I think this is because minority populations are so much smaller in the UK. Minorities have less of a collective voice and influence on culture, and hence most brits "collision cross-section" with racism is smaller. Hence they think of it as less of a problem, but it isn't. I've had Indonesian colleagues yelled at on a bus, Chinese friend shrieked at for using their phone, and my black friend who just feels like he wont ever "be british". My Indian colleague can talk my head off about the racist hiring techniques he's had to deal with. It's not "not a problem" it's just that most brits don't even know someone who is a minority, let alone one that's experienced racism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windrush_scandal
I'm in the middle of a reading a book about it at the moment and to say I am appalled by how these people were treated is an understatement.
And the "hostile environment" that is legally mandated homelessness (people aren't allowed to rent privately, landlords have to check with .gov for "eligibility" to rent).
All those "we lost the paperwork" people are subject to that. They would have lost their jobs, gradually had their banks close the accounts (with no alternative), had their landlords gradually unable to continue the tenancies (each renewal would check), and if they were sick, found themselves rejected at hospital. Someone died due to cancer treatment being stopped.
Some other people who were resident did the decent thing and supplied the tax office with minor tax corrections after their accountants made small errors. This was encouraged by the tax office, we're all supposed to do that and it's quite straightforward. For that good behaviour they got labelled as having bad character and kicked out, because... any excuse to. That's a doubly-harsh label as it limits their rights in other countries in addition to being kicked out of the UK.
> You should have seen the despicable "Go Home" vans that were circulating for a while.
How is losing the paperwork for legal migrants comparable or even closely related to telling illegal migrants to leave?
A coworker of mine had to spend six months living in someone else's flat and legally barred from working while he sued the Home Office; he'd entered legally, they found a paperwork error (making him "illegal"), and he won (making him "legal") once more.
Brexit provides lots of examples of how people who entered and lived in the UK legally but never got (and indeed weren't eligible for!) ILR suddenly can become "illegal" if they don't get "settled status".
Be very clear about this: if you immigrate to the UK by what you think is a legal route, and the Home Office makes a mistake, you can become an illegal immigrant very quickly.
FYI, they didn't lose the paperwork.
UK gov destroyed the paperwork, then deemed people to be illegal migrants.
Then those people were told: quit your job (or we'll force it), leave your spouse, move out of your home, and leave the country. Have 2 weeks notice because we're nice. Obviously with nowhere to go to. And because married people do not have the right to residency, if they were married to a UK citizen that didn't protect them either.
And then consequences started to happen for real. They couldn't just ignore these notices. Jobs were lost. Money was stopped.
As I said, one person even died due to life-critical hospital treatment withheld, and I'm sure many others were pretty worried because all of them would have been denied medical care until the case was settled, and lost their incomes. A number of them were illegally deported.
UK gov has done similar things to other people, not just the Windrush crowd. But Windrush got the press because it was more people at once and older people. There are others who have done everything correctly, paperwork, fees and all, and have kept their own copies of paperwork to confirm their status is fine. Who have then been told, surprise!, quit your job, ditch the tenancy, leave with 2 weeks notice etc.
As it happens, the UK has plenty of people in it who believe they are legally resident and one day find out they are not on some unknowable technicality. And others who are in fact legally resident but the Home Office decided to kick them out anyway.
For a example a number of EU citizen students found out they were not eligible to remain in the UK because they didn't purchase some kind of private health insurance - a condition nobody knew about, nobody was told about, and the Home Office was unable to explain, other than to say they should have purchased it when they arrived as students so that's the reason for telling them to leave.
That kind of technicality. Note that nobody else had to buy this mythical insurance, only students, who weren't told. Essentially the Home Office looks for loopholes to catch people in, that nobody reasonable knows about or would try to enforce. Unlike other areas of law, where "what is reasonable" is taken into account in a principled way, and a process of restoring balance takes place if something is a bit off, the Home Office seems to lack this aspect, perhaps in its pursuit of quotas for kicking out X people a year without regard for whether it's the right people, or even the people intended by policy.
