Yes, and this was always the case; it’s one reason I became a major skeptic of the Trump/Russia conspiracy theory—the people with most of the details were clearly nutjobs. (1)
(2) there is, in fact, no Trump/Russia “theory” that isn’t actually a conspiracy theory. A good deal of NeverTrumpers won’t get involved in GPS/Mensch stuff but nevertheless believe there’s something hiding there. That’s non-committal conspiracy theorizing similar to 9/11 nuts.
(3) if you recall the 9/11 Inside Job folks, you’ll note that there were several types: the Fire-Doesn’t-Melt-Steel crowd; the folks obsessed with minutiae; and the more “serious” people—like most of the prominent Truthers—who just had a vague feeling that “Bush knew.”
(4) this last cohort was, by far, the biggest; it nevertheless rested on something that was felt more than it was known. We didn’t let these “soft Truthers” get away with their nonsense then, and we shouldn’t let Trump/Russia conspiracy nonsense go unmocked now.
(5) Let’s, for a moment, revisit (2) above: If you believe there is/was a planned, collaborative effort between Trump and Russia, you literally believe in an unproven conspiracy theory. If you’re holding out hope that evidence will emerge, you believe in a conspiracy theory.
(6) If you believe Trump is too friendly toward Russia—not because of a secret agreement or conspiracy, mind you, but because, for whatever reason, he likes Russia—that is a *policy disagreement* and nothing more.
(7) When you turn a policy disagreement into an alleged criminal conspiracy—for which, by the way, there has been no evidence, despite 2 years of investigations by everyone and anyone—you are actually criminalizing this policy disagreement, even if that is not your aim.
(8) it appears that, after more than a year(!) of pushing the Steele Dossier’s insinuations without looking too closely at the crazy shit in document itself, some folks are giving it a (first) look. That’s great.
(9) Maybe some folks will be able to disentangle their white-hot hatred for Trump and realize that (a) they’ve been pushing the outlines—if not the details—of a nutter conspiracy theory for a year; (b) even pushing the outlines without the details makes you a conspiracy theorist.
