Why Are So Many Leftists Skeptical of the Russia Investigation?

[DonViejo]

By Jonathan Chait
@jonathanchait

July 29, 2018
8:16 pm

As you move from the right to the left of the ideological spectrum, skepticism of the Russia scandal gives way to suspicions that it covers up something serious. But somewhere on the left, right around the fault line where Barack Obama is deemed to have been a bad president, opinion turns back again toward skepticism.

The purest form of this sentiment on the far left is a vein of attacks that are almost indistinguishable from Republican rhetoric about the investigation. The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald has gone from insisting evidence of Russian interference should be discounted until Robert Mueller produced some indictments to now saying indictments themselves should also be discounted. Greenwald regularly appears on Tucker Carlson’s show to dismiss the Russia witch hunt, as does The Nation’s Stephen F. Cohen. Aaron Maté, another Nation contributor, has scoffed at what he calls “alleged Russian meddling” (alleged?) and insisted that the Trump campaign’s solicitation of help from Russia is no worse than the Clinton campaign hiring a British investigator to uncover Trump’s ties to Russia: “Lying to reporters is not an indictable offense, and neither is showing a willingness to obtain foreign dirt. During the 2016 contest, the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign accepted help from Ukraine and paid for the salacious and outlandish Steele ‘dossier’ from across the pond.” You see, Christopher Steele, like Natalia Veselnitskaya, is foreign, so it’s all the same.

Situated just to the right of this faction is a slightly less extreme form of skepticism about the Russia investigation. It does not justify or deny Russian hacking. Instead it criticizes liberals for caring too much about Russia, and posits that the Russia fixation is somehow preventing the left from prosecuting a populist case against Trump.

This is an argument more of mood and tone, relying more on implicit contrast than frontal challenge to the Mueller investigation. Commenters like Katherine Krueger at Splinter, Seth Ackerman and Corey Robin at Jacobin, and Osita Nwanevu at Slate have all expressed versions of this soft Russiagate skepticism. These critics do not all agree with each other on every point, but share certain overlapping tendencies. They are mostly or entirely willing to accept the known facts of the investigation. But they assume little else of importance will come of the investigation, and above all consider the issue to be overblown, a distraction at best, and the seeds of a dangerous backlash at worst.

“Putin didn’t single-handedly elect Trump over Clinton,” writes Krueger, rebutting an accusation that nobody has made. Surveying astonished reactions to Trump’s performance next to Putin, she asks:

It’s worth scrutinizing what people are really mad about when they tweet things like this. Are they most mad that Trump is siding against the American national intelligence community, which has a bloody legacy of influencing elections abroad when it suits its own interests and trampling its own citizens’ civil liberties? Are they angry that Trump continually refuses to admit black and white truth staring him in the face, which would give Clinton even a second of solace? Or are they most inflamed at the notion that the international order is shifting away from a place where American might comes first and must be deferred to in all matters of war, peace, and beyond around the world? Just some thoughts to ponder.

more
https://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/why-are-so-many-leftists-skeptical-of-the-russia-probe.html

[bettyellen]

1. Hmmm. Greenwald hasn't been "left" for a while now. It was a pose and he's pretty much

Not even trying in lots of ways.

[Cha]

5. greenwald was pretending and so many

fell hook line and sinker.

[Wounded Bear]

31. Oh, Greenwald is left...

Left behind by real progressives that is.

[rainin]

2. Uninformed. Period.

[John Fante]

54. I suspect a more sinister reason.

[Cha]

3. And, greenwald just hypocritically deleted 27,000

tweets on it. Obviously didn't want them retweeted now that's he's shown to be horrible Wrong.

[peggysue2]

18. Interesting, no?

After accusing others for being cowards and weasels for dumping past tweets, he dumps 27,000 of his own.

Hummm. I'm sure it was merely housekeeping.

[Cha]

89. In the interests of radical transparency I made the decision to erase all my tweets.

Link to tweet

[ehrnst]

85. ALL those who benefitted from the attack and are now silent on it or dismissive of it

make you wonder.

[Cha]

88. They're so obvious it makes me

wonder how stupid do they think we are?

[Downtown Hound]

4. There's alwasy been a faction on the left that believes that because

the U.S. hasn't always lived up to our ideals, then it's okay to justify or at the very least downplay everything foreign governments do while constantly condemning our own. I long ago learned to tune those idiots out.

