Words, words, words

In Dorothy Sayers' novel Gaudy Night, set (and written) in 1930s England, a group of Oxford University dons are the targets of threats and violence by a deranged individual.  The motive of the perpetrator (spoiler alert!) turns out to be that one of the dons had, years earlier, caught the perpetrator's spouse in academic dishonesty, and the spouse had been dismissed from his position, and ultimately committed suicide.

Near the end of the novel, the main character, Harriet Vane, experiences a great deal of conflict over the resolution of the mystery.  Which individual was really at fault?  Was it the woman who made the threats, a widow whose grief drove her to threaten those she felt were smug, ivory-tower intellectuals who cared nothing for the love and devotion of a wife for her husband?  Was it her husband, who knowingly committed academic fraud?  Or was it the don who had exposed the husband's "crime" -- which was withholding evidence contrary to his thesis in a paper?  Is that a sin that's worth a life?

The perpetrator, when found out, snarls at the dons, "... (C)ouldn't you leave my man alone?  He told a lie about somebody who was dead and dust hundreds of years ago.  Nobody was the worse for that.  Was a dirty bit of paper more important than all our lives and happiness?  You broke him and killed him -- all for nothing."  The don whose words led to the man's dismissal, and ultimately his suicide, says, "I knew nothing of (his suicide) until now...  I had no choice in the matter.  I could not foresee the consequences... but even if I had..."  She trails off, making it clear that in her view, her words had to be spoken, that academic integrity was a mandate -- even if that stance left a human being in ruins.

It's not, really, a very happy story.  One is left feeling, at the end of the book, that the incident left only losers, no winners.

The same is true of the tragedy that happened in Buffalo, New York last Saturday.

The accused shooter, eighteen-year-old Payton Gendron, drove for two and a half hours from his home in Conklin, New York, allegedly motivated by trying to find the neighborhood with the highest proportion of Black residents.   He is clearly a seriously disturbed individual.  While in high school, he was investigated by Broome County police for threatening his classmates; ultimately the investigation was closed, with Gendron saying he had been "joking."  One of his former teachers reported that she had asked him for his plans after graduation, and he told her, "I want to murder and commit suicide."  It's a little appalling that someone like him was able to procure body armor and three guns -- including an XM-15 Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle, which is banned in New York state -- without setting off enough red flags to stop a freight train.  I'm not intending to discuss the issue of gun laws, however.  What I want to look at is what created Payton Gendron.  Because at the center of his rage were nothing more than words.  Words, words, words.

He wrote a 180-page manifesto that mirrors the "Great Replacement" theory of Jean-Renaud Camus, that the leftists are deliberately crafting policy to replace people of White European descent with immigrants and People of Color.  Gendron made no secret of his views and his intentions.  He had accounts on social media outlets Discord and Twitch; on the former he had a to-do list of preparations for the attack, and he used the latter to livestream the attack itself.  He identified all people of color as the danger, not just immigrants --  after all, the Black people he deliberately chose as targets were just as much American citizens as he is, and almost certainly their ancestors had been here for hundreds of years. 

Gendron himself has no problem explaining why he did what he did.  He told investigators, "I simply became racist after I learned the truth."

But he didn't come up with that "truth" himself; others put it there.  Others fed him those lies and distortions, and in his twisted, faulty logic he bought them wholesale.  Gendron himself is, of course, ultimately the one responsible for the shootings; but what blame lies with the people who, whatever their motives, broadcast the ideologies he espoused?

Tucker Carlson, for example, makes his opinion crystal-clear.  Last year he was interviewed by Megyn Kelly for a radio broadcast, and he said, "'The Great Replacement' theory is, in fact, not a theory.  It’s something that the Democrats brag about constantly, up to and including the president, and in one sentence, it’s this: Rather than convince the current population that our policies are working and they should vote for us as a result, we can’t be bothered to do that.  We’re instead going to change the composition of the population and bring in people who will vote for us."

He's not the only one.  Representative Steve King of Iowa said, "The idea of multiculturalism, that every culture is equal -- that’s not objectively true…  We’ve been fed that information for the past twenty-five years, and we’re not going to become a greater nation if we continue to do that."  Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller posted a photograph of George Soros on Facebook with the caption, "Start the race war."  Fox News host Laura Ingraham isn't exactly subtle, either.  "Massive demographic changes have been foisted upon the American people and they're changes that none of us ever voted for and most of us don't like," she said on her show in 2019.  "From Virginia to California, we see stark examples of how radically in some ways the country has changed.  Now, much of this is related to both illegal and in some cases, legal immigration that, of course, progressives love."