As you can imagine some of these cases end up in court because it's the government breaking the law. But the court system is not well suited to protecting the individuals in these cases, and people can't afford the legal fees.
You often need a judicial review (which is very expensive), because the ordinary policy is "deport first appeal later" or "no appeal possible" depending on the case. Under "deport first appeal later", people usually fail to appeal even when they would win, because it's highly impractical when you can't access your own documents from abroad any more; yet if they do appeal, most appeals are won because the government is found to be not following the law.
You're right. I quoted the parent but it's an important distinction.
> Because both sets of people were treated exactly the same by the system. I.e. inhumanely.
The destroying of paperwork was incompetence rather than inhumanity. The removal of illegal migrants is also not inhuman: it is lawful and reasonable - if you enter a country illegally, you may be kicked out.
Most enter legally, and then something happens which changes that.
For some it's government maladministration. Outside their control. This happens a lot. I think that's inhumane because it's outside their control and they don't have the money or legal backing to fight it, and because the system does not apply ordinary principles of justice to resolve these issues.
For some, it's abuse by government. That is, something just plain illegal by the government, not a mistake but an intentional administrative action which is against the law. Again, I think that's inhumane because most people don't have the money or legal backing to fight.
For some it's that their partner's wage drops below a threshold. Outside their control. I think that's inhumane because once you are in and settled and started a family etc. you should not be so precarious that a slight change in your partner's income results in you having to leave.
Think of the number of people during the pandemic whose income has reduced. Now imagine the added stress of facing deportation on a plane because your partner's income dropped.
For some it's losing their job. Outside their control. I think that's inhumane because it's a breeding ground for abuse by their employer: "if you don't do whatever we tell you and suck it up, we will fire you and you will have to leave your family and the country".
For some it's their partner dumping them. Outside their control. I think that's inhumane because it's a breeding ground for abuse by their partner: "if you don't do whatever nasty things I demand you do for me I will dump you and you will have to leave your job and the country".
For some they never entered - they were born in the country. They are legal until age 18, at which point they lose rights.
I think it's inhumane to remove someone who is born and bred in a country, and who doesn't even know something will happen until at the age of 18 or so, they apply to university, and find out not only can they not go, they get a letter telling them to leave the only place they have ever known. Go "home"... where? There isn't another "home".
I think inhumane implies malice. This is incompetance.
> intentional administrative action which is against the law.
Agreed that's malicious.
> For some it's that their partner's wage drops below a threshold. Outside their control. I think that's inhumane because once you are in and settled and started a family etc.
That's sometimes part of the contract for entering a country. Nobody is forced to accept it.
That truly depends on your meaning of "force". For example, if I point a gun at you and tell you to give me your money or else, you are not forced to give me the money. You still have a choice. Yet, we commonly say that someone is forced because they are compelled by the alternative being a worse option created by someone else deliberately.
In that sense, yes people are forced to accept that contract.
Although it is part of the contract, I think it's inhumane that the contract is set up that way, and nation states should be held to higher standards than that.
If the contract for living in a country was that they chopped off a finger each year, would that be humane? No it wouldn't, and we'd protest against it. Some people would still choose it anyway. But something being part of a contract does not make that thing humane.
Why would people choose it anyway? Because being with the person you love matters a lot to some people.
And it matters to me that people who love each other, whoever they are, are allowed by nation states to be together if they wish. I consider it a basic facet of humane society to allow that. A proper example of what ought to be a simple human right. In the ballpark of "we hold these truths to be self-evident".
For two people who love each other to be prevented by law from being together in either of their home countries (because it's certainly possible for both ends to have incompatible restrictions) is, in my opinion, inhumane.
Also, for someone to be with someone else and then if the relationship turns sour to have the state applying enormous pressure to stay in the abusive relationship (whether with a partner or employer), that is also, in my opinion, inhumane and not a state functioning as it should. The state's job is to protect all people in its care, that includes all people it has accepted into its care as well. A state is ideally held to the standards of its noble constitution. It is not good enough to say "well it was part of the contract". We do not allow abusive terms in contracts to be upheld, even if they have been accepted. If someone agrees to be a slave, we declare that agreement void. Some things are struck out by courts if necessary when deciding what is right. Same should apply, in my opinion, to this.
