton when Bernie didn't get the nominations. I saw so many of my friends and acquaintances who had supported Sanders vote for Jill Stein or the Libertarian party instead of Clinton. But still Trump won becasue the Democratic Party ignored the dissatisfaction and fear of the "other' in the Red States. Hilary sealed her own coffin when she described Trump supporters as "Deplorables." Even now the Democratic Party is sitting on its hands instead of working to create votes in the Red States.
8
The Russians were a key tool, paid for by Dark Money such as Mercer, to discourage people from voting. Not the only tool, but a key tool.
Billionaires don’t waste money on advertising that doesn’t work.
1
There’s a simple reason. Bernie refuses to finalise his FEC filings from his 2016 run (or release his tax returns; and, no, one partial year doesn’t cut it — but that’s another matter).
The FEC flagged thousands of suspect overseas donations, that Bernie doesn’t want to explain.
There is also the matter of $10million in dark money from a single DC zip code over a single 24-hour period, that Bernie also doesn’t want to explain.
He benefitted greatly from the Russian meddling, and now won’t be transparent about his campaign finance.
Connect the dots.
109
Whatever truth there may be in Lisa's accusations, it has nothing to do with the Bernie supporters discussed by Mr. Klion.
2
You know I was just wondering what the democratic response to Steven Cloobeck's threat to stop funding the Democratic party unless Democrat's stop talking about billionaires like himself influence on the party and policy like tax cuts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nys3xZqEo3w
3
That's ridiculous. Bernie may be the only honest politician in America. The fact that he is the poorest member of Congress - after 30 years - proves that statement.
Lobbyists know that if they get too close to Bernie, he will throw them down the steps of Congress. Not everyone in the world cares so much about money that they'd sell their integrity. And that's why the people in power hate him.
4
The article is informative, except for the title. Bernie Sanders continues to get a negative tone from the NYT. The Russians are doing to the U.S. what the U.S. has done to many countries over the past few decades (including Russia). However, most U.S. voters view this issue through a tribal lens. It is ignored if you're a Republican, and it's not OK if you're a Democrat. Not at all good for the country as a whole.
214
Sorry but I have to take exception to the dismissive tone that because this country may have influenced other countries elections. When have we EVER had a president that was elected with the help of a hostile foreign power? When have we ever had a president that surrounded himself with people who have gotten caught lying about ties to a hostile foreign power? When have we ever had a president terrified of having his taxes disclosed? This is far more serious then anything this country has faced.
1
This is only an issue if you believe the US a real democracy, which it is not. We're a deeply flawed democracy. But, let's not let facts get in the way of media spin and political narratives. Ignorance is bliss they say... http://bit.ly/democracy-index
I think virtually everybody in the center and to the left of the center is VERY interested in the Russia investigation, but are smart enough to know this thing is not going to play out as fast as a 7-game playoff series or a TV talent show.
176
"[V]irtually everybody in the center and to the left of the center is" NOT "very interested in the Russia investigation" I speak as a 61-year-old Bernie supporter (and a lawyer 37 years in practice); one who did not vote for either HRC or Trump (the first time in 41 years of voting I did not vote for the Republican or Democratic presidential candidate).
Boris and Natasha Badinov, as bad as they are, did not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, that was HRC and the DNC. Americans have not only illicitly involved ourselves in the elections of other sovereign nations, but when that didn't work we set about literally killing people to achieve regime change. This whole business of the Russians interjecting themselves into our election is like Capt. Reneau in the movie "Casablanca" declaring that he is shocked, shocked, to find out there is gambling going on in the back room at Rick's Cafe while just then being handed his evening's winnings at the roulette table.
And, yes, it is a distraction without end. There is real work to be done.
20
More to the point, why don't Democrats generally care about an illegal sale of uranium to Russia by the Obama administration, alleged to have occurred in return for Russian contributions to the Clinton Foundation?
After many months of investigation, we still have nothing that sticks to Trump on Russian cahooting. But we know that the Uranium was sold to Russia, we know that such a sale was illegal, and we know that The Clinton Foundation received contributions, through whatever channels, from the Russians. So, nobody on the left regards that as curious?
I guess that it's lucky that Republicans in this instance don't need Democrats to open such an investigation. Isn't it?
30
Richard- don't deteriorate into a talking points press release.
http://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/uranium-one-joy-reid-debunks-fake-news...
74
Lynn:
I don't phone-in my normal posts, which are lengthy and deal substantively with issues. But I have to enjoy myself SOMETIMES.
Besides, I have a case.
4
Because it wasn't an illegal sale, and the contributions happened long before Clinton was secretary of state, because the sale was approved by several different departments and was routine.
So, yeah, that red herring is so irrelevant, even the House Republicans who were willing to spend millions on Benghazi investigations, even as their own people kept saying that there was no misbehavior to be found - even they didn't find this worth investigating. They're really desperate to scrape this bottom of the barrel.
19