Chelsea Manning's sentence for giving secret documents to WikiLeaks commuted by Obama

[knapplc]

Surely it shouldn't have to be the "deciding factor" to be exceedingly troubling. That seems a bar too high.

[Landlord]

My personal opinion is that our voters were not too damn pliable in this election cycle.

 

 

 

Donald Trump is being sworn in as President of the United States tomorrow.

[JJ Husker]

 

My personal opinion is that our voters were not too damn pliable in this election cycle.

 

I don't think this is true at all. Which is why I find it hard to go as far as saying Russia decided this election. Foreign powers will always seek influence if they can get it, especially adversarial ones who would benefit from our turmoil.

 

It's our own fault as an electorate for being so given to base influence. It's not like they did anything really sophisticated. Trump was an overtly disgusting candidate and a lot of Americans just went, "F--- yeah."

 

 

 

Is that not the definition of "not pliable"? Not subject to having their minds changed easily? That is why I think that is true and I agree with the rest of your post.

[zoogs]

Is that not the definition of "not pliable"? Not subject to having their minds changed easily? That is why I think that is true and I agree with the rest of your post.

I actually think we all completely agree here, only we're interpreting it slightly differently.

 

I don't think American voters had their brains stolen by Russian intrigue.

 

I think we were basically ready to listen to swill and B.S., much of which has always been generated here. It was all too easy for them to stir the pot and help things along.

 

It's important I think to be aware of what Russia's goals are and what they did -- but to the extent that we were victimized in this election, I would say it's primarily by ourselves. We've got to be better. Russia not existing would not have changed the dangerous deficiencies in ourselves that led to Trump's triumph.

[knapplc]

And, JJ, let's not ignore that the "tipping" Russia would need to do to influence this election wasn't great. Ignoring Trump for a moment, Hillary Clinton was one of the least-liked and least-likable candidates in my lifetime, and I lived through Carter, Ford & Nixon. When you're up against that caliber of candidate, all you have to do is rouse the populace (which Trump is excellent at) and lightly touch your finger to the scales (which Putin is excellent at).

[JJ Husker]

Surely it shouldn't have to be the "deciding factor" to be exceedingly troubling. That seems a bar too high.

It is extremely troubling.

The only way I've down played it at all is by saying that I think having more information at our disposal on the candidates is not a bad thing.

That is not to say that how that information came to be divulged is a good thing.

[knapplc]

The main difference we're having, JJ, is you seem to be implying that Manning's crimes are greater than Putin's, and you're saying "this board" (meaning, I presume, the left-leaning folks like me, zoogs, Moiraine, LOMS, dudeguyy, etc) aren't reacting appropriately.

 

I agree with you that Manning's espionage is a big crime.

 

I differ with you in comparing that crime to Putin's.

[Landlord]

Shifting focus slightly - I don't know enough about the Chelsea Manning situation specifically to have much of an informed opinion, but, in general, I probably have more sympathy towards whistleblowers than most? I mean. It's pretty clear we can't trust the government to self-police and halt the momentum of wrongful actions, so what other option is there?

[JJ Husker]

And, JJ, let's not ignore that the "tipping" Russia would need to do to influence this election wasn't great. Ignoring Trump for a moment, Hillary Clinton was one of the least-liked and least-likable candidates in my lifetime, and I lived through Carter, Ford & Nixon. When you're up against that caliber of candidate, all you have to do is rouse the populace (which Trump is excellent at) and lightly touch your finger to the scales (which Putin is excellent at).

This is where we have a slight difference of opinion. IMO it would have taken much more than this for Russia's actions to have a deciding affect on the outcome. Like I said, I could be wrong but, I don't think, with these candidates, there were too many voters on the fence subject to being swayed by this. I saw 4 pretty darn strong camps heading into the election; 1-Those that would never vote for either (me and some others here), 2-those that would never vote for Trump (you and some others here), 3- those that would never vote for Hillary (a few hereabouts) and 4- the large number of people who usually don't vote or were so disenchanted with the choice that they weren't going to bother to vote. Obviously there were some that were undecided and this could have influenced their vote. I just feel that had to be an extremely small handful of people. In that regard, the outcome is still our fault and our problem. We have to get better candidates and reduce the partisan rancor or we'll see more and more crap like this.

[JJ Husker]

The main difference we're having, JJ, is you seem to be implying that Manning's crimes are greater than Putin's, and you're saying "this board" (meaning, I presume, the left-leaning folks like me, zoogs, Moiraine, LOMS, dudeguyy, etc) aren't reacting appropriately.

 

I agree with you that Manning's espionage is a big crime.

 

I differ with you in comparing that crime to Putin's.

I do feel that what Manning did is more disturbing (I wouldn't say a greater crime). She was trusted US personnel sworn to uphold our Constitution and defend our country. Putin is an adversarial Russian who as much should be expected from. That does not mean I condone what Putin did. They are both bad things.