That's been one of the issues I encountered on my case on the time I've spent in the UK, you can spend as much time as you want there, you will never be considered like a local, you will be designated as a part of the community you supposed to belong, that's great if you like recreating the place you are coming from, not so great if you actually want to integrate.
Apart from film, pop music, reality television, the Yankees baseball cap, jeans, and a constant stream of news articles about Trump, what have the Americans ever done for us?
Compare how many cultural products are American in origin or mention America or American news to how many you get about, say, France or Germany. The influence is _huge_. This is why France has laws requiring a fraction of culture (especially TV and film) to be in French.
The UK is certainly polarised, and racist, but in different ways to America. It may be the case that a police murder in Portland starts a riot in Bristol, but it would never be the other way round.
When was the last time there was a protest by Americans outside a British embassy over British politics? The US embassy in London practically has a rota for all the different groups that have protested there.
The Daily Mail?
There is an effort to start a Fox News equivalent in the pipeline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GB_News
That said, we shall have to wait and see whether Neil continues to be vigorous in his questioning of those on the right when he's on a channel that doesn't have the BBC's theoretical commitment to non-partisan neutrality.
Subject to the caveat that I haven't lived in the UK for over 15 years, overall the popular press in the UK is a bit shocking. I don't know of any liberal western country where you see the kind of racism routinely displayed on the front page of mainstream/popular UK newspapers. Perhaps xenophobia rather than direct racism would be a better description but it's not easy to tell the difference in many cases. It's all a bit weird as the UK is generally a tolerant society but somebody must be buying all those newspapers.
About the only UK newspaper I can read these days without getting upset is the Financial Times - there's pockets of good journalism in the Guardian also but it's almost too much of a struggle to find them in the swamp of opinion pieces. I guess the Times isn't too bad or at least tries to represent some sort of centrist view but it feels fairly shallow.
For me the Brexit issue is the UK's version of the culture war in the US. I've talked to people who say they can barely talk to members of their family any more because of Brexit stance differences. And I don't see this division healing very soon - I fear it's going to fester for years.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8671837/RICHARD-L...
> Meanwhile, they’re climbing over each other to fill their faces with state-subsidised chicken and chips at Nando’s, while at the same time pretending to be too frightened to turn up for work.
I walked around town at the weekend. Town seemed as busy as I'd expect during a holiday, which is to say people everywhere in crowds. I noticed Nando's was jam-packed with people inside and outside, as densely as I've ever seen it, no social distancing and little mask use was apparent including among the people crowded on the pavement outside. Same as I walked past other places, and some pubs were heaving, inside and outside.
To be honest, I didn't feel safe walking around the streets with the way people were outside; it became difficult to avoid densely packed groups at some points. The "rule of six" was a joke, I saw groups of 20 people who were obviously together with no masks. Every so often, I'd find myself in the middle of a group who would just surround me on their way past, 0.5m away if that, no masks, and no way for me to avoid them. I'd make the effort to keep out of people's way, and I'd be occasionally thanked for it. But most people seemed to make no effort or have any awareness. About half of all people outside had masks, but of those with masks, about half were not wearing them.
So is that WFH people in the restaurants? I don't know, but I suspect the folks who have lost their jobs, or getting by doing manual labour like food deliveries, or working in hospitals and care homes, aren't the ones spending much at the pubs and restaurants at the moment.
Among my friends who are programmers, about half talk about their social meetups (face to face) at the pub, houses, in the parks etc and seem to have some disdain for CV restrictions. The other half are like me, have high respect for CV restrictions and generally avoiding town and avoiding non-virtual social meetups, and don't think highly of those people who don't wear masks or keep a distance.