After the shooting, people like Carlson were blasted for using their positions as pundits to stoke fear, rage, and violence -- and very quickly, they responded in kind, absolving themselves of any responsibility.  "The truth about Payton Gendron does tell you a lot about the ruthlessness and dishonesty of our political leadership," Carlson said, the day after the shooting.  "Within minutes of Saturday’s shooting, before all of the bodies of those ten murdered Americans had even been identified by their loved ones, professional Democrats had begun a coordinated campaign to blame those murders on their political opponents.  'They did it!' they said, immediately...  So, what is hate speech?  Well, it’s speech that our leaders hate.  So because a mentally ill teenager murdered strangers, you cannot be allowed to express your political views out loud.  That’s what they’re telling you.  That’s what they’ve wanted to tell you for a long time."

Which packs a lot of terrifying rhetoric into one paragraph.  First, no sensible person, left, right, or center, defines hate speech as "speech our leaders hate."  The Supreme Court itself has given the term a clear definition: "abusive or threatening speech or writing that expresses prejudice against a particular group, especially on the basis of race, religion, or sexual orientation."  Second -- sure, Gendron is mentally ill, but that's not why he targeted Black people for murder.  Lots of people have mental illness (I've blogged here more than once about my own struggles with it), and very few of them murder people.  Blaming mental illness for Gendron's actions is just a way for Carlson to deflect any criticism leveled at him for the results of what he has said vehemently and repeatedly.

Third, virtually no one -- once again, regardless of political stripe -- is trying to stop people from expressing their political views.  The vast majority of us agree with British writer Evelyn Hall, "I disagree with what you've said, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."  Conservative commentator and former GOP Representative Joe Walsh, who -- despite the fact that we'd probably disagree on a lot of things -- is one of the most honest, honorable voices we have today, said, "Try being nonpartisan for a day.  Call out stuff that’s wrong, stupid, or dishonest no matter where it comes from.  Even if it comes from your side. Just try it."  And he summarized Tucker Carlson's self-defense as follows: "[Carlson basically told] his audience that THEY are the victims.  Not the ten innocent souls killed in Buffalo.  Nope, Tucker’s audience are the real victims here...  [His attitude is] 'I don’t even know what white replacement theory is.  All I know is America is becoming less and less white.  And that’s a really bad thing.  But that makes me a racist?  For just stating facts?'"

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Ivan Radic, A colorful Stop Racism sign (50115127871), CC BY 2.0

Of course, all Carlson, Ingraham, et al. are trying to accomplish are two things; to use emotionally-charged language in order to make their own opinions sound unassailable, and to generate such a negative spin on their opponents' thinking that listeners are left believing that only morons could possibly agree with them.  

I'm appalled not just because these political hacks are using this tragedy to hammer in their own views with an increasingly polarized citizenry; but because they are doing this, willfully blind to the end results of their words, just like the Oxford don in Gaudy Night whose dedication to the nth degree of academic integrity made her blind to the human cost of her actions.  Words are tools, and they are using them with as much thought and responsibility as a five-year-old with a chainsaw.

I will end with a devout hope for healing for the Buffalo community that has lost ten of its people, and that the families of those who died will be able to find consolation in the outpouring of sympathy from the vast majority of Americans who still value compassion over political rhetoric.  And to the ideologues who are using this tragedy as a platform to defend their own repugnant views, I can only say: shut the hell up.

**************************************

Raising the dragon

I've been trying to stay off the topic of politics lately.

Besides being depressing, the subject has lately been fraught with overtones of futility.  The followers of Donald Trump are more and more becoming a cult, where Dear Leader can do no wrong and his supporters cannot tolerate any criticism.  I have seen, I kid you not, images of Trump as a muscle-bound shirtless prizefighter, and as a Jesus-like figure with robes on a white stallion.  The near impossibility of getting the Trump Party members to see this man as the amoral, lying, narcissistic grifter the rest of us see was discovered last week, to his chagrin, by Joe Walsh, former Illinois representative and staunch conservative Republican.  Walsh, who is running for the GOP nomination -- not that you could tell if you talked to most Republicans -- was speaking to a crowd of GOP supporters in Iowa prior to the primary, and got a reception he described later on Twitter:

I spoke in front of 3,000 Iowa Republicans last night.  It was like a MAGA rally.  I told them we needed a President who doesn’t lie all the time.  The crowd booed me.  I told them we needed a President who wasn’t indecent & cruel.  The crowd booed me.  I told them we needed a President who doesn’t care only about himself.  The crowd booed me.  I told them the Republican Party needed to do some real soul searching.  The crowd booed me.  I told them that, because of Trump, young people, women, and people of color want nothing to do with the Republican Party.  The crowd booed me.  I told them I’m a pro life, pro gun, secure the border conservative, but we need a President who is decent and represents everyone.  The crowd booed me.  I got booed, yelled at, jeered, and given the middle finger for the 3-4 minutes  I spoke to these 3,000 people.  Afterwards, I realized again that 99.9% of these folks don’t support me.  They don’t care that Trump lies, they don’t care that he’s cruel, they don’t care that he cheats to get re-elected, they don’t care that he attacks the free press, they don’t care that he increases the debt, they don’t care that his tariffs have killed Iowa farmers, they don’t care that Trump abuses the Constitution and acts like a dictator.  Afterwards, I realized again that my Republican Party isn’t a Party, it’s a cult.  I realized again that nobody can beat Trump in a Republican Primary.  And most importantly and most sadly, I realized again that I don’t belong in this party.  I have no home in this party.  And I realized again that something new needs to begin.  Whether it’s a political party, or a movement, I don’t know.  But there needs to be a home for conservatives who are decent, principled, and respectful.  Conservatives who embrace all God’s children, acknowledge that climate change is real, get serious about our debt, abide by our Constitution, and tell the truth.  I hope to be a part of this new party.  This new movement. But job #1 in 2020 is to stop Trump.  And all of us from across the political spectrum need to come together to stop Trump.  Let’s make sure Trump is defeated in 2020, then we get back to respectfully debating issues.  Instead of talking about Trump everyday, let's put aside our differences on certain issues now and understand that Trump is the single greatest threat to this Republic.

While I find it unfortunate that Walsh was treated discourteously, and even more unfortunate that no one was taking his message to heart, I have a hard time feeling sorry for the GOP as a whole.  They, and their mouthpiece Fox News, have created a perfect storm of conditions that is so reminiscent of the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany of the 1930s that anyone who doesn't see the parallels must be either ignorant of history or else willfully blind.  The whole thing brought to mind the wonderful quote from novelist Stephen King (which I then tweeted at Walsh, not that he responded to or probably even read it): "Those who have spent years sowing dragon's teeth seem surprised to find that they have grown an actual dragon."

And very few people have done more in the dragon's-tooth-sowing effort than Rush Limbaugh -- who on Tuesday evening was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons DonkeyHotey, Rush Limbaugh - Caricature (5337997122), CC BY-SA 2.0]

I haven't been surprised by much in these chaotic last few months -- Trump's defiance of the rule of law, Mitch McConnell's smirking, wink-wink-nudge-nudge defense of him, the Senate's decision to acquit him of charges that make Watergate look like a seventh grader shoplifting a piece of candy from the local grocery store.  But the awarding of the Medal of Freedom to the likes of Limbaugh took me off guard.

Limbaugh's hate-filled rhetoric has been inflaming the Right for decades, convincing them they're threatened (and that their opponents are amoral America-haters) in terms that are nauseating in their quantity and sheer ugliness.  A sampler:

• To an African-American caller on a radio program: "Take that bone out of your nose and call me back."
• Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women access to the mainstream of society. 
• There are more acres of forest land in America today than when Columbus discovered the continent in 1492.
• Greetings, conversationalists across the fruited plain, this is Rush Limbaugh, the most dangerous man in America, with the largest hypothalamus in North America, serving humanity simply by opening my mouth, destined for my own wing in the Museum of Broadcasting, executing everything I do flawlessly with zero mistakes, doing this show with half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair because I have talent on loan from God.
• Styrofoam and plastic milk jugs are biodegradable.  You know what isn't biodegradable?  Paper.
• The NAACP should have riot rehearsal.  They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.
• The way liberals are interpreting the First Amendment today is that it prevents anyone who is religious from being in government.
• There are more American Indians alive today than there were when Columbus arrived or at any other time in history.  Does this sound like a record of genocide?
• All composite pictures of wanted criminals look like Jesse Jackson.
• Let me tell you something.  They say [Oliver North] lied to Congress.  I can think of no better bunch of people to lie to than Congress.
• [The torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib Prison] was sort of like hazing, a fraternity prank.  Sort of like that kind of fun...  I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release?  You ever heard of need to blow some steam off?
• Look it, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons.  There, I said it.
• Liberals should have their speech controlled and not be allowed to buy guns.  I mean if we want to get serious about this, if we want to face this head on, we’re gonna have to openly admit, liberals should not be allowed to buy guns, nor should they be allowed to use computer keyboards or typewriters, word processors or e-mails, and they should have their speech controlled.  If we did those three or four things, I can’t tell you what a sane, calm, civil, fun-loving society we would have.  Take guns out of the possession, out of the hands of liberals, take their typewriters and their keyboards away from ‘em, don’t let ‘em anywhere near a gun, and control their speech.  You would wipe out 90% of the crime, 85 to 95% of the hate, and a hundred percent of the lies from society.

There you have it.  The man that Donald Trump awarded with one of the highest honors given in the United States.  The man Trump just put in the same category as Rosa Parks, Norman Rockwell, Buckminster Fuller, Robert Redford, Carl Sandberg, Eudora Welty, Elie Wiesel, Grace Hopper, and Jonas Salk.

It's almost certain that Trump chose Tuesday night, the same night as the State of the Union speech, to give the award because Limbaugh just announced that he had been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer (after being a lifelong smoker -- and scoffer at the connection between tobacco use and cancer).  I wouldn't wish lung cancer on anyone, after watching the agony two of my uncles went through while dying of the disease, but the fact that he's a very sick man doesn't change the fact that he has spent his entire adult life spewing a venomous message with the sole purpose of fomenting hate.  Joe Walsh's reception at what turned out to be a MAGA rally shows how successful Limbaugh and his colleagues have been -- people like Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, and Glenn Beck, amongst many others.

And the fact that someone like Limbaugh was given a prestigious award for service to his nation shows just how far in the downward spiral we've gone.

I don't know what else to say.  I'm saddened, sickened, and disheartened by what my country has become and is becoming.  I fear that we haven't reached bottom yet, something I find profoundly frightening.

In fact, I think the dragon the GOP has grown is just beginning to rear his ugly head.

*********************************

This week's Skeptophilia book of the week is both intriguing and sobering: Eric Cline's 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed.

The year in the title is the peak of a period of instability and warfare that effectively ended the Bronze Age.  In the end, eight of the major civilizations that had pretty much run Eastern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East -- the Canaanites, Cypriots, Assyrians, Egyptians, Babylonians, Minoans, Myceneans, and Hittites -- all collapsed more or less simultaneously.

Cline attributes this to a perfect storm of bad conditions, including famine, drought, plague, conflict within the ruling clans and between nations and their neighbors, and a determination by the people in charge to keep doing things the way they'd always done them despite the changing circumstances.  The result: a period of chaos and strife that destroyed all eight civilizations.  The survivors, in the decades following, rebuilt new nation-states from the ruins of the previous ones, but the old order was gone forever.

It's impossible not to compare the events Cline describes with what is going on in the modern world -- making me think more than once while reading this book that it was half history, half cautionary tale.  There is no reason to believe that sort of collapse couldn't happen again.

After all, the ruling class of all eight ancient civilizations also thought they were invulnerable.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Hypocrisy on parade

I told myself that I wasn't going to write about Roy Moore, the Republican candidate in the special election for Jeff Sessions's Senate seat in Alabama.  There didn't seem to be much to say.  Moore is, to put it bluntly, a raging bigot, only one example of which is his refusal to follow Alabama's non-discrimination rule with respect to same-sex marriage that got him suspended from the Alabama Supreme Court in May of last year.

But by now all of you know that bigotry isn't Moore's only problem.  In the last week, Moore has faced an accusation by five different women that he approached them for sex when he was in his thirties and they were all under 18.  (The youngest was 14.)  So to put in bluntly, Moore's been accused of pedophilia.

But that's not why I'm writing this post.  I'm writing this post because of the reaction of Moore's supporters.

First, there was conservative talk show host and former Illinois Representative Joe Walsh, who tweeted, "Roy Moore should stay in, stand strong, and fight hard against these allegations.  Oh...and he should ignore all these spineless Republicans hiding under their beds because of a 38 yr old accusation."  He later softened this to imply that all he was saying was that Moore deserved due process and "the voters of Alabama should decide."  But you know that wouldn't have been the message had Moore been a Democrat.