 

And I don't necessarily compare the crimes but I do compare peoples reactions to them. I originally commented that I saw a difference in the outcry here on HB but I have since recognized why that is somewhat logical given one of them happened 7 years ago and the other involves the President who will be inaugurated tomorrow.

 

BTW- I don't see everybody you listed as necessarily "left-leaning". I'll leave it at that just to be mysterious.

[JJ Husker]

 

My personal opinion is that our voters were not too damn pliable in this election cycle.

 

 

 

Donald Trump is being sworn in as President of the United States tomorrow.

 

I honestly have no idea how your response pertains to what you quoted me on.

[zoogs]

Woah, I completely didn't realize this was the Chelsea Manning thread. If we're talking about what's worse, a whistleblower like Chelsea or Vladimir Putin, well....

 

IMO it would have taken much more than this for Russia's actions to have a deciding affect on the outcome

I think it should have taken much more than this. The gulf between the two candidates' qualifications was utterly astonishing. But it was extremely easy for many people to get to a point where they considered this "meh, same thing." Trump shouldn't have sniffed the Republican nomination, much less the presidency.

 

Here, certainly, we don't have a representative slice of that. You're expected to defend the arguments you bring to P&R and we have a lot of good discussions here. There's little room for even unintentional alignment with xenophobia and nativism to go unchallenged. But empirically, I do believe it's evident how open we the people were to the worst kinds of appeals. When that kind of stuff works, these kinds of results happen.

[QMany]

[Lil' Red]

 

And, JJ, let's not ignore that the "tipping" Russia would need to do to influence this election wasn't great. Ignoring Trump for a moment, Hillary Clinton was one of the least-liked and least-likable candidates in my lifetime, and I lived through Carter, Ford & Nixon. When you're up against that caliber of candidate, all you have to do is rouse the populace (which Trump is excellent at) and lightly touch your finger to the scales (which Putin is excellent at).

This is where we have a slight difference of opinion. IMO it would have taken much more than this for Russia's actions to have a deciding affect on the outcome. Like I said, I could be wrong but, I don't think, with these candidates, there were too many voters on the fence subject to being swayed by this. I saw 4 pretty darn strong camps heading into the election; 1-Those that would never vote for either (me and some others here), 2-those that would never vote for Trump (you and some others here), 3- those that would never vote for Hillary (a few hereabouts) and 4- the large number of people who usually don't vote or were so disenchanted with the choice that they weren't going to bother to vote. Obviously there were some that were undecided and this could have influenced their vote. I just feel that had to be an extremely small handful of people. In that regard, the outcome is still our fault and our problem. We have to get better candidates and reduce the partisan rancor or we'll see more and more crap like this.

It took less than 1% of voters to tip the election in Trump's favor in the deciding swing states. I find it hard not to believe that Russia did not tip the election with how close the election was and how much press Wikileaks received. I think there were a fair amount of people in the 4th group you listed that would have voted for Hillary if not for the negative coverage she received due to the leaks.

[Danny Bateman]

 

 

And, JJ, let's not ignore that the "tipping" Russia would need to do to influence this election wasn't great. Ignoring Trump for a moment, Hillary Clinton was one of the least-liked and least-likable candidates in my lifetime, and I lived through Carter, Ford & Nixon. When you're up against that caliber of candidate, all you have to do is rouse the populace (which Trump is excellent at) and lightly touch your finger to the scales (which Putin is excellent at).

This is where we have a slight difference of opinion. IMO it would have taken much more than this for Russia's actions to have a deciding affect on the outcome. Like I said, I could be wrong but, I don't think, with these candidates, there were too many voters on the fence subject to being swayed by this. I saw 4 pretty darn strong camps heading into the election; 1-Those that would never vote for either (me and some others here), 2-those that would never vote for Trump (you and some others here), 3- those that would never vote for Hillary (a few hereabouts) and 4- the large number of people who usually don't vote or were so disenchanted with the choice that they weren't going to bother to vote. Obviously there were some that were undecided and this could have influenced their vote. I just feel that had to be an extremely small handful of people. In that regard, the outcome is still our fault and our problem. We have to get better candidates and reduce the partisan rancor or we'll see more and more crap like this.

It took less than 1% of voters to tip the election in Trump's favor in the deciding swing states. I find it hard not to believe that Russia did not tip the election with how close the election was and how much press Wikileaks received. I think there were a fair amount of people in the 4th group you listed that would have voted for Hillary if not for the negative coverage she received due to the leaks.

 

 

Heck, as I thought about it, I bet there were even people in group 3 that may have bene pushed out of the Trump camp into group 4 had they not found a bunch of fake news crap slamming Clinton and puffing up Trump.