I think the Daily Mail anti-WFH rant is typical Tory "get back to work" top-grade bullshit because WFH isn't about people individually saying they are "scared", it's about protecting people at work, which is a company and institution responsibility. The fact some people will densely pack themselves at Nando's etc adds more reason to keep them away from offices for the protection of other people, not less reason. But I thought it did highlight some interesting contradictions going on in society at the moment.
I miss the days when all the facts was reported, instead it is opinions that are slanted one side or another to market to the social media rabbles of the moment. In effect social media like twitter has becomes the REUTER/news wire source of news and opinions are treated as news today.
But in a world in which problems are ignored until some celeb parrots them, one can only cry at the loss of real investigative journalists who are drowned out by a sea of bandwagon opinion pile-ons.
Yet. The planned GB News fronted by Andrew Neil looks a lot like a Fox News clone with 24/7 opinion: https://www.ft.com/content/470cf7f4-59e6-47c1-9efa-ce634b798...
This is because we have strong broadcast regulation. Broadcasters must have regard for due impartiality and due accuracy.[0]
LBC are managing to push that line to its very limit, by having shows that are presented by opposing polemics so that overall they maintain balance.
[0] https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/broadcast-co...
What's also a US import is the division of people into 'right-wing' or 'left-wing' based on the most frivolous of attributes.
'Downing Street Sources' has been a phrase used by journalists for decades; everyone knows what it means. It's not a 'dog whistle' (another stupid imported phrase).
Similarly, a Welsh speaker in Wales can insist on using Welsh in court proceedings even if they are also fluent in English. A Gaelic speaker in Scotland can't- an interpreter will be provided in the very rare case where a witness or party to a case speaks Gaelic but not English, just as if they only spoke Polish, Punjabi or Cantonese, but someone who is bilingual like the vast majority of Gaelic speakers is expected to use English.
In general, while Gaelic has some official status, it's not an official language of Scotland in the same way as Welsh is an official language of Wales.
That has not been moving recently.
The race-based division in the U.S. also heavily reinforces differences in culture that would be seen as purely class-based elsewhere, and thus mitigated in many ways - we see this when broadly pro-social cultural values end up associated with so-called "Whiteness" in the U.S., it's hard not to see that as a problem.
To be clear, this isn't a difference of culture we're talking about. We're talking about people who routinely get murdered and harassed by police, disenfranchised, paid less ins salary, and excluded from many professional roles by default.
You're of course right that the criminal justice system treats minorities very badly, and that many people are unfairly disenfranchised and excluded from many professional roles due to their past interactions with this problematic system. But that has nothing to do with a claim that our society itself is irredeemably racist, or that everyone is irredeemably racist.
The UK makes teaching religion mandatory in public schools: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_education_in_primary...
> Additionally, all schools are required by law to provide a daily act of collective worship, of which at least 51% must be Christian in basis over the course of the academic year.
This would be unconstitutional in the United States. We are far more religious than the U.K. But our Supreme Court has imposed a public secularism similar to that of France. (Based on an extremely strained reading of the Establishment Clause.) To this day, 2/3 of Americans oppose this 70-year old precedent.
In the UK, you legalized same-sex marriage by law. In the U.S. the Supreme Court found it to be a constitutional right (in a decision that is in my opinion correct as a legal matter, but many disagree). A year later, the European Court of Human Rights reached the opposite result (finding that denying same-sex couples the right to marry does not violate the European Convention on Human Rights) in a case arising out of France. It’s still not legal in Switzerland.
The UK legalized abortion by law. It’s 24-week limit on abortion for economic reasons is the longest in the EU. In the US, abortion was legalized by the Supreme Court. 24 weeks is a fairly typical limit in the US—a country that’s more religious than Poland (where abortion is illegal). The 12-week limit in Denmark or Germany or France, or the waiting periods that were place in France until 2015, would be unconstitutional. Germany’s abortion laws (where the constitutional court found it unconstitutional to legalize abortion so it’s still just decriminalized under 12 weeks, and where there is a counseling requirement) would be unimaginable. Indeed, at the same time as the Supreme Court found a constitutional right to abortion, the courts of Canada, Austria, and France found that it was a matter for the legislature to decide.
