I've been hearing it more and more. Donald Trump is in league with the Russians. The DNC leaks were released by the Russians to influence our politics. Jill Stein is working with the Russians. Russians! Russians! Russians! The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming! Dear God, vote for Hillary Clinton or you'll be raising the Russian flag and singing the Russians national anthem in 2017!
I might exaggerate a bit with the last one, but I've noticed recently it's their go to excuse for everything. Look, I don't deny the Russians would likely benefit from a Trump presidency than a Clinton one, with Trump talking about not honoring NATO obligations and all, but other than that, there's way too much focus on this.
The democrats are, once again, trying to bully people into voting for them via fear and intimidation. Throw aside your petty concerns, the Russians are coming, and if you don't vote for me, you're a dirty unpatriotic communist! Except Russians aren't communist any more so they're just attacking you as potentially being in league with the Russians. This is dangerous thinking. It's black and white, with us or against us mentality, where the democrats are the only righteous party, and anyone who votes for their main competition, the GOP on the right, the greens to their left, is unpatriotic.
It's McCarthyism brought into the 21st century, plain and simple. They're trying to work people up and scare them over the idea of the Russians influencing elections for their personal gain....all while influencing our elections for their personal gain in egregious ways.
I don't like Trump, or even Stein's geopolitics overseas. I mean, I'm not as hawkish as the Clintons, but I'm no isolationist peacenik either, and I do think we should honor our international agreements with defending allied nations. I take the middle ground, but ultimately rank foreign policy as low on my list of concerns because the way I see it, we are the most powerful, secure nation on earth, all things considered, and our power and presence is so overwhelming we outgun the Russians many times over. Even if we cut our military in half like Stein suggests, which I think would be a big mistake, we would still outgun the Russians. Their military is nowhere near as formidable as it used to be, it's aging, and if Putin invaded Europe in their current state they would still struggle just to take on the UK, France, and Germany.
It's not the cold war any more. While Putin is a very power hungry person, and has a lot of interest in expanding his sphere of influence, he really has limited abilities to do so. Russia is much smaller than it used to be, their military is much weaker, and they're less of a threat.
Not to mention there are a lot more issues this election than this single foreign policy issue. While I do think Clinton has the best foreign policy toward Russia.....it's not really on my list of big concerns for why I'm voting. I care a lot more about domestic policy, including economics and social policy. And I do have issues with Clinton's foreign policy in other areas and see her as too hawkish and interventionist in places like the middle east.
So...don't buy into these fear tactics. The Clinton campaign is really trying to go full stop in intimidating people into supporting her. And quite frankly, I think it's disgusting. These particular attacks are bordering on McCarthyism, if they're not full on McCarthyism. It's disgusting when political campaigns literally start accusing allies of being in league with foreign rival powers without evidence. Maybe they can make the case with the DNC leaks, but when they keep pushing this with Trump and now Stein, it's pretty disgusting.
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