Even more blatant was (unsurprisingly) Ann Coulter, who has been doing nothing but tweeting about Moore.  As a couple of the more pointed examples, we had, "As an Alabaman said on @chucktodd yesterday, right now, all that matters is that Roy Moore will vote for a wall.  Luther Strange wouldn't & the Dem definitely won't."  Because "the wall" evidently supersedes any consideration of following the laws about age of consent and statutory rape.  But when that got her some backlash, she responded, "Hey Dems!  JFK had an extra marital affair with 19-year old Mimi Alford when he was 45 years old."

I just have two things to say about this:

1. There is a difference between 14 and 19.  Cf. my earlier comment about age of consent and statutory rape.
2. I'm quite sure the affair Coulter references will become a huge campaign issue the next time Kennedy runs for office.

Then there was Jim Zeigler, Alabama State Auditor, who said that his biblical values gave him no basis for saying that Moore's alleged affairs were wrong:

Take the Bible.  Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance.  Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist...  Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter.  They became parents of Jesus.

So now pedophilia is okay because all it means is that your underage girlfriend might give birth to a prophet, or failing that, the Second Coming of Christ.

Then Breitbart got involved.  Two reporters for the far-right media outlet were dispatched, by none other than Steve Bannon, to try to find information to discredit the accusers.  Never mind that the five accusers did not know each other prior to this, and given the backlash that women inevitably have to face when they make allegations of sexual abuse public, they had every reason to keep silent.  (Which itself is a pretty horrifying indictment of the way women are treated in our culture.)

Nothing, however, made me gag quite as much as the reaction of ordinary Alabama voters to the Moore accusations, particularly the people who said they'd vote for Moore even if they knew for certain the allegations were true.  Consider this one:

Then, there was the poll in which we find out that 37% of Alabama evangelicals said they were more likely to vote for Moore after the accusations than before.  Because, you know, the media lies.  All of them, all the time.

Except for Fox and Breitbart.  They tell the truth.

All the time.

Oh, and Sean Hannity.  Roy Moore appeared on Hannity's show, where he said, "This is a completely manufactured story meant to defrock this campaign.  They don’t want to acknowledge that there is a God.  And we have refused to debate them because of their very liberal stance on transgenderism."

Evidently Moore doesn't know the definition of "defrock," but we'll let that slide.  More interesting is that Hannity clearly believes Moore and thinks all five of his accusers are lying.  As a result, Hannity began to hemorrhage sponsors, including coffee-maker company Keurig.  But when Keurig made the announcement, you know what the response was?

A whole bunch of conservatives announced they were going to destroy their Keurig coffee makers, Office Space-style.  As for Hannity, he said he was going to buy five hundred new coffee makers of a different brand for people who would video themselves smashing their Keurigs and post it on Twitter.  First come, first serve.

Let me make this clear: these people are destroying their coffee makers as a protest against a company that doesn't want to sponsor someone who defends pedophilia.

I'm afraid I have to agree with Alabaman Kate Messervy, who is a volunteer for the campaign of Doug Jones, Moore's opponent.  Messervy said, "Trump is president.  Nope, this won’t change Republicans’ minds.  Grabbing women by the pussy didn’t sway votes.  This won’t sway anyone."

What I keep coming back to is that this is not a conflict over political ideals.  This is a conflict over morality and decency, with the party that used to call itself the "Family Values Party" largely coming down on the side of an accused pedophile (and, in some cases, declaring that they would vote for him even if the accusations proved true).  This is the determination of people to vote for an individual who has "R" next to his name on the ballot regardless of any other considerations.

It is, to put it simple, hypocrisy on parade.  Many of these same people are horrified at the idea of two consenting adults of the same gender having sex in the privacy of their own homes.  Even more telling is the argument they made regarding why transgender people should be blocked from using the bathroom for the gender they identify with.  "What's to stop grown men coming into the ladies' room and molesting your daughters?", they said.

Um...?

I grew up in the Deep South, and my parents were both staunch Republicans.  And I know they would have been appalled at the accusations swirling around Moore's candidacy.  What has happened in those intervening years?  We have a cadre of talk show hosts and right wing activists who are training the rank-and-file to disbelieve anything in the media unless it aligns with conservative talking points.  Everything else, they say, is a liberal hit job, a smear campaign, or outright lies.