Not that there isn't a lot to be said for practicing what we preach, but these idiots would excuse a foreign invasion of America away and try and find ways to cooperate with it because, well, we've invaded nations too, so that means we have no right to resist.

[MicaelS]

8. What a wonderful post.

It captures the essence if what I have long believed much better than I could have.

[Tom Rinaldo]

9. Yes. I've been arguing against those who that stance since the 60's.

We need to build on what is progressive about our revolutionary heritage, not excuse tyrants around the world because we have often fallen short ourselves.

[JarOCats]

33. Nailed it. N/T

[Hekate]

51. What you said, Downtown Hound. nt

[Docreed2003]

56. Spot on assessment!! NT

[susanna]

71. Nailed it. /nt

[get the red out]

86. This!!!!!

I also noticed that they hated Hillary Clinton as much as the right did. They seem to believe that if a Dem isn't going to deliver them utopia on day 1 that they are as bad as a Republican and that the nation deserves to suffer until it sees the light.

[Wwcd]

103. K & R

[Saboburns]

6. There aren't any, none

This is bullshit propaganda from the Republican party.

[kysrsoze]

7. Yeah, I don't buy this crap either. Perhaps a VERY a small percentage.

[pnwmom]

10. No, there are lots of "leftists" that minimize the investigation. The Jill Stein crowd, for example.

[DonViejo]

13. Shhhh! People are having too much fun viewing this from their luxury condos along that famed

river, da Nile.

[JarOCats]

35. I would expect the Jill Stein crowd to minimize it...

...considering Stein's own brushes with Russian interests.

[RhodeIslandOne]

14. These's a whole message board of DU ex-pats who think so.

Granted, many are right-wing plants, but they live to ginn up the most naive of the far left into believing they are their allies.

[Grasswire2]

44. But some have moved on from JPR.

Our old good friend Octo didn't leave a forwarding address from there -- I don't know where he's gone. He gave me his contact info here in DU PM long ago but I can't recover it.

[Squinch]

77. In recent days, many JPR zombies have shown up here after long absences.

They're like cats who think no one can see them because their head is under the sofa.

[SidDithers]

17. I could list a dozen former DUers, off the top of my head, who fall into this category...

"RT is watched in 50 million households in the US!"



Sid

[mcar]

60. I haven't seen any evidence that they've seen

the error of their ways, either.

[Tarc]

21. Only the Jackpines, who are in reality libertarian/MRA shills, not actual leftist or progressive

No genuine progressive voice doubts the factual evidence at hand.

[Ghost Dog]

81. Could you please point out to me precisely what is this "factual evidence"

to which you refer to being "at hand", or where it can be found?

I ask because I have yet to see it.

[Tarc]

83. You seriously don't see the basis for Russian collusion?

Sure you're in the right forum, FRiend?

[betsuni]

84. +1

[Ghost Dog]

92. Seriously, no, I haven't yet seen it (I'm here on the edge of Europe,

but I am a long-time observer of (particularly, 'leftish') US politics).

Can you please provide or point me to a clear, succinct, fact-based summary account at least, or indeed in detail, of said evidence?

[Ghost Dog]

94. So... Four hours waiting, in this particular example...

Any evidence? Anyone here?

[Tarc]

95. Your words are coming across as more of an alt-right apologist

rather than a supposed European.

Do the legwork yourself, bro.

[Ghost Dog]

99. No evidence then? But so _concerned_?

Bro?

I feel very sorry for all the propaganda victims, then, over there.

Profoundly concerned.

[Tarc]

100. Whatever you say, Guccifer.

[emulatorloo]

101. Read Mueller's indictments of the "Internet Research Agency" from Feb and the GRU hackers from July.

Tarc is not your research assistant.

[Ghost Dog]

104. Thank you.

I found an imperfect scan of said indictment here: https://www.scribd.com/document/371673084/Internet-Research-Agency-Indictment

Hmmm. Maybe there is something there, yes. But it's not much, is it? Social media posting, while being a foreigner, like me. But then, I have declared myself here as such, and I am nobody's agent.

Can it be proven that the ORGANIZATION, Internet Research Agency, is an agent of the Russian State?

