(too say nothing of LBJ's alleged meddling with the vote in Texas)
Look, I am a socialist. I have zero affection for Trump. Russia gate was 100% pure lies that was spun out of HRC's campaign and blown way out of proportion by the subservient lapdogs at NYT and WaPo who publish literally dozens of articles that were pure fiction, some of which they eventually got pressured into correcting. You should read this by Pulitzer winner Jeff Gerth in the Columbia Journalism Review.
If you are looking for suggestions on alternate histories, how about if we treated the end of the cold war like we did with WWII, A Marshall plan of sorts for Russia (like we did for Poland a few years prior). https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1097135961
As opposed to intentionally afflicting them with about a 2x great depression level economic collapse followed by militarily provocations every few years and multiple western backed regime change operations in their neighborhood..
Or just one where we lived in a country with an actual free press that had the courage to tell the truth about the evil this country does in their name. If the stuff Trump actually did in office got 1/10th of the coverage Russiagate did Trump would have lost in a landslide and Democrats wouldn't be demanding nuclear holocaust to prove how much they hate Putin.
How much of "Russiagate" is true probably depends on what exactly gets covered by the umbrella "Russiagate." Clearly Russia was working for Trump’s victory, which isn’t necessarily damning, and clearly Trump was not exactly bothered by it, which makes me feel weird, but is also not necessarily a “gate.” But surely the media’s slavering over Trumpo-Russian malfeasance was…misleading.
I do think we have a free press for almost any definition of what a free press would be, but it is also both a pusillanimous and a biased press. I wouldn’t have believed half the stuff the press said about Trump if I hadn’t heard him say the stuff himself in a relatively unedited form (which of course doesn’t mean I should believe the other half).
The Marshall Plan suggestion is a good one—I think something very like the Marshall Plan would be a stretch, since most countries that were not wartime allies had to suffer the indignity of occupation if they wanted aid (with some exceptions, I guess, like Turkey), but what if NATO had not drawn in Poland right after the Soviet collapse. Was incorporating Poland into NATO an aggressive diplomatic blunder that weakened an ally, or was it a cunning seize-the-opportunity moment that has kept Poland free from Russian adventurism? An interesting problem.
The non stop 4 years hyperbolic temper tantrum by the press blaming Russia for Trump got Hillary the Hawk exactly what she wanted, war with Russia. It is disgusting watching democrats cheer on endless war, begging to enrich defense contractors, and rooting for nuclear holocaust.
We provoked this war, the US is not a rational actor on the world stage. We kill Venezuelans over a claim about election rigging while arming our good friends the Saudi's, with their robust democracy, to help them murder people in Yemen. We are a threat to every country, because we are irrational, untrustworthy, and stupid.
Well, that was the most depressing bit of fun I’ve had recalling days of yore in a long while. Here’s one for ya: why didn’t LBJ reveal Nixon’s back channel undermining of the Paris peace talks during the ‘68 election? The Ken Burns Vietnam doc includes the audio of LBJ telling Nixon they had proof and to back off. The convo took place a couple weeks before Election Day. But no word of what Nixon’s camp was up to was publicized, and he beat Humphrey by a razor thin margin (with Wallace also making the strongest 3rd party run of the modern era as a wild card). So, it is not just plausible but likely that squashing the info/ story cost Humphrey the election. The question: what did Nixon have on LBJ ?
I hate to have a mealy-mouthed, dull response, but my guess is that LBJ was bluffing, and Nixon (voted best in poker playing) called him on it. LBJ certainly had a host of secret sins, but it would have been hard to blackmail him over them, because every insider already knew the dirt, and no reputable source would disseminate it. I really liked, in Matt Bai’s book All the Truth Is Out, those accounts from newshound duffers of the old days, when candidates and reporters hung out like old pals and shared a wink over Certain Improprieties. Those days are (for better or for worse, and probably a little of both) long gone, but Nixon and LBJ lived through them. They were also both experienced mudslingers, and it would be hard to scare them off with anything short of proof of treason.
(too say nothing of LBJ's alleged meddling with the vote in Texas)
Look, I am a socialist. I have zero affection for Trump. Russia gate was 100% pure lies that was spun out of HRC's campaign and blown way out of proportion by the subservient lapdogs at NYT and WaPo who publish literally dozens of articles that were pure fiction, some of which they eventually got pressured into correcting. You should read this by Pulitzer winner Jeff Gerth in the Columbia Journalism Review.
https://www.cjr.org/special_report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-part-1.php
And this by Izzy Award winner, and socialist, Aaron Mate.
https://mate.substack.com/p/unchastened-by-russiagate-the-ny
If you are looking for suggestions on alternate histories, how about if we treated the end of the cold war like we did with WWII, A Marshall plan of sorts for Russia (like we did for Poland a few years prior). https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1097135961
As opposed to intentionally afflicting them with about a 2x great depression level economic collapse followed by militarily provocations every few years and multiple western backed regime change operations in their neighborhood..
