I've been watching cable news way too much lately...Why do I bother? It's not like I'm going to learn anything there I'm not going to lean on the internet. In fact, cable news is, for the most part, months behind. I mean, it's been pretty apparent since late 2016 that Trump's campaign had colluded with Russia to steal the election, and we knew in October 2016 that the New York branch of the FBI was conspiring against Hillary. Most of the news hasn't even gotten that far. But that's why I watch CNN. I learn just how far the press has gotten in their willingness to call a particular spade a spade. In the case of Trump/Russia, the press would barely acknowledge it at all until Buzzfeed published the Steele "dossier." They were skeptical about it for a long time, but hookers and pee make for good TV. The next big milestone was probably the Comey firing, when the talking heads could start musing about obstruction of justice. However, almost no one would actually discuss WHY Trump obstructed justice. As more Russia news came out, such as the Trump Tower meeting, much of it was discussed as more or less as a series of isolated incidents.
Things are changing now. Trump's attacks on Mueller, particularly the revelation that Trump tried to fire him, is starting to elicit talk of Trump actually covering up crimes, and sometimes, the TV personalities will even allude to those crimes being Russia related. Occasionally, they'll discuss whether or not a sitting President can be indicted.
But they haven't gotten to where we were (though that could've changed tonight; I haven't gotten my nightly Lemon fix yet) in December of 2016. We knew that Russia had meddled in the election, with the help of the Trump campaign, and that the election was stolen.
I don't know whether they'll get there, but I'd say the next steps are for the CNN types to acknowledge, on air, that Trump cheated. Then they'll need to discuss what the consequences should be for stealing an election. Finally, and I don't think this'll happen, CNN panelists and perhaps hosts will call for an overturning of the election. That's what I'm watching for.
How many of you have felt like you're out-of-control conspiracy-mongers while trying to explain #TrumpRussia to a friend or family member that doesn't pay attention to what's going on in the news obsessively? Virginia Hefferman suggests that we're in the clear now:
Perhaps in those days the story of Trump-Russia was too terrifying for media organizations determined to keep their professional cool. Or too far-fetched.
[David] Corn says he felt “lonely,” even as his stories about about the Russia affair gained traction. Others who reported early about curious Trump connections in Moscow — Franklin Foer in Slate, for example — have said the same thing.
But they’re not lonely now. And this is mostly because even while some media organizations sidelined, or cautiously framed, the Trump-Russia story, a much more important group of commenters were far less timid. Let’s give a round of retweets for the concerned citizens of the United States.
Take one look at Twitter: swelling numbers — initially thousands, then tens and perhaps even hundreds of thousands — gather now to raise their voices to undo Trump’s constant gaslighting about the Mueller investigation, which is decidedly not a witch hunt.
From all quarters, these citizens have kept the Trump-Russia story front and center for the electorate, and provided analysis and even scoops that clarify and help to remedy the global catastrophe that is Trump’s presidency.
Think about that. People ask me why I spend so much time reading about this topic, and here's why -- it's cliched, but knowledge is seriously powerful right now. We've all been learning what we've been learning and getting the word out. In the same way the Republicans and the Russians spent years fertilizing the ground to take out Hillary Clinton through endless talk of e-mails, and Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation, Hillary's health, and more, we have all spent the last two years pushing back -- for me, almost to the day:
We must be getting closer to the Democrats really doing something. From what I've read so far tonight, Trump (and by extension, probably Pence), McConnell, Ryan, Comey, and others could be implicated. Can Obama cut a deal to kill the investigation in exchange for a Clinton Presidency? Probably not, so we really need a new election.
It's gonna be an interesting next few days... I don't think this story is going anywhere.I wrote that on December 10th, 2016, and that was the first day I engaged in Twitter activism. It seemed silly, yet important at the time. And while those "interesting next few days" didn't amount to much, our days certainly are getting interesting now, and our country is still mostly intact to see it.
Working together, we've kept this story alive, and it finally feels like it has legs. I mean, Olympic squat champion (is that a thing?) legs. This was an actual, non-opinion, headline in the New York Times today:
And parts of the story that weren't getting enough play before now are starting to come out:
Comey Tells House Panel He Suspected @RudyGiuliani Was Leaking FBI Information https://t.co/IRadbt4OQg— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) December 9, 2018
The changes in media coverage the last month or so have been nothing short of seismic. And people are starting to figure things out. I had a copy of Seth Abramson's Proof of Collusion sent to a friend last week, and if I'd done something like that a year ago... well, forget that, I just wouldn't have done it. But I was totally comfortable doing that now, and I received an e-mail from that friend saying:
"When I received the Proof of Collusion this am, [his husband]'s response, was 'Jason is really an exceptional young man' - I agree."
Trump cheated to steal an election -- and people are finally starting to understand.