[uponit7771]

22. +1, haven't talked to anyone who thinks this Russia thing is a joke

[Saboburns]

32. Me neither

Admittedly I don't know Jill Stein's view on this matter, however I don't see or hear her or any other Leftist complaining. If she is, hardly anybody is listening.

I say this premise is Bullshit. I see it as an effort start a problem among us, not reveal one.

[Hekate]

50. I think Jillsie is maintaining an oh-so-discreet silence. Like if she's very quiet, maybe Mueller...

...won't see her.

[mcar]

58. You are wrong

[emulatorloo]

69. You should read reddit or The Nation sometime.

Chait is not a Republican propagandist, he is describing (and criticizing) a phenomenon that exists.

[Cha]

91. yeah, no one who's been paying attention

would believe your post.

[oberliner]

11. Glenn Greenwald is a vile human being

And is not a leftist, as several have pointed out.

("regularly appears on Tucker Carlson’s show" should have been a clue)

[OilemFirchen]

24. Glenn Greeenwald regularly appears on "Democracy Now!"

That's a clue as well.

What game are we playing, rhetorically speaking?

[oberliner]

28. Yes, exactly

Another site for Hillary haters and Democratic Party bashers.

[OilemFirchen]

29. I guess I didn't understand your "clue".

Is "Democracy Now!" a conservative show? Is Glenn Greenwald's political bent identifiable by his television appearances?

[oberliner]

34. Hopefully you understand it now

Glenn Greenwald only appears on anti-Democratic Party shows like that one and Tucker Carlson.

You will never see him on MNSBC.

Here's a Democracy Now show from right before the 2016 election:

Green Party’s Jill Stein: What We Fear from Donald Trump, We Have Already Seen from Hillary Clinton

https://www.democracynow.org/2016/6/9/green_partys_jill_stein_what_we

[OilemFirchen]

36. But they're self-identified as "leftist".

In fact, I'd say that "Democracy Now!" and Glenn Greenwald are prototypical modern leftists. Thus this article, as well as concurrent posts from similar individuals right here on the Dee Yew.

[EndGOPPropaganda]

66. "Self-identified"

Real Democrats and liberals know that Greenwald and that show are a fraud.

You can claim to be whatever you want. But reality is more complicated.

For example, Republicans claim to be for working people. But that is clearly a big fat lie. Similarly, Greenwald claims to be on the left. False.

[RhodeIslandOne]

12. Many want to believe Trump beat Hillary fair and square because they sat out....

.... and held their breath like the fucking babies they are, or voted for Kooky Jill Stein instead.

Fuck the JPR

[lunamagica]

15. The Sarandon faction belongs to that camp. They want to undermine the Russian inverstigation

because it destroys their argument that Hillary was a bad candidate who lost to trump and their absurd claim that Sanders would have won.

[Greybnk48]

16. "Leftist" is being reframed apparently.

The question is, why?

[OilemFirchen]

25. How so? (n/t)

[Greybnk48]

70. Being on the left, for me, means being a Democrat and

holding the basic values of the Democratic platform, i.e., egalitarianism, liberalism, etc.

Today we're being pushed to equate the Democratic platform with "centrists" and to agree that all leftists are Commies, ignoring the fact that the religious right dragged the center miles to the right over the past 30 years. I will never think of myself in the center, or as a centrist, until the center is back to where it was under FDR, LBJ, or at the very least in the 70's during, say, the Nixon era when we had had a long standing liberal Congress.

[MountCleaners]

19. Having done a lot of time on the left...

A lot of these people are internationalists, and don't believe in patriotism or defending the United States in any capacity.

It's just wrong, because they're refusing to oppose the authoritarian Putin and the far-right elements in Russia, whom any decent leftist should oppose.

In my experience, they 1) don't like liberals and don't making common cause with them about ANYTHING and 2) they're very bitter, cynical and cranky about anything that smacks of patriotism.

It's foolish and it's encouraging to the far right both here and in Russia. Any REAL leftist ought to know that this is a big no-no.

Some of them also subscribe to the idea that a soi disant "liberal" is elite and comfortably middle-class, at the very least.

My mind changed back in 2002, when I met some DUers at an anti-Bush protest and saw that they were ordinary working people. We need to support and defend them. A lot of them come from conservative families or red areas where coming out as a "liberal" entails social shunning at best, and threats and even violence at worst.

