If the vote is split 50-50, why raise the issue of Russian interference compared to any other group? The Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, etc.? There haven’t been hundreds of stories about that spending, on BoingBoing or elsewhere, although in my opinion it’s much worse for our democracy - especially because it is so normalized. If the Russian influence is within a margin-of-error so small, is it actually influence?
Xeni has been reporting extensively on Russian meddling in the election - I haven’t seen any stories from her about the generally poor state of campaign finance, super-PACs, etc. If she seems to believe that these other things had more of an influence on the election outcome, it is hard to see from her work, which seems to uncritically bring up Russia whenever it pops up in the news cycle. I’m still waiting for a correction on this false story.
As for giving corrupt Dems a pass, the “Russian interference” story has, from the beginning, been an attempt by the self-same corrupt Dems to deflect from their rampant corruption throughout this election season, most of which was aimed at stifling members of their own party. The level of press complicity in this operation is amazing, though not surprising, and others have definitely used the words “witch hunt”, “McCarthyism”, and so on to describe it. Here is Tabbi using the word ‘mass hysteria’, for example. I don’t think it’s beyond the pale given how little actual substance there is to this story.
This is exactly why I hate this story so much, by the way: because it is a dodge. It is a very boring, standard, political operation: make us look away from where the ball really is, while the game continues. The game, by the way, is selling this country down the river for political power.
I’ll wait to see if Xeni reports on Dona Brazile’s latest revelations about DNC and HFA corruption. My guess is, not. The Democrats remain a shambles of a party; the midterm elections are approaching rapidly. We are going to be deeply fucked, and we are still talking about this Russia non-issue more than a year on.