Or maybe one where we didn't murder millions of people in the third world in the name of stopping communism. https://www.insideedition.com/how-the-us-used-disinformation-and-the-jakarta-method-to-change-the-world-62895
Or just one where we lived in a country with an actual free press that had the courage to tell the truth about the evil this country does in their name. If the stuff Trump actually did in office got 1/10th of the coverage Russiagate did Trump would have lost in a landslide and Democrats wouldn't be demanding nuclear holocaust to prove how much they hate Putin.
How much of "Russiagate" is true probably depends on what exactly gets covered by the umbrella "Russiagate." Clearly Russia was working for Trump’s victory, which isn’t necessarily damning, and clearly Trump was not exactly bothered by it, which makes me feel weird, but is also not necessarily a “gate.” But surely the media’s slavering over Trumpo-Russian malfeasance was…misleading.
I do think we have a free press for almost any definition of what a free press would be, but it is also both a pusillanimous and a biased press. I wouldn’t have believed half the stuff the press said about Trump if I hadn’t heard him say the stuff himself in a relatively unedited form (which of course doesn’t mean I should believe the other half).
The Marshall Plan suggestion is a good one—I think something very like the Marshall Plan would be a stretch, since most countries that were not wartime allies had to suffer the indignity of occupation if they wanted aid (with some exceptions, I guess, like Turkey), but what if NATO had not drawn in Poland right after the Soviet collapse. Was incorporating Poland into NATO an aggressive diplomatic blunder that weakened an ally, or was it a cunning seize-the-opportunity moment that has kept Poland free from Russian adventurism? An interesting problem.
"But surely the media’s slavering over Trumpo-Russian malfeasance was…midleading."
Understatement of the year. It was literally all made up by HRC's 2016 campaign and pushed to the press. https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/09/21/analysis_senate_russiagate_report_left_big_stones_unturned_two_were_named_mifsud_and_assange_125266.html
https://mate.substack.com/p/russiagate-has-no-rock-bottom
The non stop 4 years hyperbolic temper tantrum by the press blaming Russia for Trump got Hillary the Hawk exactly what she wanted, war with Russia. It is disgusting watching democrats cheer on endless war, begging to enrich defense contractors, and rooting for nuclear holocaust.
Russian Adventurism? Yeah, Russia's unprovoked war. Unprovoked if you ignore the US coup in Ukraine, the US regime change operations in hundreds of countries over the years, We turned Libya from the country with the highest HDI in Africa into an open air slave market to "stop Gadhafi from slaughtering a few people". We literally tried our hardest to put Al Qaeda in charge of Syria. https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2022/04/20/al_qaeda_is_on_our_side_how_obamabiden_officials_helped_create_a_safe_haven_for_terrorists_in_syria_827477.html
We provoked this war, the US is not a rational actor on the world stage. We kill Venezuelans over a claim about election rigging while arming our good friends the Saudi's, with their robust democracy, to help them murder people in Yemen. We are a threat to every country, because we are irrational, untrustworthy, and stupid.
Well, that was the most depressing bit of fun I’ve had recalling days of yore in a long while. Here’s one for ya: why didn’t LBJ reveal Nixon’s back channel undermining of the Paris peace talks during the ‘68 election? The Ken Burns Vietnam doc includes the audio of LBJ telling Nixon they had proof and to back off. The convo took place a couple weeks before Election Day. But no word of what Nixon’s camp was up to was publicized, and he beat Humphrey by a razor thin margin (with Wallace also making the strongest 3rd party run of the modern era as a wild card). So, it is not just plausible but likely that squashing the info/ story cost Humphrey the election. The question: what did Nixon have on LBJ ?
I hate to have a mealy-mouthed, dull response, but my guess is that LBJ was bluffing, and Nixon (voted best in poker playing) called him on it. LBJ certainly had a host of secret sins, but it would have been hard to blackmail him over them, because every insider already knew the dirt, and no reputable source would disseminate it. I really liked, in Matt Bai’s book All the Truth Is Out, those accounts from newshound duffers of the old days, when candidates and reporters hung out like old pals and shared a wink over Certain Improprieties. Those days are (for better or for worse, and probably a little of both) long gone, but Nixon and LBJ lived through them. They were also both experienced mudslingers, and it would be hard to scare them off with anything short of proof of treason.
Of course, that’s a perfectly reasonable answer, and at least half the point of alternate histories is to shun all reasonableness…https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/bc45f92e-d71b-4ab3-a7cb-2c3b92fd480c/gif