And of course: the world is confusing and complex. Stuff that was previously something only crazy people would believe turned out to be true (think Snowden). Given such a world isn't it easier to just form some idea in thin air and worship it instead of admitting that you have no clue what is going on? This is what is happening here.
And social media is the perfect echo chamber to avoid the cognitive dissonance one would get when the rubber meets the road in terms of an reality check. If there are millions others that share your world view how wrong can you be?
Media isn't innocent in that sense, politics isn't innocent, social media companies and marketing people aren't innocent. They are all complicit in this. But saying something among the lines of "people go to apeshit conspiracy nonsense sites because they don't trust the media" would be a bit far fetched as well.
I think the main reason people do it is because A) they can and B) it feels better than not doing it.
The classical media is certainly part of that feeling, but certainly not the biggest part of it.
If you're referring to Russia actively interfering with American elections through a pointed and state sponsored disinformation campaign that continues to this day... then that's not a narrative? That's a thing that's happening that matters and is one of the principle sources of bad actors behind this very article
> But certain facts will never go away no matter how much denial they embrace. The sweeping Mueller investigation ended with zero indictments of zero Americans for conspiring with Russia over the 2016 election. Both Donald Trump, Jr. and Jared Kushner – the key participants in the Trump Tower meeting – testified for hours and hours yet were never charged for perjury, lying or obstruction, even though Mueller proved how easily he would indict anyone who lied as part of the investigation. And this massive investigation simply did not establish any of the conspiracy theories that huge parts of the Democratic Party, the intelligence community and the U.S. media spent years encouraging the public to believe.
If that's not setting off bullshit alarm bells in your head, I don't think anything will. No, it's not reasonable to believe that Russia is responsible for someone leaving their private property at a repair shop. But people eat that garbage up because they like to hear it. So much so that it even was seriously mentioned in one of the debates. That doesn't change the fact that it makes no sense.
Republicans have not-so-fringe QAnon and Dominiongate weirdos. They're insane. Democrats have not-so-fringe Russia conspiracy theorists. They're dumb.
The only way to narrow the whole spectrum of misinformation is to call things fairly when we see them. Nothing is ever going to get solved unless people are able to critique the fringe of their own side as strongly as they critique the fringe of the other side.
[1]: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/19/hunter-biden-story-...
Taxpayers funded a multi-month, multi-millionaire special counsel to investigate these claims. Nothing came of it.
A Mueller investigation with different parameters would have reached very different conclusions.
Mueller did not exonerate Trump on the obstruction of justice charges, but that's not what this thread is about, we're talking about Russia.
Mueller repeatedly and specifically said he was not investigating Trump on any criminal charges since he was bound by the opinion of the DOJ that a sitting President cannot be indicted and therefore there were no charges that could be pursued, even if Trump shot someone live on TV.
The New York Times article headline itself said "Mueller Finds No Trump-Russia Conspiracy". This is not some fringe conspiracy theory here. Don't get your news from Reddit.
https://www.justsecurity.org/63838/guide-to-the-mueller-repo...
There was definitely meaningful involvement by the Trump campaign in Russia's efforts to undermine the 2016 election.
One example...
5. June 9, 2016 Meeting at Trump Tower
On June 9, 2016, senior representatives of the Trump Campaign met in Trump Tower with a Russian attorney expecting to receive derogatory information about Hillary Clinton from the Russian government. The meeting was proposed to Donald Trump Jr. in an email from Robert Goldstone, at the request of his then-client Emin Agalarov, the son of Russian real-estate developer Aras Agalarov. Goldstone relayed to Trump Jr. that the “Crown prosecutor of Russia . . . offered to provide the Trump Campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia” as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Trump Jr. immediately responded that “if it’s what you say I love it,” and arranged the meeting through a series of emails and telephone calls.
At the same time, that wasn't enough evidence to charge most members of the Trump campaign under existing laws.
C. Russian Government Outreach and Contacts
As explained in Section IV above, the Office’s investigation uncovered evidence of numerous links (i.e., contacts) between Trump Campaign officials and individuals having or claiming to have ties to the Russian government. The Office evaluated the contacts under several sets of federal laws, including conspiracy laws and statutes governing foreign agents who operate in the United States. After considering the available evidence, the Office did not pursue charges under these statutes against any of the individuals discussed in Section IV above—with the exception of FARA charges against Paul Manafort and Richard Gates based on their activities on behalf of Ukraine.
> The centerpiece of the Trump/Russia conspiracy – the Trump Tower meeting – was such a dud that Jared Kushner, halfway through the meeting, texted Manafort to declare the meeting “a waste of time,” and then instructed his assistant to call him so that he could concoct a reason to leave.
https://theintercept.com/2019/04/18/robert-mueller-did-not-m...
Clearly it wasn't incriminating, no charges were brought, but that's a strawman because the comment I'm replying to was about whether the campaign was involved with Russia, not whether anyone in the campaign was convicted of anything based on their involvement.
On the other hand, there’s overwhelming proof of the US interfering in the politics of other countries, from coups to invasions. Especially in Russia in the early 90s. And several coup attempts just this year.
I'm fairly sure my family's opinions come straight from the media.
> My work and my character are openly demeaned on company-wide Slack channels where masthead editors regularly weigh in. There, some coworkers insist I need to be rooted out if this company is to be a truly “inclusive” one, while others post ax emojis next to my name.
In the past year we saw Andrew Sullivan leave New York Magazine[1], Bari Weiss leave The New York Times[2], Matthew Yglesias leave Vox (which he founded) [3], and Glenn Greenwald leave The Intercept (which he founded) [4]. All of them had one thing in common that Greenwald summed up well: "The same trends of repression, censorship and ideological homogeneity plaguing the national press generally have engulfed the media outlet I co-founded, culminating in censorship of my own articles."
The mainstream media has created an information vacuum, and the spread of disinformation is a direct result of that.
[1] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/andrew-sullivan-see-...
[2] https://www.bariweiss.com/resignation-letter
[3] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/substack-a...
[4] https://greenwald.substack.com/p/my-resignation-from-the-int...