Let me get this horseshit straight. What's the crime?

I'm sure President Clinton'll be furious when she hears about this. Oh, wait.

If

Let's take a moment to note the crime you're alleging is, even in this strongest possible statement of what exactly that might possibly've been, entirely hypothetical. Not to say riven with the kind of prior assumptions one would expect from out-of-control mass hysteria.

he

Trump's as crooked as any Mississippi sheriff, only not as clever. Say you wanted to nail this guy, and you had your pick of any of the crimes he commits on a daily basis to investigate and prosecute him for. As long as we're having flights of hypothetical fancy, why not pick a crime that could be proven? The Emoluments Clause comes to mind, which Trump's wildly offside of. He should've been impeached for that alone early last year. But, not coincidentally, Democrats have lost every branch of government. Democrats can only lose eight more state governments before Republicans get to draw up a new U.S. Constitution. So Democrats can't, in real life, do anything. At all. Let alone mount an impeachment in Congress. This is an ugly charade, just like Benghazi, just like Whitewater. Only this time, the stakes are real. Plus there's so much more bunting now,

was

Saving you a bit of trouble, for the purposes of this conversation, let's say it goes down like this. Boris and Natasha put the briefcase labeled 'Secrets' on the conference table. Donald pulls out a wad of cash and starts making it rain, right in front of Dudley Do-Right. A little time spent on the usual evil cackling, light mustache twirling, and some dissing on popular American celebrities and much-cherished notions of fair play, truth and the American Way. That's the meeting. Okay. So stipulated.

trusting

Is it illegal to be Russian? I guess it is, now. Funny how crucial demonization of the 'enemy' is, right? Not "ha ha" funny. Sad, how obvious that dehumanization is outside of those toxic bubbles.

I'm American, and I consider Russia a key ally. But then, I live on Earth in the 21st Century, too. Ruinous U.S. foreign policy, fighting the Global War on Terror on the side of terrorism, celebrating the end of the First Cold War by massing forces on Russian borders, and campaigning for president on a "muscular foreign policy" of war with Russia, makes that hard to see sometimes judging solely by the corporate-controlled Establishment media.

and

Oh boy. Here it comes. He was already trusting these civilian-clothed, non-human Russian devils? And now there's more?

working

This. Is. Not. Normal.

with

Maybe we got it wrong before. Maybe it wasn't "Vladimir K. Putin in Trump Tower with Hillary's emails." You can't nail jelly to a tree. The RussiaGhaziPalooza story changes, like any highly-fetishized fever dream, as, where and when it needs to because it's hopeless nonsense anyway. Sometimes, though, Trump's not the bottom. Sometimes it's Donald Trump, Russian deep-cover superspy top using his awesome powers of hacking and wanton, open corruption in government to do what the Soviet Union never could hope in a million workers' paradises to do, defeat Hillary Clinton. Never clear whether Boris and Natasha needed Comrade Trump's permission to sow doubt in loyal Americans' helpless minds, testing their infinite faith in our perfect, flawless democratic system; or whether Trump needed the personal say-so of V. "The Impaler" Putin before launching his hacking and cracking spree, so fill in whatever details get you off. Let's say it's every bit as sexy as you need it to be.

...

If

Let's take a moment to note the crime you're alleging is, even in this strongest possible statement of what exactly that might possibly've been, entirely hypothetical. Not to say riven with the kind of prior assumptions one would expect from out-of-control mass hysteria.

he

Trump's as crooked as any Mississippi sheriff, only not as clever. Say you wanted to nail this guy, and you had your pick of any of the crimes he commits on a daily basis to investigate and prosecute him for. As long as we're having flights of hypothetical fancy, why not pick a crime that could be proven? The Emoluments Clause comes to mind, which Trump's wildly offside of. He should've been impeached for that alone early last year. But, not coincidentally, Democrats have lost every branch of government. Democrats can only lose eight more state governments before Republicans get to draw up a new U.S. Constitution. So Democrats can't, in real life, do anything. At all. Let alone mount an impeachment in Congress. This is an ugly charade, just like Benghazi, just like Whitewater. Only this time, the stakes are real. Plus there's so much more bunting now,

was

Saving you a bit of trouble, for the purposes of this conversation, let's say it goes down like this. Boris and Natasha put the briefcase labeled 'Secrets' on the conference table. Donald pulls out a wad of cash and starts making it rain, right in front of Dudley Do-Right. A little time spent on the usual evil cackling, light mustache twirling, and some dissing on popular American celebrities and much-cherished notions of fair play, truth and the American Way. That's the meeting. Okay. So stipulated.

trusting

Is it illegal to be Russian? I guess it is, now. Funny how crucial demonization of the 'enemy' is, right? Not "ha ha" funny. Sad, how obvious that dehumanization is outside of those toxic bubbles.

