At some point, we need to have a reckoning about the ways that Dems & the media pushed the “Russian collusion” narrative - absent any evidence - and how they’ve refused to revisit it as the narrative has fallen apart.
Just in case you’ve forgotten how bad it was👇
We have to start here with @HillaryClinton, whose team invented this smear.
All of these were from before the election. The timing is important because we just learned today that US intel was worried about how Russia would use Clinton’s concocted attacks: thefederalist.com/2020/10/06/bre…
Of course, she wasn’t alone. Shortly behind her was @SpeakerPelosi, who took the fabricated allegations and, along with the rest of congressional Dems, whipped them into a firestorm unlike anything we’ve ever seen.
One of the key voices in all this, of course, was @RepAdamSchiff, who showboated his way to national attention.
When Mueller couldn’t find anything to validate Schiff’s claims, he pushed them anyway.
It’s a conspiracy theory at this rate.
Clinton’s running mate, @timkaine, ran with the allegations before the election and, as a member of the Senate, has continued to push the “Russian collusion” narrative, through impeachment and beyond.
He isn’t on twitter but again it’s really hard to overstate the role of Harry Reid in the creation of everything dumb and bad in our present politics.
One of my favorite characters in all this has been @tedlieu.
I’m not sure that boosting the reliability of Brennan, Christopher Steele, or the FISA Court has aged particularly well.
Suffice it to say that there were more Dems, but we’ve got other key players to get to. Here’s @dccc summing it up.
From the Dems’ mouths to the media’s ears, as ever.
Perhaps the worst booster of the “Russian collusion” narrative was @MSNBC. That includes pushing @HillaryClinton’s refusal to concede the election. And they had @petestrzok on.
But the worst element has to be @maddow, who boosted every firing idea and story you can imagine. I’ve only got enough room for a handful.
There’s no two ways around it: This. Is. A. Conspiracy. Theory.
She wasn’t alone at her program. @chrislhayes was pushing just about all of the same talking points, including the mother of all wingnut theories, that Trump had been a Russian asset since 1987.
For those interested, I’ve got a whole thread on Russian asset since 1987 smear, originally put to paper by @jonathanchait:
But they’ve got competition even from their own outlet. Here’s @JoyAnnReid, who never sees a left wing conspiracy that she isn’t interested in, with a special shout-out to @MalcolmNance, a longtime booster of Russian collusion.
Also, not sure the Fusion GPS endorsement held up.
You may have forgotten that @CNN had three journalists who had to resign after a retracted story alleging a connection between Trump and Russia.
That may not have even been their worst reporting. Shoutout to @CillizzaCNN.
There was plenty more from @nytimes but I got hung up on the fact that their scenario planning was basically limited to “bad for Trump” to “jail” - in retrospect, that hasn’t exactly held up well.
As ever, the galaxy brain blue checks got involved on this one. Here’s @JuddLegum.
Obligatory @kurteichenwald mention, all of these from before the election.
I will never forgive myself for supporting the candidacy of @EvanMcMullin. I was bamboozled, I’ll admit it.
And @KeithOlbermann had a nightly rant about this for months.
Where is the follow up? From anyone, at all, about any of this?
The Russian Collusion hoax has fallen apart more and more everyday. And we haven’t heard a word of comment from any of the people responsible for pushing it and helping fracture this country.
If you aren’t outraged by all this, and the clear coordination across multiple organs of the US government, I don’t know what to tell you.
I don’t know how to convince you to care that the POTUS has been undermined for four years by a malicious lie from his political opponents.
I’ve said this before and I’ll have to say it again: you don’t need to be a fan of Trump to be outraged about the Russian collusion conspiracy.
But it’s a mark against your patriotism, your judgement, or your intellect if you aren’t.
Also, I’ve said this before, too, but beyond just being perhaps the most defining political scandal of our time, the Russian collusion hoax gets under my skin because I bought it. I fell for it. And I’m enormously angry for having been duped.
And for my friends on the other side of the aisle and in mainstream media: I beg you, pay attention to this.
Treat this scandal with the same kind of anger you had at the (purported) collusion.
Imagine how you would feel if a duly elected Democrat - say, Hillary Clinton - had won an election and then you saw your opponents and the media denigrate her for four years over allegations that never stuck.
How mad would you be?
