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On January 02 2017 12:58 Danglars wrote: Better stopthe madness now and not let the interest represented slide down: 60% ... 45% "but we're still winning elections!!" 30% "at least we're not the religious right or social conservatives" 15% "Saudis and Wall Street aren't that bad once you get to know them." I'd argue you're better off fracturing the party for guaranteed short term defeat in the hopes of recovering an actual citizens party at the end of the day, and not one so committed to the cloak of viability that they become unviable.
I mean sure, it might make sense if you conclude the Democrats are on an irredeemable slippery slope (which is certainly not a given, even if you didn't like Hillary). I'll ask this, though, which group has had more success getting its voice heard and represented, the far left or the Tea Party?
In a political system that ensures a two-party stable state, it's easier to get what you want by becoming a key part of one of the parties rather than holding yourself out as an ideological purist available to be wooed. You don't have to give up your ideals, you just have to have enough influence to carry them out.
I'm curious, what are some of the things that leftists want, that the Democratic party doesn't, but is/was willing to concede to them?
In the words of Hillary's campaign staff, give them fewer superdelegates so they feel like they "won" something from the Party Establishment.
In fairness to Hillary's campaign, that email came to them from a former DNC-FL chair, then was forwarded to Podesta.
Interestingly enough, it was forwarded by former Clinton chief of staff, who was and is, leader of government relations at (the non-partisan) Pew Charitable Trusts (yes, that Pew).
Honestly I find it super unsettling how much detail we have of the DNC campaign from Podesta email leaks.
Also lets you twist anything whatever way you want it, i.e. "won" sarcastically, "They win. We don't lose." mentality.
If nothing else, this campaign was a reminder of the reality that anything that exists in writing never dies and could be used against you. Even just because some guy your email was forwarded to gets hacked by a phish.
Don't put anything in writing that can make you look guilty.
On January 02 2017 12:58 Danglars wrote: Better stopthe madness now and not let the interest represented slide down: 60% ... 45% "but we're still winning elections!!" 30% "at least we're not the religious right or social conservatives" 15% "Saudis and Wall Street aren't that bad once you get to know them." I'd argue you're better off fracturing the party for guaranteed short term defeat in the hopes of recovering an actual citizens party at the end of the day, and not one so committed to the cloak of viability that they become unviable.
I mean sure, it might make sense if you conclude the Democrats are on an irredeemable slippery slope (which is certainly not a given, even if you didn't like Hillary). I'll ask this, though, which group has had more success getting its voice heard and represented, the far left or the Tea Party?
In a political system that ensures a two-party stable state, it's easier to get what you want by becoming a key part of one of the parties rather than holding yourself out as an ideological purist available to be wooed. You don't have to give up your ideals, you just have to have enough influence to carry them out.
I'm curious, what are some of the things that leftists want, that the Democratic party doesn't, but is/was willing to concede to them?
In the words of Hillary's campaign staff, give them fewer superdelegates so they feel like they "won" something from the Party Establishment.
In fairness to Hillary's campaign, that email came to them from a former DNC-FL chair, then was forwarded to Podesta.
Interestingly enough, it was forwarded by former Clinton chief of staff, who was and is, leader of government relations at (the non-partisan) Pew Charitable Trusts (yes, that Pew).
Honestly I find it super unsettling how much detail we have of the DNC campaign from Podesta email leaks.
Also lets you twist anything whatever way you want it, i.e. "won" sarcastically, "They win. We don't lose." mentality.
I'm not entirely sure I understand what you find unsettling or what you're talking about being twisted?
But I'm sure those advocating the whole "fall in line" mantra had something else in mind anyway.
On January 02 2017 12:40 LegalLord wrote: Take a hit now on principle for a better future. It can be a good choice.
Never once have I heard of an election that wasn't "urgent" and concerned matters that "can't be addressed later so vote for someone you don't really like right now."
I think people like you are victims of an unparalleled media hype and smear campaign. There is no reason to believe bernie sanders would have survived that either. People like you are just so hell bent on attacking the establishment (what ever that is) that you just managed to put in place the worst preident in the modern history of the united states.
On January 02 2017 12:40 LegalLord wrote: Take a hit now on principle for a better future. It can be a good choice.
Never once have I heard of an election that wasn't "urgent" and concerned matters that "can't be addressed later so vote for someone you don't really like right now."
I think people like you are victims of an unparalleled media hype and smear campaign. There is no reason to believe bernie sanders would have survived that either. People like you are just so hell bent on attacking the establishment (what ever that is) that you just managed to put in place the worst preident in the modern history of the united states.
On January 02 2017 12:40 LegalLord wrote: Take a hit now on principle for a better future. It can be a good choice.
Never once have I heard of an election that wasn't "urgent" and concerned matters that "can't be addressed later so vote for someone you don't really like right now."
I think people like you are victims of an unparalleled media hype and smear campaign. There is no reason to believe bernie sanders would have survived that either. People like you are just so hell bent on attacking the establishment (what ever that is) that you just managed to put in place the worst preident in the modern history of the united states.
lol, not sure if you really meant that for me, but LL voted for Clinton iirc and she won my state by plenty, so we've got to be pretty far down the list of people to to give credit for Trump.
