Everyone should be concerned about the fact that Russia did and continues to fuck with our elections. Regardless of whether or not they tried to help Trump win. But nah, that’s just a worry and not an actual thing.
Ditto with gerrymandering. Although that’s not connected to Russia…yet.
We should be worried about everything Russia is doing. I was only commenting on the collusion/coordination thing. It’s wonderful that Democrats are finally waking up about Russia, even if for partisan reasons.
That doesn’t mean as much when Republicans are now actively being apologists for and refusing to stand up to Russia and Putin. Even though Obama and the Democrats used to be softer on Russia, they were never as pathetic and weak as the Republicans are now.
The GOP congress passed the sanctions law against Russia last year. Trump hasn’t led on this issue and that is a major problem but we’ve not bowed to Russia in Syria or anything like that. I also don’t think it behooves our government to be relentlessly hostile to Russia.
I mean, sure, but they’re relentlessly messing with us (100% common knowledge now that they interfered with our elections, and various votes around the world, and will continue to do so), and we probably shouldn’t let that go. Perhaps it doesn’t behoove our government, but just laughing off the fact that they put millions of dollars and thousands of hours towards choosing our President (regardless of who it was) is a dangerous thing to do.
If Putin ever goes and Russia has a decent, non-tyrannical leader, maybe we can play nice then.
There are plenty of different ways to do this though. The Obama way was to kick the legs out from under oil/natural gas prices and use the Magnitsky Act to target Russian corruption. That was the “bad cop” part. The “good cop” part was to try to involve Russia in various multilateral diplomatic efforts, give them a chance to be a good actor on the world stage. Basically we were as friendly as could be diplomatically, but economically, we were very aggressive with Russia. Who knows what mix future administrations would use, but it would and should be a mix.
What do you mean re Obama and natural gas prices? The revolution in our production came about because of fracking. Prices are decided by the market. What exactly are you crediting Obama for?
Re Magnitsky Act, it was an unprecedented intrusion into a country’s domestic affairs, albeit corrupt and horrific affairs. It was a diplomatic blunder that focused on the wrong things. “Carrots and sticks” don’t work if they’re not understood as such. It was a hopelessly naive approach. We need a good strong dose of realpolitik.