[spanone]

20. Who dat?

i don't know any skeptics on that investigation

[uponit7771]

23. +1

[JI7]

27. people like jill Stein

but i don't consider them to be left but rather trolls pretending to be.

[JI7]

26. because they are Putin Trolls like Jill Stein and don't really care about a liberal agenda

but they like to claim they are politically left as a way to attract democrats.

[RandySF]

30. What I see on Twitter

“Stop talking about Russia. Nobody cares. Medicaid for All.”

[OilemFirchen]

38. I wish.

Medicaid for All, though unworkable, would be far superior to Medicare for All. Never have been able to understand why, when the purists insist on shooting for the moon, they aim for the troposphere.

[Eliot Rosewater]

39. Yeah, KGB is good arent they.

[JarOCats]

37. How far left are these skeptics?

I'm unfamiliar with most of the names in this article (except Greenwald, who inexplicably went off the rails years ago). Are they all far-left -- the sort who would end up at or near the end of one prong of the horseshoe in the Horseshoe Theory?

If they are, then it doesn't seem like such a big mystery.

[JI7]

40. they are more conspiracy theorists

[JarOCats]

46. Like Greenwald seeing a "Deep State" bogeyman around every corner?

That would explain it.

[Grasswire2]

41. think JPR too.....

Haven't been over there lately, but that splinter group was not having it.

[saidsimplesimon]

42. This was a teaser?

Hello DonV, Is there a reason this opinion piece was shared?

It is my opinion this was a clever attempt to get social media clicks and does not accurately reflect the majority of lefties on DU. I have not seen anything posted here that remotely suggests there are questions on the value of the Russia investigation. Maybe a couple of russian trolls have been spotted in our vicinity?

I had several questions before researching the article. What is nymag, is it a reliable media source, any ideological bent? Then I wondered who are these people claiming to be leftist? I stopped wondering when I saw Glenn Greenwald as a source.

All I needed to do was search Greenwald, WikiLeaks, Assange, Russia and Snowden. That did it. Greenwald and Snowden are both LIBERTARIANS, Snowden leaked to WikiLeaks(Assange) and Snowden was welcomed by Russia.

[mcar]

62. Why shouldn't it be shared?

This is DU. We share stuff.

[Ponietz]

43. I lost respect for Chomsky yesterday

AMY GOODMAN: Those intelligence agencies—former CIA Director John Brennan tweeted, “Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of 'high crimes & misdemeanors.' It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???” Again, the former CIA Director John Brennan’s tweet. Noam?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, his remarks were certainly incorrect. Whatever you think of Trump’s behavior, it has nothing to do with high crimes and misdemeanors or treason. That’s just not true. But again, the same point I’ve been trying to make throughout—we are focusing on issues of minor significance and putting aside problems of enormous importance and significance, whether we’re thinking of how to deal with immigration or whether we’re dealing with the question of survival of organized human life on Earth. Those are the topics we should be thinking about, not whether Trump misbehaved in a press conference.”

[link:https://www.democracynow.org/2018/7/30/noam_chomsky_us_must_improve_relations|

Yeah, Noam, how can we begin to address these problems if the rule of law fails, if smash-and-grab oligarchs corrupt our elections, wreck our economy, and destroy our environment; when our titular leaders do not have our best interests at heart, are blackmailed and manipulated, work ceaselessly to divide us, and on and on?

[Squinch]

76. Yikes. What was he watching? I saw trump siding with Putin against Americans.

[onecaliberal]

45. WHY is this bullshit posted here?

[ornotna]

49. It's all about divide and conquer

[FreepFryer]

65. +1. (n/t)

[Voltaire2]

75. Yup we have an overtly fascist government

but the problem is Glenn Greenwald.

[emulatorloo]

102. It isn't bullshit. It is an article by Jonathan Chait who has done great reporting on Trump/Russia

It is an accurate description of the kind of bullshit being dished by Glen Greenwald and his ilk.

[mythology]

47. What counts as skeptical?

The evidence is pretty clear it wasn't the deciding factor in the election. It's also clear they didn't actually change cast votes.

Should it be mitigated? Yes. But I think focusing on it obsessively is a mistake on multiple levels.

[Hekate]

55. Actually, none of what you wrote is at all clear. And calling interest in Russian cyberwarfare...

..."obsessive" really begs the question of why you think that, given what we know about what amounts to an act of war.

[mcar]

61. What evidence is that?

Do tell.

