an optic that he's not in league with Putin. shutting up the farthest left critics who are empowered by his deflection.

surely you cant claim that's not true, even if you dont subjectively think it's important.

It's needless, and as you said it's for pure optics. What politicians say or do in front of cameras doesn't matter tbh. What matters is what they do or say behind closed door.

Maybe Trump read the The Art of War by Sun Tzu and understands the principle of keeping your friends close, and your enemies closer.

that way he could at least PRETEND he took this matter seriously.
what do his attacks on obama (which are ofc completely ridiculous considering the reasons WHY obama did not do more) accomplish in your opinion?

no man, come on...

there's this ridiculous tendency in recent years that whenever a politicians does something baffling, someone comes around explaining that it's the result of said politician playing three dimensional chess despite there being obvious and profane reasons.

in trumps case:

he has no interest in war or increasing tensions with russia, so that he tries not to feed the russia hawks in congress, the cia and the military.
and he knows that the accusation of russian meddling with the 2016 election is directly undermining his legitimacy and his biggest victory. therefore, he has a clear incentive to not admit this meddling and to try to keep it out of the public debate as much as possible.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Feb 21 2018 10:58am

You're applying 2d analysis to a 3d world my man.

Both Russia (vaguely) and the Democratic/Centrist base (broadly) are Trump's "enemies".

Until (read: if he can) Trump can cool down the opposition base he can't get much of anything done. No long lasting legislation. He'll be known as the Tax Cut Potus who sat in the Oval Office and didn't do anything else.

If your honest opinion is that optics 100% don't matter you're a fool. Look at all of the dems and never-trumpers stumping for gun control measures on news outlets that they know wont get passed, all for optic wins.

It would help deter future Russian meddling and it would show Americans that we actually have a leader who will stand up to our adversaries.



I've yet to hear anyone who knows anything about Russia or Putin say that responding to him with weakness is an effective strategy. I guess they haven't read Sun Tzu.

This post was edited by IceMage on Feb 21 2018 11:05am

And yet dolts don't understand why he won't start beating the Russia really bad drum.

Obviously optics matter. They actually matter more than substance for most of the populace because most people either don't care or are too stupid to follow actual meaningful political moves. I meant in the sense that what politicians say don't matter in the sense of substance. They know and have been briefed plenty of times on which angles to take to portray themselves in a certain light so their prepared responses in front of a camera won't be really ground breaking.



Lol yes the objective Generals, intelligence community officials and other hawks who always beat the Russia bad drum. You understand what the words strength mean in this context right? More military spending, more interventions, more war. Ask yourself have any of the above parties ever argued that we need to cut on military or defense spending...like ever?

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Feb 21 2018 11:11am

I thought Trump was some tough guy? He doesn't need to go full John McCain, he just needs to act like an actual president who cares that the Russians meddled in our election.

Have you seen russian women? Id be np with them meddling my election

His attacks on Obama play to the base, simple as that. Also i think Trump has a personal vendetta against Obama. I remember seeing that clip of Obama embarrassing Trump in front of a huge crowd. A guy like Trump doesn't get over that. I guarantee Obama regrets doing that now, he is watching a vindictive man dismantle everything and anything Obama ever stood for, steep price to pay for a joke.