That’s precisely how mad millions of Americans who think differently than you do feel right now.
And you’ve given them a lot of reasons for anger. Try to empathize with that.
Try to get to the truth.
Also, if you haven’t already seen, I’ve got a whole separate thread on Carter Page:
I just don’t get it. I can’t possibly bring myself to understand how anyone could look back on these takes, knowing what we know now, and not feel a deep, abiding sense of shame at the damage done, and a need to fix it (or hide under a rock forever).
I guess what it all boils down to is that an enormous number of people across politics and the media owe @realDonaldTrump an apology.
I can’t imagine it’s forthcoming.
In case this isn’t showing up for people, he’s the unroll:
Also, for those asking. I don’t have anything to sell/subscribe to. But the pandemic has meant more people needing food banks & fewer people able to help.
In your charity, please consider making a donation, if you can. Capital Area Food Bank is great. capitalareafoodbank.org
The coverage of the anti-ICE riots in LA is perhaps the clearest example of advocacy “journalism” in Trump’s second term.
Reading the reporting, you would never know the most significant fact: the American people support Trump’s deportations.
Follow along ⤵️
First, the facts about the riots.
You’ve seen the burning cars, looting & clashes between police & protestors.
Demonstrators blocked the freeway, attacked ICE agents, all in an effort to prevent the deportations of illegal aliens. Trump deployed troops to allow ICE to operate.
As @MarkHalperin and @seanspicer discussed, the situation in LA is so tranquil that the mayor has instituted a curfew for the city.
The new book “Original Sin” from Jake Tapper & Alex Thompson recounts the effort to cover up Biden’s cognitive decline ahead of the election. The authors point to many guilty parties.
The one glaring omission? Their colleagues in the corporate press. Follow along ⤵️
There are numerous dramatic reveals. The Biden team considered condoning him to a wheelchair? Maybe in his fog he forgot about the border?
But as I worked on a review for @commonplc, the one thought that I kept coming back to was that you can’t tell this story without the press.
Perhaps no one was more vital to the continued fiction that Biden had it together than the media.
Tapper and Thompson even highlight some of the telling moments.
Biden’s cancer diagnosis is a tragedy I know first-hand.
But our sympathy can’t silence questions about Biden’s cognitive decline, clarified just days ago by the Hur tape.
The media tried to bury the story then. They’re trying again now.
I’ve got the receipts. ⤵️
When the report first came out in 2024, outlets rushed to demean Hur, accusing him of serving as a Republican hatchet man.
Just look at this take from @USATODAY, who assembled sympathetic voices to make the case that Hur “crossed the line.” They found an expert to call it a “disgrace” and then featured the obviously unbiased Eric Holder to lead a section titled “Way too many gratuitous remarks.”
The audio makes clear that Hur, if anything, played down how alarming the claims were.
(If you haven’t listened to the Hur audio yet, you should.)
It should go without saying, but the media cultivating this type of baseless hysteria about an admin for partisan reasons is much more of a threat to the underpinnings of our democracy than anything Trump has actually done.
Quick 🧵⤵️
A couple quotes:
“If you think that there’s this thing out there called America, and it’s exceptional, that means you don’t have to do anything” to stop fascism.
What? What does that even mean??
That if you, like millions of Americans!, believe in American exceptionalism…you’re a fascist?
Really?
“The powers that be can do whatever they want to you”
Trump can’t even deport people who have deportation orders against them without a federal judge stepping in.
Many in the media are trying to claim that the press was merely duped by Biden’s White House about the former president’s cognitive decline.
That simply isn’t true. The media actively took part in the coverup.
Don’t let them forget. I’ve got screenshots. ⤵️
I’ve done a number of threads on this but putting some of the most egregious stuff in one place.
Perhaps the most damming: Two weeks before the debate made Biden’s cognitive decline inescapable, @washingtonpost gave “Four Pinocchio’s” to allegedly edited videos showing Biden clearly displaying cognitive problems, dismissing them as “pernicious” efforts “to reinforce an existing stereotype” while quoting the White House to say the videos were “cheap fakes” — all to defend Biden against criticisms about his age and well-being.
That story came four days after a previous effort from @washingtonpost to write off these videos as Republican efforts to mislead voters: proof, the Post claimed, that “the politics of misinformation and conspiracy theories do not stop at the waters edge.”