Focusing on it "obsessively?" Are you aware that Sen McCaskill's campaign was targeted this election season?

I see no evidence that the attack on our elections ever ended and I see no evidence that 2016 wasn't hit even harder than we know.

[JI7]

53. no, they have a problem calling out attacks on the election

that's what this is about.

[Hekate]

59. Oh, you are referring to the woman who got 3 million more votes than Trump, despite everything...

...that was thrown at her? Right, she was such a poor candidate with such a poor message from the awful Dem Party Platform that it took Comey, a Russian invasion, GOP "investigations," voter suppression activities old and new, ethnically-cleansed voter rolls, hacking, a complicit media, Cambridge Analytica, Twitter, Facebook... That despite all that she STILL got more votes from the American people than Trump. Somehow her message and that of the Dem Party Platform STILL resonated with more Americans than Trump.

But we just sit around blaming others.

[onecaliberal]

64. Because th Russians DIDNT break into voter rolls and steal the info of 500,000 voters.

Comey didn’t fuck Hillary over 11 days before the election. Trump didn’t conspire along with every fucker in his campaign with Russia. These bullshit attacks are old and tired. After everything happening, for fucks sake. STOP IT!

[emulatorloo]

68. You're so adorable when you parrot Trump talking points, shanny

Trump: Russian meddling story an 'excuse' for why Democrats lost
https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/11/politics/donald-trump-democrats-russia-meddling-election/index.html

[Hekate]

72. ****

[betsuni]

73. Heh.

[Cha]

74. emulatorloo! Thank You for calling out that

poster on his obvious talking points and who else uses them.

I think he made Jonathan Chait's point.

[Hassler]

52. The Jill Stein voters

[mcar]

57. Horseshoe

And Greenwald is a Russian stooge.

[vi5]

63. Greenwald isn't "left" any more...

...but as for this line:

“Putin didn’t single-handedly elect Trump over Clinton,” writes Krueger, rebutting an accusation that nobody has made.

This isn't too far off of sentiments that are posted here pretty regularly.

It's honestly all about people not wanting to admit they may possibly have been wrong. A lot of people do want to believe it was all Putin/Russia and that if it hadn't been for that, Hillary would have without a doubt won. It completely lets us off the hook for any degree of introspection. And a lot of these skeptical "leftists" want to believe that she ONLY lost because she was a bad, unlikable candidate as they had predicted all along.

Russia is without a doubt a blight on democracy and nobody should advocate avoidance of the subject and taking them to task in every way possible. But if Putin and his infrastructure went away tomorrow we'd still have all the same underlying problems in our own society, in our own country, and yes somewhat in our own party as well that would need to be addressed.

[GulfCoast66]

67. What the fuck is a leftist?

Stalin, Trotsky, Castro, Daniel Ortega?

My heros are Democrats. Roosevelt, Johnson, Clinton, Kennedy(all 3 of them). And many more. Top of the list now is John Lewis. Who Bernie supporters booed at the Democratic Convention. Told me all I needed to know about self styled ‘leftist’.

Fuck Leftist. This is Democratic Underground. And I am no fucking ‘leftist’. I am a member of the Democratic Party.

[DonCoquixote]

78. several reasons, some awful, some reasonable

If you were on the left, and ran afoul of the FBI, it might be a hard leap to imagine that the same people that harassed MLK and did all other sorts of kneecapping and foul deeds are now the heros. Like the old tale of the boy that cried wolf, sooner or later, there IS a wolf that will come to eats you, but those you depend on will not believe you. et us be honest, for all his holier than thou talk, we knows that James Comey helped kneecap Clinton, and that the only reason he is being given any sort of good light is because Trump, in typical manner, threw him away like a chicken bone.

However, some reasons are just plain awful. There is an idea of Russia as the great counterbalance to US power. First off, that title goes to China, which, unlike Moscow, is getting the sort of "soft power" we used to have. Second, it is hard to consider them a counterbalance to the right when they have openly embraced the white/right wing. There is a reason why the KKK meetings say "russia is our friend" now, as well as those who like anti-immigrant rhetoric and the "drill baby, drill" gutting of Environmental regulations. Russia is affirmatively NOT the USSR, nor even that leftist (again, that title goes to China.)

