Alt-Collusion

yakov_a_jerkov — 29.10.2017 Я недостаточно внимательно следил за официальными трампистами и просто республиканцами, и мне казалось, что обвинения Клинтон в collusion с Россией это только позиция некоторых одиозных политических комментаторов и просто блогеров.

Но нет, это официальная позиция Белого Дома! Слово пресс-секретарю президента.

The evidence Clinton campaign, DNC & Russia colluded to influence the election is indisputable->https://t.co/nLRAMrJK3c

— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) October 28, 2017

"You're the puppet!" и точка. The evidence is indisputable!

Понятно, что, как верно отмечает Yglesias:

The game here is to legitimize Trump’s inevitable decision to fire Mueller.

Case in point тут совершенно позорный editorial WSJ:

Strip out the middlemen, and it appears that Democrats paid for Russians to compile wild allegations about a U.S. presidential candidate. Did someone say “collusion”? [...]

All of this also raises questions about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. The Fusion news means the FBI’s role in Russia’s election interference must now be investigated—even as the FBI and Justice insist that Mr. Mueller’s probe prevents them from cooperating with Congressional investigators.

Mr. Mueller is a former FBI director, and for years he worked closely with Mr. Comey. It is no slur against Mr. Mueller’s integrity to say that he lacks the critical distance to conduct a credible probe of the bureau he ran for a dozen years. He could best serve the country by resigning to prevent further political turmoil over that conflict of interest.

Это не Брайтбарт, и даже не Fox News -- уважаемое консервативное издание...

Неплохая короткая статья об этом всем (via rsokolov) -- "The Republicans Have Developed a Theory of Alt-Collusion to Defend Trump From Mueller".

Having apparently decided that defending the Trump campaign against charges of collusion with Russian cyberattacks is an impossible task, the Republican Party has decided to go on offense. The House Intelligence Committee, putatively assigned to investigate collusion, is instead running a counter-investigation into Trump’s nemeses. Their argument, incredibly enough, is that the FBI and Robert Mueller are the real perpetrators of collusion with Russia. “No puppet, no puppet, you’re the puppet” has become the new Republican argument against Mueller. [...]

The Republicans have developed a theory of alt-collusion, centering on elements of these same facts. Their version of the story uses Steele’s research in Russia as evidence that Steele is a tool of the Russian government. Steele’s report, charges the The Wall Street Journal editorial page, is “based largely on anonymous, Kremlin-connected sources.” [...]

It is obviously true that Steele’s sources had some contact with the Kremlin. That, of course, is why they were sources. If they had no connections to the Russian government, Republicans could say they were ignorant people speculating on subjects they knew nothing about. But by pretending that Steele’s sources were actually acting as agents of the Kremlin, Republicans can proceed to hypothesize that they were deliberately spreading a message devised by Putin in order to smear Donald Trump. [...]

But if you ignore these massive flaws, the theory of alt-collusion opens the way for a prosecution of the people investigating Trump. After all, if Putin was using Steele to spread nefarious lies about Trump, then why did the FBI treat these charges seriously? Could it be that the FBI is also a tool of the Russian conspiracy?

The purpose of the theory of alt-collusion is not necessarily to be swallowed whole. It is merely to be taken plausibly enough to raise questions about Trump’s investigators. If the FBI might be compromised by a sinister Russian conspiracy, then it follows that James Comey is suspect. And since Mueller is close with Comey, he too is suspect. [...]

In some ways the theory of alt-collusion mirrors the propaganda methods used by Putin himself. When William Browder publicizes Russia’s murder of crusading lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, Russia turns around and implies that maybe Browder is the one who murdered Magnitsky. The accusation is preposterous, but that doesn’t matter. The purpose is to create an offsetting accusation against the accuser, so that the average bystander can only puzzle at the spectacle of two sides making the same allegation against each other.

This method can work if you have enough mouthpieces who are sufficiently devoid of skepticism or intellectual self-respect to be willing to spread your obviously absurd message. A key fact that Trump has discovered, and which has enabled his takeover of the Republican Party, is that this is a resource the American right has in abundant supply.

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