| StuOhQ said: [...] a country that most definitely interfered with the democratic process here. |
Considering that "interfering with the democratic process" is extremely vague and can mean just about anything, it's would be hard to prove that statement to be definitely wrong.
Almost every relevant country tries to influence the democratic elections in other countries. Whenever there is a democractic voting in some country, some other countries consider the outcome of this democratic process to touch their own interests, and they usually have a clear idea of the more and the less desirable outcome. So they try to influence the democratic process in favor of what they consider to be the more desirable outcome - but of course, that usually has nothing to do with tinfoil hat conspiracy theories like state-paid hackers meddling with voting machines or something like that, the most common (but not exclusive) approach is trying to influence the public opinion using means of propaganda.
My own country (Germany) for example tried very hard to influence the US presidential election and brexit voting. And of course, the country that is best known for trying to influence the democratic processes in other countries is the US itself. (BTW, there is a reason why the US was historically trying so hard to push "democracy" in other countries - that wasn't because of morals or because they deeply believed democracy to always be the best form of government. That's what you tell the public, but the main reason is of course that democratic countries are usually easier to influence from the outside than other forms of government.) Remember that back in the 1990s, the US clearly interfered with the russian election, with the TIME magazine even printing "Yanks to the rescue: The secret story of how American advisers helped Yeltsin win" on their cover.
So, did the russian government - like almost every other country - have a clear idea of whom they'd prefer as POTUS? Most definitely. Did they - like almost every other country - use common means like propaganda to influence the public opinion in favor of what they considered the more desirable outcome? Very likely. Did they do anything uncommon, like using state-payed "russian hackers" to manipulate the voting machines? Very unlikely. Are really the russians to blame for Trump becoming POTUS? Most definitely not. The are multiple smaller and bigger reasons why Trump won, but the biggest reason is probably that the democrats simply had a lousy candidate that the american public wasn't enthusiastic about either. Instead of choosing someone like Bernie Sanders who would have crushed Trump, they picked Killary and sabotaged Sanders. The democrats themselves are responsible for the outcome - the whole russia narrative is just a welcome scapegoat that they came up with.
| StuOhQ said: The Trump/Russia ties are plain to see for anyone with eyes. |
At least if one really, reaaally desperately wants to see them.