Another awful reason is that Russia is very good at cultivating figures that never got the respect they think they deserved, and feeding them well. Yes, Ted Rall, rail about how the phrase "useful idiots" is ugly, but that is exactly the face you would see in the mirror if you were not too busy watching yourself on RT. Same for you Dennis Kucinich, who merely went from being anti-abortion to supporting the nations that legalized Domestic Abuse. Let's make sure we get Jill Stein, who knows that she will never win the Oval office short of a massive increase in Green Mayors, Governors, and Congress, but is too busy yelling at the European greens (who rightly see her as a well paid Russian puppet.)

[DetlefK]

79. Blind and rabid hatred for the establishment.

They are anti-everything. If you are for it, they are against it. Because it makes them cool and special.

[Ezior]

82. That sums it up, I guess

I have a friend here in Germany who is pretty far to the left (and yes, he's not a right-winger and not a libertarian or anything - definitely pretty far to the left).

And you can't really discuss the Russia issues with him in a normal way. If you bring up intelligence communities, he will start a rant about how you can't trust intelligence reports because of weapons of mass destruction in iraq. If you bring up Mueller and the IRA indictment, he will say that everybody does it and it's not that bad, because it's the voters fault when they trust the IRA messages. If you bring up DNC hacking by Russians, he will say that it was good that they stole those e-mails and gave them to Wikileaks, because it shows how the DNC wanted Hillary to win against Bernie.

He's very anti-war, and because of that he's very anti-US because of the wars/interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya etc. I'm not sure but I guess he wants Germany to leave NATO. Generally, he's anti-"anything the so-called elite does or wants".

And when we had visitors from the US who are Democrats (after the primaries), he actually questioned their plans to vote for Hillary, because he apparently bought into that "Hillary means World War 3 starts in Syria" bullshit. So I'm glad he's not eligible to vote in the US, because he probably would not have voted in the General election because Bernie lost, or maybe even voted for Trump.

So there are definitely left wingers who don't get the Russia thing, I'm afraid. Another example is Kyle Kulinski.

[rainy]

80. Noam Chomsky dismisses the Russian investigation.

I am sorry about this as I have so much respect for him.

[McCamy Taylor]

87. If your world view says "CIA/FBI/NSA/Pentagon are bad" then Mueller is the enemy.

[betsuni]

90. It's the Snowden/Greenwald it's-cool-to-hate-America idiots.

[Gothmog]

93. On JPR, there are a number of threads calling Russian investigation a hoax

The posters on the JPR site really believe that Putin is our friend and did not try to help trump. Then again, the JPR site is where I go to see what Putin is pushing this week

[Bradical79]

98. Russians posting on that site too

Last I'd seen, a couple Russian propagndists I recognize as being banned from here were over there.

[Caliman73]

96. You have to understand some of the history of left wing movements and the government.

For one thing, the whole "classification" of left/right has been fraught with problems since the beginning. For another, with Fox News and Right Wing radio calling everything to the left of their own politics "Radical Left" and "Liberal", their is intentional confusion of any political spectrum. That said, groups that had not really been in the mainstream Democratic/Republican constellation have had problems with the government, especially during the period after WWII when Communism was posed as the existential threat to the US.

The origins of the "Deep State" were from more leftist organizations. Groups like the Weather Underground, SNCC, and the Black Panther Party were under constant surveillance by intelligence agencies and the FBI. We do have to remember that J. Edgar Hoover had files on MLK, Malcolm X, and many other leaders of social justice movements who were deemed "disruptive to the existing social order". Those same agencies reluctantly went after the Klan, but not with the same zeal as they targeted groups on the left side of the spectrum.

There is a very small faction of people throughout modern US history that saw the USSR and later Russia as a counterweight to the Imperialism of the United States, including people like Noam Chomsky, though he typically saw the problems within the USSR and Russia as well. People like Greenwald, Stein, and the current crop of "leftist" agitators however, are more than likely paid shills for Russia and have painted themselves into a corner on their support. They have to be all in for Russia to establish a countervailing force against an American hegemony that they see as destructive, but to overlook Russia's own plans, not for some balanced power throughout the world but of their own dominance and the horrible things they have done to "be in second place" is dangerous. Russia is not more enlightened than the US. They will not stop at bringing the US down a peg.

[Bradical79]

97. Contrarians, Russophiles, and "burn it all down" attitudes

Lots of people like that who say they are leftists.