And it's worked.  Hell, they even fell for the claim that Hillary Clinton was running a child trafficking ring from the basement of a pizza parlor that doesn't have a basement.

The bottom line is that moral, decent conservatives -- and I know a good many of them -- need to stand up and say, "Enough."  I'm heartened by the fact that some have -- as just two examples, Mitt Romney, and amazingly enough, Mitch McConnell, have called for Moore to step down.  And this is what it takes.  It's not enough for the liberals to decry what's going on; the moral roots of the Republican party need to draw together and purge the party of screeching, we're-always-right bloviators like Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity.  The propaganda campaign by Fox and Breitbart will continue to be successful -- and we'll continue to have amoral individuals like Moore and (it must be said) Donald Trump elected to office -- until the conservatives themselves decide they're done, and put a stop to it.

Sunk cost and treason

There's this thing called the sunk-cost fallacy -- that once a person has put a lot of time, money, effort, or emotional investment into something, they are unlikely admit that it didn't live up to its expectations.

This is the only thing I can come up with to explain why Republican leaders are still sticking with Donald Trump, even after credible allegations that not only did the Russians tamper with the election results, Trump encouraged them to do so.  Giving a foreign power access to our government for malign purposes is, I thought, the definition of treason.  Imagine, for example, if there were evidence that Barack Obama had allowed a foreign government to manipulate election results.  These same people who are giving Trump a pass on this, or ignoring it completely, would be calling for reinstating crucifixion.

To be fair, some Republicans are aghast at this.  Lindsey Graham has been outspoken in his call for an independent investigation of the allegations.  John McCain went even further, saying that if the claims are true, it could "destroy democracy" in the United States.  Even Mitch McConnell, who has been one of Trump's biggest supporters, has joined in the call.  Much as I hate to admit agreeing with Joe Walsh on anything, he hit the nail on the head a few days ago with this tweet:

Which is it exactly.  I would think that anyone, regardless of party affiliation, would be appalled at the idea that the Russians may have influenced a national election, and would want it investigated.

But astonishingly, that isn't what's happening.  Other than a few outspoken conservatives who want the issue looked at -- if for no other reason, to clear Trump's name and get rid of any taint of illegitimacy -- most Republicans are shrugging their shoulders and saying, "Meh.  No biggie."

Now wait just a moment.  These were the same people who were chanting "Lock her up!" because of allegations that Hillary Clinton mishandled some emails.  Instead, what has been the overall response?

An increase in the positive ratings of Vladimir Putin.

I'm not making this up.  In a poll conducted by The Economist, favorable ratings for Putin tripled in the past two years, most of the increase being in the last month.  In fact, Representative Dana Rohrabacher of California made the following astonishing statement: "There’s a lot of negative things about [Putin] that are accurate but there are a lot of negative things about him that have been said that are inaccurate.  At least the other other side of the coin is being heard now...  Finally there’s some refutation of some of the inaccurate criticisms finally being heard."

So instead of people being outraged that Putin and his cronies may have interfered in the election, they're saying, "Well, maybe Putin's not so bad after all."

I can't think of anything but sunk cost as an explanation for this.  These people have already overlooked so much in the way of Donald Trump's unethical behavior, evasions, and outright lies, not to mention his blatant lack of qualifications for the job, that to admit that this finally drives them over the edge would require a huge shift of perspective.  I've never seen a candidate that elicits such an enormous emotional response from ordinary citizens; huge investments of time and energy have been put into seeing him in the White House.  For the pro-Trump cadre to say "Okay, we were wrong about him" is apparently a bridge too far.  Easier to say, "Trump's got to be right, so we were wrong about Putin."

Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, agrees.  He said, "The Republican base, particularly the Trump part of the Republican base, is going to regard anyone and anything that helped their great leader to win as a positive force, or at least a less negative force."

I hope that wise heads prevail and that the allegations are at least investigated.  And although I don't like Trump, I hope they turn out to be false, because the idea that the Russians (or any other country) are able to manipulate our government so boldly is profoundly terrifying.  But if they are true -- if the evidence supports the Russian hacks -- we have to act.  I'm no constitutional law scholar, but there has to be some provision for invalidating an election's results if the outcome was affected by a foreign power.

Especially if a cold, calculating villain like Vladimir Putin is responsible for it.