You passed a law banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. Since it was legislation, you were able to consider and impose a large set of exemptions for specific occupations. (You can’t sue a Catholic Church for not hiring gay clergy.) The Supreme Court just recently held (in a decision I think was correct) that our existing 1960s-era law already banned sexual orientation discrimination.
Our Supreme Court is dominated by our country’s cultural elites. Even the conservatives tend to be steeped in the cultural norms of the coastal urban areas. (The one Justice who is not, and has social views typical of Black men like himself of his age, is demonized mercilessly.) No other developed country puts a highly-educated elite in charge of dictating to the rest of the country how to handle these social issues. This is a huge source of resentment and polarization.
Just to add some nuance to this...
RE is the lesson in which pupils are taught about religion. It does not instruct that any particular religious claim is true or false.
And the “daily act of collective worship” is one of those laws that is widely disregarded, to the point where OFSTED inspections will note that schools are not compliant but not mark them down for it. It’s rapidly becoming one of those archaic laws like “the queen owns all the swans” which has very little practical effect on everyday life.
> The Education Reform Act (1988) requires that: -
> 2. Religious Education should be taught in accordance with an agreed syllabus.
> 4. The agreed syllabus reflects "the fact that the religious traditions in Great Britain are in the main Christian while taking into account the teachings and practices of other principal religions represented within Great Britain". (Education Reform Act 1988, Section 8)
Even if the concepts aren't taught as "truth" it makes things vastly easier for Christian parents to socialize their children in their religion. (Which the U.N. recognizes as a human right.) And it would likely be illegal in the U.S. (Teaching about religion generically would not be, but the provision about the Christian tradition of the UK would likely push it over the line.)
Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_worship_in_schools
> Schools with a formal faith designation are required to arrange worship in accordance with their trust deed or, if they have no trust deed, in line with the practices of their designated faith. For schools without a formal faith designation, the majority of the acts of worship should be "of a broadly Christian character". In practical terms, this has been interpreted to mean that 51% of school days each school term must have an act of worship of a broadly Christian character.
Social conservatives in the United States would be thrilled to have laws like the one in the U.K. Obviously a country like the U.K. that's becoming irreligious might not take the legal requirement too seriously. Folks in San Francisco probably wouldn't either. But folks in Iowa would probably take these requirements seriously. Under current U.S. law, schools in Iowa in communities where 80% of people go to Church every week are required to operate like schools in France. (My wife and I once calculated that her little town in northwest Iowa had a church for every 150 people.)
Forcing Iowans to act like the French drives a lot of polarization and resentment. When you hear people complain about the "war on Christmas" that's what they're talking about--stripping away the fact that "the religious traditions in [the United States] are in the main Christian."
The US's leaning on the Supreme Court to make social progress is really a result of its inability to make social progress in sane ways through legislatures. The fact that it took a Supreme Court decision to legalize interracial marriage only two years before the Moon landings should be a source of profound shame on its legislatures.
The situation with slavery and segregation in the United States is unique (and unique legal mechanisms were created to combat the issues). But it's not clear to me that you can generalize from that to other social issues. On homosexuality, for example, the U.S. is between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, and similar to Italy in terms of acceptance. Absent the Supreme Court, many U.S. states would have same-sex marriage in similar time-frames to EU countries. As to abortion, public opinion mirrors the actual laws in countries like France and Germany: support for making it legal up to 12 weeks, subject to things like waiting periods, with strong support for making it legal after that with only limited exceptions.
Sure, some U.S. states would be stragglers, but the same is true in the EU. Ireland didn't legalize abortion until just a couple of years ago. Switzerland and Poland still don't have same-sex marriage. How would the EU react to the European Court of Human Rights taking these decisions away from the state legislatures? Maybe that's what should happen, but this thread is about polarization. It would be polarizing as hell.
The UK does no such thing - education is handled completely separately by the different parts of the UK.