I'm American, and I consider Russia a key ally. But then, I live on Earth in the 21st Century, too. Ruinous U.S. foreign policy, fighting the Global War on Terror on the side of terrorism, celebrating the end of the First Cold War by massing forces on Russian borders, and campaigning for president on a "muscular foreign policy" of war with Russia, makes that hard to see sometimes judging solely by the corporate-controlled Establishment media.

and

Oh boy. Here it comes. He was already trusting these civilian-clothed, non-human Russian devils? And now there's more?

working

This. Is. Not. Normal.

with

Maybe we got it wrong before. Maybe it wasn't "Vladimir K. Putin in Trump Tower with Hillary's emails." You can't nail jelly to a tree. The RussiaGhaziPalooza story changes, like any highly-fetishized fever dream, as, where and when it needs to because it's hopeless nonsense anyway. Sometimes, though, Trump's not the bottom. Sometimes it's Donald Trump, Russian deep-cover superspy top using his awesome powers of hacking and wanton, open corruption in government to do what the Soviet Union never could hope in a million workers' paradises to do, defeat Hillary Clinton. Never clear whether Boris and Natasha needed Comrade Trump's permission to sow doubt in loyal Americans' helpless minds, testing their infinite faith in our perfect, flawless democratic system; or whether Trump needed the personal say-so of V. "The Impaler" Putin before launching his hacking and cracking spree, so fill in whatever details get you off. Let's say it's every bit as sexy as you need it to be.

a foreign government

Foreign, you say? Hell's teeth! These people don't even have the decency to be from Fresno? Get a rope. Thank God the U.S. would never do such a thing. Nor would our partners and comrades in arms, the Saudis and the Israelis, ever interfere in the politics of any place in which they were not personally born. Glad we got that taken care of.

to

Could've been a bit more persuasive here. Now you're just making shit up because it sounds bad, to you. Outside of Clinton and Clinton demimonde circles, Americans aren't scared of Russia. Played a part in how the election turned out, you might've guessed. They say character is what you do on your fourth or fifth try. Depending on how you count, Clinton's run after the presidency that many times. So what's her signature move? The one that'll make up for having talked Trump into running figuring he'd be easy to beat? Then having lost to Donald Trump? I say again, lost to Donald Trump. Her go-to move in that situation should tell us all we needed to know. It's all I needed to know. I was never going to vote for Hillary Kissinger. I always assumed she was a Diet Republican. How do I know she's a Republican? Because all she's about is fear. That's what she tried selling to the American electorate. That's why she lost. That's why she won't accept her loss. Having been starved of power, fear is all she's got.

help

Couldn't've found a more active voice for this?

defeat

Nobody here would intentionally confuse electoral victory with military defeat, right?

the wishes of

Get real. One, unified American wish hundreds of millions strong? For fucks' sake. These two presidential candidates were both loathed by the American people. Trump's hated almost as much as Clinton. If the election were held today, Clinton still loses.

more than half of the American people

It's a republic. In a pinch, it's a democratic republic, but that's hooey. The only thing we vote for as a nation is the presidency, and that's up to the states to deal with however they'd like. It's a union of states, right? Not a democracy as such. Let's not play that game. Unless that's all the game you've got.

how is this not treason?

How is this treason? You tell me. You're the one alleging a crime, in fact, occurred. I'll start, though. It's not treason because Russia's not an enemy of the United States. It's not treason because it's not war against the United States. It's not treason because you can't even use a declarative sentence to describe it as being treason. It's not treason because you're not going to come up with either two witnesses, or a confession in open court, that Trump did wage war against the United States, adhere to their enemies, or give them aid and comfort. Even if you did, it's not treason because even a candidate for president of the U.S. gets to talk to people from other countries now and again, whatever the urgency or the cramping of his competitors' trousers.

I'll give you another reason it's not treason. Nixon takes office in '69. J.E. Hoover happens to mention to him, as was among his many wonts, that Nixon's predecessor Johnson had a file. A file with national security wiretap recordings proving conclusively Nixon, Kissinger and a cut-out had gotten the South Vietnamese to boycott the Paris Peace Talks that otherwise would've ended the war in Vietnam in the Fall of '68. Johnson had known about, and could've proven, Nixon's treason. Nixon went to his grave without him or his henchmen having found that file. Not that they didn't try.

How do I put this? Compared to all that, Clinton and Trump's sundry and various payoffs to Russian government officials don't evoke much concern. But then, I live on Earth. Not crystal-meth-meets-1954, like Clinton Democrats.

Tell you this much: I'm radically opposed to Trump, and if this is what passes for #TheResistance, make yourself comfortable. It's going to be this way for a very, long, time.