Rolling Stone: Russia Isn’t Dividing Us — Our Leaders Are

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/russia-sanders-campaign-taibbi-957377/

Quote

 

Russia Isn’t Dividing Us — Our Leaders Are

A last-ditch effort to derail the Sanders campaign fails as voters finally reject the Russia con

 

The latest act in the comedy began Friday, just before voting opened in the Nevada Democratic caucus. The Washington Post ran a story — sourced, I’m not joking, to “people familiar with the matter” — explaining that Bernie Sanders had been briefed that “Russia is attempting to help his presidential campaign as part of an effort to interfere with the Democratic contest.”

Sanders was quick to see through the gambit. “I’ll let you guess about one day before the Nevada caucus. Why do you think it came out?” He pointed to a Post reporter: “It was The Washington Post? Good friends.” The Post after all has spent years dumping on Sanders, a fervent critic of the paper’s billionaire creep of an owner, Jeff Bezos.

Intelligence officials and pundits have been screeching for years that patriotism demands voters reject the foreign agent Donald Trump and the Russian asset Bernie Sanders, and support a conventional establishment politician. Voters responded by moving toward Trump in national approval surveys and speeding Sanders to the top of the Democratic Party ticket. A more thorough disavowal of official propaganda would be difficult to imagine

 

Russiagate will soon be four years old. For the first three years, it pushed parallel themes: that Russia had “interfered” in the 2016 election, and Trump conspired in the fraud.

The latter theme at times garnered literal around-the-clock coverage. CNN and MSNBC especially (but also the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Daily Beast and other major outlets) preached to audiences that the fall of the Trump administration was imminent. Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, news audiences were told, would reveal the Trump-Russia conspiracy and save the world.

After this story died a violent death when Mueller’s probe ended with no new charges, conventional wisdom shifted to a new gospel: Russiagate was about foreign interference.

Russiagate from the start smelled funny, like bad food. Multiple developments worsened the odor. Stories kept coming up wrong. There were too many unnamed sources, too frequently contradicting each other and/or overstating facts. Every hoofprint was a zebra’s. Outlets stopped worrying about relaying unconfirmed rumors, which is how terms like “blackmail,” “Trump,” “Russia” and even “Golden Showers” kept appearing in headlines, without proof there ever had been blackmail.

Moreover, while ordinary citizens like Reality Winner went straight to jail for leaking, senior government officials in the last four years repeatedly and with impunity leaked Russia-related tales. The leaks often pushed still more incorrect narratives, like for instance that that Trump aide Carter Page was a foreign agent.

But the biggest red flag of all was the way in which “Russia” over the last few years became shorthand to describe any brand of political deviance. I wrote this two years ago:

“Since Trump’s election, we’ve been told Putin was all or partly behind the lot of it: the Catalan independence movement, the Sanders campaign, Brexit, Jill Stein’s Green Party run, Black Lives Matter, the resignations of intra-party Trump critics Bob Corker and Jeff Flake…”

 

It's funny now watching some of the media start to turn around and employ logic they've flat out refused to do re:Trump. 

 

I really hope people don't allow their thankfulness, as the media tries to transition to sanity, to forget said media's role in the division THEY sowed, division on a scale that Putin couldn't even hope to achieve. 

 

It's far from over, as well, it's still very possible for Bernie to be screwed, but the fact that we're now seeing more media try and quietly shift their narratives demonstrates they're starting to see their own relevance crumble. 

 

The populace has to put the media in their place and remind them who they do their jobs for, and it isn't for their corrupt relationships with the bureaus, or neocons, or for making a quick buck off TDS.

Taibbi here is spot on with the leaders, he even goes after the media, but the media is conduit #1. Can't even begin to cite all the (deliberate) screw-ups they've made in the last 5 years alone that have contributed to a polarized America not seen since the civil war. 

 

And notice that it isn't big government that's holding them accountable, destroying the first amendment. No, big government teamed with them to create this mess. Rather, it's voters, individuals, starting to hold them accountable, the way it should be.

Edited February 25, 2020 by Burnt Reynolds

[Dashinka 24,744]

The title of this article is wrong, it should read "Russia Isn't Dividing Us - Our Media Is"

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

2 hours ago, Bill & Katya said:

The title of this article is wrong, it should read "Russia Isn't Dividing Us - Our Media Is"

I couldn't find that headline, and I was recently warned that creating your own headline is like stepping on the mercurial "TOS" IED.

[Dashinka 24,744]

32 minutes ago, Burnt Reynolds said:

I couldn't find that headline, and I was recently warned that creating your own headline is like stepping on the mercurial "TOS" IED.

No, I wasn’t saying you posted the wrong headline, but making a commentary that the article did not go far enough in its investigation.  Maybe a little introspection by the mainstream media is warranted.

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

I'm starting to see a pattern... whomever the MSM doesn't want as a candidate is a Russian collaborator.