There certainly weren't "daily acts of collective worship" when I was at school in Scotland 40+ years ago and there aren't now when my kids went to school.
Indeed. To provide background for others, by the early 1970s various US states had legalized abortion. In Roe v. Wade, however, the Supreme Court ruled that abortion was a constitutional right, abruptly legalizing it nationwide with more or less no restrictions whatsoever; even many abortion-rights supporters believe that the legal theory behind the decision was faulty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade#Legal). The result was so across-the-board that, among other things, the US still allows abortions to occur later than anywhere else.
Preventing the full political debate process from occurring is why abortion remains so controversial in the country almost 50 years and counting. Because such issues are polarizing and partisan, they need full discussion in a legislature, as opposed to unelected judges unilaterally short-circuiting the debate.
America at this point has little shared ethnic background. It’s largest states are minority-majority for example and that will be the case everywhere soon as minority babies are already the majority.
California and Texas are utterly dominated by Non-Hispanic and Hispanic white people, the two ethnic groups with by far the highest rates of intermarriage in the United States of America.
England 1798 -> Europe 1898 -> Western 1998
I think the rest of your analysis is just wrong. First there was no "English" America. America from the start had European immigrants. New York was a Dutch colony. The early censuses used "white" and it always meant the same it means today.
This idea of a "progressing" whiteness is way way overblown to make people feel like the demographic changes we are facing are not unusual. But they are. Even if a huge percentage of hispanics start to self-identify as white - White people will still likely become a minority when they were around 90% of the population at the turn of the last century. Asians and Blacks are around ~20% of the population and Asians are the fastest growing ethnic group.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
That ~20% figure is repeated in California and Texas, while the Hispanic and Non-Hispanic white populations are almost perfectly equal in size. These populations intermix at very high rates powered on one side at least by very strong social forces—societal and familial—that have existed for centuries, see: the demographic history of any Latin American country with substantial European immigration + the wildly different European:non European ratios in the US vs them.
From your own article, keeping in mind Hispanic immigrant populations are of European and Native descent:
We know that light-skinned Cubans were considered white at least as of 1950 because (despite the trepidations of the studio) the public accepted Lucy and Ricky, in a way they would never have accepted a black-white or Chinese-white couple. American Indians were considered non-white, but if they assimilated and married whites their children were generally accepted as part of white society. Did you know that Will Rogers was 9/32 ~~Cherokee~~ Maya?
A huge percentage of white babies of 2098 won’t have to self identify as white, they’ll just be white.
How on earth can you possibly say that in 2098 that "a huge percentage of white babies ... will be white"? Are there any demographic studies that say this? Where are you getting this info from? Rarely do projections even go that far.
Even US Census predictions have been off by huge margins within a few years because of unexpected declines in longevity, birth rates, ect.
It isn’t white vs minorities, it’s white “vs” a roughly equally sized Hispanic population in a few states that are already being consolidated because immigration flows have tapered, and, party evidenced by the article you posted, easily integrated into “whiteness”. No progress needed!
Haven’t even gotten into how California and Texas are the definitions of special cases in the USA being literally the most attractive states in the Union and also on the border. What are the proportions like in Utah, Kentucky, Pennsylvania etc?
Simple flows + demographic history mate, regional history is one of the big keys here and points the way.
I dunno, 20 percentage points higher makes a pretty loose definition of "not far away".
Texas meanwhile with a 13 point difference but 22.5 between white and black, the next closest.
According to 2014-2016 March of Dimes data anyways
No, its much higher, probably 70-75%.
Its just that most sources, despite using source data that gathers race and ethnicity separately, combines them into a single dimension which reports non-Hispanic whites as "white" and Hispanics of any race as Hispanic.
Hispanics in the US mostly are white. Hispanics are significantly White to start with, and there is a definite racial socioeconomic stratification with Whites at the top, and that is not without reflection in resources, skills, and networks which help with immigration to the US.
If Biden wins, then by spring, the leading story in the "left-leaning" media will be that we need to cut social spending to combat the deficit. The deficit miraculously stops being a story whenever a Republican is in the White House, and becomes a major priority whenever a Democrat is in the White House. Just because people in the media think that racism is bad doesn't make the media left-leaning.
