You have it clearly identified although I wouldn’t call it political rage but a poor and studied attempt to distort reality. I’ve never sensed much passion in the postings. Just as most other regulars here don’t bother to read, let alone respond to these things, they still appear and are usually within the range of highly opinionated. Who here will cast the first stone in that contest?

This one went over the line. One of the things we (people writing on politics in general) need to do is electrify the lines. At least that is how I’m coming to look at it. Not walls, of course, but we need a new ethic that lights up when someone inserts blatant falsehoods as if they are legitimate components of a discussion.

That happens to be be the old KGB and updated Putin mode of attack in loosely democratic states. It also plays directly on their greatest weakness. If you can get reactionary people to believe total bullshit once you’ve got them and they will follow the trail of shit anywhere you lead. These old pseudo democratic systems are only as strong as the shared ethics maintained in that society. And the less willing to study or trust reasonable authority that people are the more easily fooled they become. This country is probably already terminal.

We allowed one of our two official “parties” to be taken over by criminals. This comes down on the folks who used and worked under Reagan and ultimately followed Gingrich in the destruction of all ethics in the quest for ultimate power. This was and is the end justifies the means. These actions need to be clearly identified as crimes against society. They destroyed public political standards creating a complete loss of trust among the most easily manipulated part of our population, i.e. those with ‘conservative’ tendencies to place fear and reaction above all other responses. Once you destroy that you have destroyed the fragile social infrastructure that supports this type of government.

So, the ease with which the sick core of the Republican Party latched enthusiastically onto the Russian tools offered by Putin. They were the same tools they have been using for almost forty years. And just to be clear, I don’t see this happening as some grand conspiracy, it was simply a natural merger of tools and goals; to destroy democracy for total power to exploit all for their patrons. They didn’t need to conspire with the Russians but just take advantage of what the Russians were doing. It surprised the hell out of Putin, the Russians and Trump. Only problem was he was already so completely in the pockets of the Russian financial mafia that he couldn’t back out once he was called. Hence the growing panic and increasing irrationality. And the frantic, wild policy shifts to distract himself from what will happen when it all blows up. Some very, very powerful and nasty people who own governments have Trumps old shriveled balls in a vice and he never knew when it happened. His chances of surviving into retirement are so low it’s no wonder he is up all night.

Back to this little article: It went across the line to deliberate lies and distortion. Yes, there are outlier polls that show almost anything if you look hard enough. I say that is no longer allowable. We all carry the responsibility to take a few minutes to call these things as soon as they appear. This was so absurd that it was ridiculous but that didn’t change its nature or its evil. Standards must be restored.