Yes, I've heard it all before. People who were drawn in to the baseless Russiagate conspiracy theory, and all the other ones have said exactly the same thing to me as you are now. Sure, I'm a secular-heretic for wanting to see evidence for extraordinary assertions from people with obvious ulterior motives, rather than taking them on faith.

So far, the conspiracy theorists have had a poor track record as far as I can see. That said, I don't engage or try to debate my friends on it, they have always become extremely upset by any debate on such topics. And they're not hurting anybody so my philosophy is just to leave them to their faith. I don't go around challenging people to prove the existence of God whenever they make a religious Facebook post either, I'm not that kind of asshole.

> Yes, I've heard it all before. People who were drawn in to the baseless Russiagate conspiracy theory

As you can read in the Republican-written Senate Intelligence Committee report, everything about Russiagate did in fact happen and it was 100% real. (except for the Steele dossier/pee tape)

This essentially comes down to Trump realizing that if you say all your crimes in public, nobody will think it's a crime and it won't be reported as one, because you don't "seem like you have something to hide".

I might be basically be picking at it with what I am about to say next, but was it not admitted that 'Steele dossier' itself was a rather elaborate disinformation campaign[1] as noted by Fiona Hill? I really don't be want to be this guy, but if we are going to have that kind of discussion here, we might as well discuss current state of knowledge.

edit: All this is relevant, because that dossier itself was the basis for 'Russiagate'. I am ok with a rational counter-argument.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steele_dossier#Risk_of_contami...

> As you can read in the Republican-written Senate Intelligence Committee report, everything about Russiagate did in fact happen and it was 100% real. (except for the Steele dossier/pee tape)

The conspiracy theory is that Trump colluded or conspired with Putin to hack the election. No evidence to support this has ever been produced. I know that may be difficult to accept, and I ascribe no malice to those who genuinely believe conspiracy theories, they are a powerful psychological trap.

When Trump told Russia to release his opponent's emails they'd hacked, and they did release them afterwards on the same day, he got away with it because he just did it in public on stage, and so cynics can't accept it because it's too obvious - it wasn't done on an encrypted Signal chat in a smoky backroom, so it must not be a conspiracy, so it must've been a coincidence.

Plus his campaign manager was working for him for free and instead being paid by a GRU agent for their targeting data.

You can try denying the Senate/Mueller reports on this, but you should read them, since they do say this.

The joke he made at a political rally about Russia releasing Clinton's emails if they had them? That simply is not not evidence that Trump colluded with Putin to hack the election. Calling that evidence is like a climate denier calling an unseasonal snowfall evidence that global warming is false. And that's not what the misinformation peddlers at the time were claiming to be the evidence, either. Remember Adam Schiff's repeated false claims of "ample evidence" that he could not share but alleged were shown to the House Intelligence Committee that he chaired? That was the kind of inflammatory misinformation that drove the whole conspiracy theory.

No report into this including the vaunted Mueller Report has ever produced any evidence that Trump colluded or conspired with Putin to hack the election. I have read them. Mueller Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election, Volume I, p. 181, second paragraph:

For that reason, this Office’s focus in resolving the question of joint criminal liability was on conspiracy as defined in federal law, not the commonly discussed term “collusion.” The Office considered in particular whether contacts between Trump Campaign officials and Russia-linked individuals could trigger liability for the crime of conspiracy—either under statutes that have their own conspiracy language (e.g., 18 U.S.C. §§ 1349, 1951(a)), or under the general conspiracy statute (18 U.S.C. § 371). The investigation did not establish that the contacts described in Volume I, Section IV, supra, amounted to an agreement to commit any substantive violation of federal criminal law—including foreign-influence and campaign-finance laws, both of which are discussed further below. The Office therefore did not charge any individual associated with the Trump Campaign with conspiracy to commit a federal offense arising from Russia contacts, either under a specific statute or under Section 371’s offenses clause.

Citizens United case means that, by design, there will be no evidence of money transfers from foreign powers to US elections.

so the idea we can 'find no evidence' is because people rigged the system so there would be no evidence.

Democrats could start taking money directly from Xi Jingping or from some communist in Venezuela and we would never know about it. Republicans can take money from the Saudis and we would never know about it. This is the reality of modern politics in the US.

infinite invisible money and zero evidence that anything happened, by design

Right, if you're already deep in the hole and all-in on a conspiracy theory, there are endless ways you can explain away holes in the theory and turn conjecture or coincidence into hard evidence. Even the lack of evidence can be evidence to people taken in by conspiracy theories.

Same as how China secretly paid the liberals to create the global warming hoax, that's another one along the same lines as the Russia collusion one that some people actually believe.

Did you stay up all night or are you posting from Russia?

The trump shills are out in force again. HN is no exception.

Some of our friendships are not based merely on political affiliation. This is not a shot, but please understand that not everyone is automatically looking for a clan and an enemy to bond over ( even though it is not uncommon and perfectly rational thing to do based on our evolutionary path alone ).

Not to search very far, me and my coworkers discuss politics ( and we do have somewhat divergent views ). The bubble only exists if one does not talk with other people. In other words, other people being like-minded is not an automatic pre-requisite.

I actually find this fascinating and and am not taking sides. If Jan 6th was literally an attempt to overthrow the government, why hasn’t Trump been convicted of treason? I thought swift action would be taken if the slant in the stories news media have reported is accurate.

But more importantly, why can’t you be friends with people who have different politics? Honestly I’m not sure what word best describes a world where everyone has to think the same to get along, but I have to think it’s far from ideal.

The bubble where the cronies who helped plan it were huddled together in the Willard to watch the show put on by the people they directly interfaced with and who were equipped to breach the building.