The methodology is thorough and non-partisan (that's the point). Note that the triangle's apex is literally left of center.
Not that it counters your point, but the left alignment at the top is very minor.
This chart is part of the equation, but it says nothing about which of the publications in it have more influence.
If you want a chart, look at this chart of the most common words associated with each candidate in 2016: https://www.businessinsider.com/gallup-candidate-word-clouds...
That's as clear an example of media bias in favor of the Republicans as you can wish for.
The investigation also failed to find sufficient evidence to charge anyone in the Trump administration with collusion. At this point Russiagate is thoroughly debunked.
I wouldn't call "Russiagate" in any way debunked given this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_charges_brought_in_th...
The "unrelated" is completely false, which invalidates your entire argument.
Name an American indicted for unrelated crimes and maybe I can fill in the connection. It's mostly covered in the wiki under each of their paragraphs though.
You're hoping that people won't bother to read said Wiki, or get confused by the legalese.
Papadopoulos: Indicted for making a false statement to FBI.
Manafort and Gates: Indicted for not registering as foreign agents of Ukraine (which, you might have noticed, is sort of an enemy of Russia right now)
Flynn: Indicted for making a false statement to FBI. (Forced by lack of legal fees into pleading guilty, which later caused problems when the government tried to drop charges.)
Pinedo (Who? Exactly): Indicted for identity fraud.
van der Zwaan: Indicted for making false statements (and not an American, anyway).
Cohen: Indicted for making false statements.
Stone: Indicted for making false statements and witness tampering.
Then we have people like Carter Page, whose name was raked over the coals for years because a FBI lawyer intentionally altered evidence (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/09/us/politics/fbi-ig-report...) showing that far from being a Russian asset, Page had for years briefed the CIA every time he met with suspicious Russians. (Got to love how the Times describes said altering evidence as a "serious error".) You want an actual Russiagate-related indictment and guilty plea? Kevin Clinesmith, said FBI lawyer, is your man.
Manafort and Gates: If your defense is that since Ukraine is an enemy of Russia, and therefore there can't be any pro-Russian agents there, I have bridges to sell you.
Flynn: Yes, he lied about meeting Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak about setting up encrypted channels to Russia.
Cohen: Lying about business developments in Russia (money is always a nice motivator in crime).
Stone: Had contact with Russian state hackers about the DNC hacks.
Donald Jr wasn't indicted for anything, but he managed to incriminate himself all on his own volition on twitter: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/11/us/politics/d...
The most charitable interpretation of this whole thing is that the Trump campaign were too stupid to qualify as collusion (but I think they were fully aware), but were instead pawns: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-senate/s...
Yes. And Russiagate was the belief that the Trump org colluded with the Russians. Which was debunked.
Not that citing Wikipedia means anything, but from the main article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...:
> there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates.
Without 100% rock-solid evidence, the legal complexity of trying to indict him (and him potentially pardoning himself) would have likely caused a constitutional crisis, and who knows what might have happened then. It wasn't worth the risk.
Citizen Trump would have been vulnerable to federal charges three different ways in 2018 if he hadn't been elected President.
The references in this thread so far say the opposite. If you have others that prove "We know 100% they colluded with Russian agents", add them.
Two sides of the same coin.
While there has been incursion of talk radio (LBC/Farage), there is no counterpart to the hyper-polarised TV of Fox News yet. Sky News is comparatively normal. The right-wing disinformation comes in via the press and various "client journalists" who repeat things they've heard from "Downing street sources" who they refuse to hold accountable.
> It found that most voters balanced competing political concerns and ideas. Its polling found that 73% believe hate speech is a problem, while 72% believe political correctness is an issue. Some 60% believe many are too sensitive about race, but 60% also recognise issues around “white privilege”.
This is just the combination of leading questions and people responding to words without actually thinking about the underlying concepts.
See, always, Yes Minister: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA