Our side didn't do as well as it could have regarding the Russian attack on our Democracy
But that is said in hindsight, and it doesn't change the fact that the Democratic coalition was directly victimized by it. The Democratic coalition did not willingly participate in that attack, and today it still leads resistance to it.
I could piss off a lot of people here who insist on thinking that some on our side can not possibly be faulted for anything that they either did or did not do at the time. The same goes for some people who insist on finding fault with what some on our side did or did not do at the time. Hindsight as we know is always 20/20. And there are always reasons why people made the choices that they did in real time, even if in retrospect they were not always the best ones. Sometimes the error was as simple as not connecting enough dots, or in underestimating the impact of events as they were unfolding. Sometimes it was more complex, as in miscalculating the advantages and disadvantages of doing anything differently
The Obama Administration could have done more with the information that they had about the Russians but they didn't. They had their reasons even if it is possible to find fault with that reasoning knowing what we know now. But the Obama Administration didn't attack our democracy, the Russians did. And all of us, you me and the full range of our political allies (including the who ones we only agree with a little more often than not) were in totally uncharted territory. Our nation has never been attacked in this manner before, certainly not it the context of an intrinsically divisive national election, and absolutely not with the seeming active complicity of major elements of one of out two leading political parties.
Bernie Sanders could done more to coordinate with the Clinton campaign to counter the efforts of Russian bots and trolls etc. to the extent that their activity was known and understood, which it was to some extent. He, just like Obama and Hillary herself, expected Trump to lose. He, just like Obama and Hillary herself, underestimated the threat those bots etc. entailed. Sanders could have done more to help Clinton win and in hindsight obviously he should have. But he did endorse her and campaign for her, which happens to be a hell of a lot more than the revered Senator Ted Kennedy did for Jimmy Carter for example. Sanders worked hard with the Convention and Clinton's people to hammer out a 2016 platform he could and did fully support. There is no way he wanted Trump to win and I have no doubt he would have done more to help Hillary had the election not seemed out of reach for Trump, which it did seem until Comey dropped his bombshell.
I don't know exactly what Sanders meant in his recent comments about Russia, the campaign, and Hillary. Obviously he was being defensive and his comments were not at all useful. I had a negative opinion of some comments Hillary made reflecting on the campaign also but I didn't waste energy dwelling on them either. People tend to get defensive when things do not turn out well. It's possible Bernie was taking note of the fact that the Clinton campaign knew a lot of inside information on what Russia was up to because they helped fund Christopher Steele's research and presumably had access to his dossier and findings well before most people did. Hillary made some decisions about what to go public with in terms of opposition research and what not to at the time. In hindsight maybe they weren't always the best decisions in that regard. In hindsight, always in hindsight...
More recently Kirsten Gillibrand (followed by most other Democrats in the Senate) showed inadequate insight into how the Russian bot attack was continuing to function in American politics. To at least some extent they were manipulated to oppose Al Franken remaining in the Senate because of the continuing nature of Russia's attack on our Democracy, which came down hard on Al Franken. I admit I'm pissed at Kirsten for in my opinion leading a stampede against Al, but I still honor the commitment Gillibrand has made to fighting sexual harassment in every work place, including Congress, devoid of partisan favoritism. I know damn well she's at heart a good Democrat in most things. She misunderstood false tea leaves and she miscalculated what needed to be done in response. So maybe she won't get my enthusiastic support at some point in the future, but she's on our team now and I know it.
And the fact that some of us saw through this or that deception at the time and "knew better" doesn't mean shit, because there are always some people who see through things in real time and others who for various reasons don't. But the thing is, it's not always the same people who only see truth accurately in hind sight. On any given day on any given issue I might well prove to be one of the sages, but on some other day I might well be one of those temporarily blinded. That's how it goes.
Fuck Monday morning quarterbacks if the goal is to find someone on our side to pin blame on. I'm sick to death of it when Bernie or Hillary or Barack or Kirsten do it, but I have sympathy for those who gave their all to an effort only to have it not work out the way they gave sweat blood and tears to. Feelings get raw whey the fight is personal. I have less sympathy for us here falling into it.
Collectively our Democratic Coalition rose to the occasion of Russia's attack on our Democracy, just not high enough. Well, it was unprecedented. There's somewhat of a learning curve that needed to and still needs to be mastered. As they say, mistakes were made but no I don't want to use less passive language than that because nothing good comes out of it. Our side didn't have true villains, their side does. We have to count on each other now, we can not count on them. Too much space on this website is still being devoted to divisive so called exposes against our own team. Enough, just fucking enough.We don't have to love each other or all the players on our team but we do have to collectively stay focused on the enemy.
The attack isn't over. The Russians fucking want us all to be at each other's throats. That's the point. I refuse to be party to it. We have much more important things to be angry about, like a looming authoritarian government taking root fucking now.
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