Hillary's team intentionally elevated Trump.
This is like picking a fight with some big idiot, then blaming your friends for him kicking your ass, because they didn't jump in and defend you for intentionally fighting someone they were telling you could kick your ass beforehand.
On January 02 2017 12:40 LegalLord wrote: Take a hit now on principle for a better future. It can be a good choice.
Never once have I heard of an election that wasn't "urgent" and concerned matters that "can't be addressed later so vote for someone you don't really like right now."
I think people like you are victims of an unparalleled media hype and smear campaign. There is no reason to believe bernie sanders would have survived that either. People like you are just so hell bent on attacking the establishment (what ever that is) that you just managed to put in place the worst preident in the modern history of the united states.
lol, not sure if you really meant that for me, but LL voted for Clinton iirc and she won my state by plenty, so we've got to be pretty far down the list of people to to give credit for Trump.
Hillary's team intentionally elevated Trump.
This is like picking a fight with some big idiot, then blaming your friends for him kicking your ass, because they didn't jump in and defend you for intentionally fighting someone they were telling you could kick your ass beforehand.
Not at all. I meant the attitude that it is better to take a hit now (ie to let Trump win) and force the DNC to restructure than to support Hillary Cinton against Trump. I don't know what anyone of you voted for, but that is literally what LegalLord said.
My point is that I have been watching this election from the side line (I've never followed american politics before) and I can't for my life understand why Clinton got so much criticism to begin with. It is as if a huge part of the left has been turned into useful idiots who are trying to propgagate the varped worldview of the populist right wing while seemingly opposing it.
On January 02 2017 12:40 LegalLord wrote: Take a hit now on principle for a better future. It can be a good choice.
Never once have I heard of an election that wasn't "urgent" and concerned matters that "can't be addressed later so vote for someone you don't really like right now."
I think people like you are victims of an unparalleled media hype and smear campaign. There is no reason to believe bernie sanders would have survived that either. People like you are just so hell bent on attacking the establishment (what ever that is) that you just managed to put in place the worst preident in the modern history of the united states.
lol, not sure if you really meant that for me, but LL voted for Clinton iirc and she won my state by plenty, so we've got to be pretty far down the list of people to to give credit for Trump.
Hillary's team intentionally elevated Trump.
This is like picking a fight with some big idiot, then blaming your friends for him kicking your ass, because they didn't jump in and defend you for intentionally fighting someone they were telling you could kick your ass beforehand.
Not at all. I meant the attitude that it is better to take a hit now (ie to let Trump win) and force the DNC to restructure than to support Hillary Cinton against Trump. I don't know what anyone of you voted for, but that is literally what LegalLord said.
My point is that I have been watching this election from the side line (I've never followed american politics before) and I can't for my life understand why Clinton got so much criticism to begin with. It is as if a huge part of the left has been turned into useful idiots who are trying to propgagate the varped world view of the populist right wing while seemingly opposing it.
Basically voters felt the fact that their preferences had little to no impact on policy and had to dispel Democrats of the notion that they can ignore them and still expect their vote. People seem to have already forgotten Republicans did this for McCain and Romney before this election.
Catch is, Trump was probably lying to those Republican's face, if his cabinet is any indication.
The thing is, I see this as a part of a bigger problem that has to do with the rise of fascism. Admittedly, this is just my maybe not so well grounded opinion, but it seems to me that the new fascist propaganda has completely changed its way of functioning if you compare it to earlier versions: instead of presenting a monolithic "counter truth" it now works by divisiveness. Instead of showing people a new doxa, their goal is to make people doubt everything. I think this model has been worked out by the Russian propaganda under Putin: instead of saying nothing about the gunning down of the MH17 (like they would during the Sovjet era) they now present a wide range of different "theories" in order to make the truth disappear in all the noice. (I think this is pretty obviously how a site lite RT works.) This fundamental doubt about everything has made people paranoid. And it is this paranoid state that has made people think that a candidate associated with a lot of made up or unproven scandals is just as bad as a candidate who actually says and does horrible things.
On January 02 2017 18:28 Elroi wrote: It is as if a huge part of the left has been turned into useful idiots
That is exactly what happened, yes. I wouldn't say it's a huge part of the left though, more like a small part which was still sizeable enough to tip the election the other way. And it's exactly what GOP operatives set out to do before the election.
On January 02 2017 16:37 LegalLord wrote: If nothing else, this campaign was a reminder of the reality that anything that exists in writing never dies and could be used against you. Even just because some guy your email was forwarded to gets hacked by a phish.
Don't put anything in writing that can make you look guilty.
I agree in general but it's not the problem. The way the media / social media functions means you don't need any substance to anything anymore for having an enormous impact.
At the end ot didn't matter what was the content if those emails. We just got screaming voices saying ANOTHER LEAK = SCANDAL = CORRUPTION!!!! without anyone bothering to really check the fact of all those leaks, almost nothing significant emerged.
GH keeps ranting about the DNC. The only thing we learnt was that the leaders of the DNC strongly prefered Clinton and hoped she would win. Hadn't there been a leak, it would have been obvious to everyone. I mean, Sanders was not even in the party!! By the way, GH, the fact your country is gonna be ruled by a far right unstable megalomaniac billionaire seems not to concern you at all. I was expecting the GH pivot, where your Clinton obsession would be chased by concern over what is happening, biit apparently we are gonna hear about it for ever and ever. I really believed your made your point. 6 months ago. And a gazillion times.
Now Clinton was victim of an avalanche of leaks of private material that was not meant to be made public, that showed basically nothing but was exploited to create a feeling that she was super corrupt. I don't think stuff could have really turned differently.
Meanwhile, in terms of substance and content, she was facing a total crook, but hey! his name was not associated with the word "leak" and we didn't get to read his personal stuff, so his foundation engaged in open bribery and his fake university don't matter.
I think it gives to reflect on wikileaks and our relationship to "scandals" in general by the way. The diplomatic cables showed an efficient, professional and responsible diplomacy, but was considered a yuuuuge scandal at the time.
Meanwhile i'm absolutely amazed that you guys see absolutely no problem that a foreign power basically sabotaged your election. That is simply extraordinary to me. But well, Russian efforts to undermine democracies via support of fascist and/or incompetent candidates in Europe and elsewhere, cyber warfare against democratic elections and so on seems to be less interesting that the DNC.
I'm now waiting to see if they manage to sink Merkel and how they will help Le Pen in 2017, whose party is directly financed by the kremlin and who is probably the worst threat to a democratic europe nowadays. It's gonna be a tough year for the free world.
On January 02 2017 18:28 Elroi wrote: It is as if a huge part of the left has been turned into useful idiots
That is exactly what happened, yes. I wouldn't say it's a huge part of the left though, more like a small part which was still sizeable enough to tip the election the other way. And it's exactly what GOP operatives set out to do before the election.
No doubt their strategy was better than hers of intentionally elevating the guy who would beat her.
But people who would have voted for Clinton had they not been tricked by GOP strategists didn't "tip the election the other way".
On January 02 2017 19:35 Biff The Understudy wrote:
On January 02 2017 16:37 LegalLord wrote: If nothing else, this campaign was a reminder of the reality that anything that exists in writing never dies and could be used against you. Even just because some guy your email was forwarded to gets hacked by a phish.
Don't put anything in writing that can make you look guilty.
I agree in general but it's not the problem. The way the media / social media functions means you don't need any substance to anything anymore for having an enormous impact.
At the end ot didn't matter what was the content if those emails. We just got screaming voices saying ANOTHER LEAK = SCANDAL = CORRUPTION!!!! without anyone bothering to really check the fact of all those leaks, almost nothing significant emerged.
GH keeps ranting about the DNC. The only thing we learnt was that the leaders of the DNC strongly prefered Clinton and hoped she would win. Hadn't there been a leak, it would have been obvious to everyone. I mean, Sanders was not even in the party!! By the way, GH, the fact your country is gonna be ruled by a far right unstable megalomaniac billionaire seems not to concern you at all. I was expecting the GH pivot, where your Clinton obsession would be chased by concern over what is happening, biit apparently we are gonna hear about it for ever and ever. I really believed your made your point. 6 months ago. And a gazillion times.
Now Clinton was victim of an avalanche of leaks of private material that was not meant to be made public, that showed basically nothing but was exploited to create a feeling that she was super corrupt. I don't think stuff could have really turned differently.
Meanwhile, in terms of substance and content, she was facing a total crook, but hey! his name was not associated with the word "leak" and we didn't get to read his personal stuff, so his foundation engaged in open bribery and his fake university don't matter.
I think it gives to reflect on wikileaks and our relationship to "scandals" in general by the way. The diplomatic cables showed an efficient, professional and responsible diplomacy, but was considered a yuuuuge scandal at the time.
Meanwhile i'm absolutely amazed that you guys see absolutely no problem that a foreign power basically sabotaged your election. That is simply extraordinary to me. But well, Russian efforts to undermine democracies via support of fascist and/or incompetent candidates in Europe and elsewhere, cyber warfare against democratic elections and so on seems to be less interesting that the DNC.
I'm now waiting to see if they manage to sink Merkel and how they will help Le Pen in 2017, whose party is directly financed by the kremlin and who is probably the worst threat to a democratic europe nowadays. It's gonna be a tough year for the free world.
The DNC replaced the chair that resigned in disgrace with someone Hillary's camp knew had cheated for them. "Preference", "feeling", pfft.
We honestly have no idea what Trump's presidency will be like (he's outright lied so many times), the one thing I would count on is Trump making sure his presidency benefits himself.
I did make the point, yet people still keep saying the same dumb stuff about how it was Democrats not falling in line like good lemmings, GOP strategists, and Russia that cost the least favorable candidate in modern Democratic nominee history to lose, and not the record breakingly disliked candidate, the cheating party, the questionable behavior, the bullshit positions on TPP, NAFTA, Crime bill, etc, etc...
I have problems with any country interfering in foreign elections (something the US has been doing for a long time). But it's not like they "hacked the election", they hacked a political party, and a political hack, they didn't take away anyone's right to vote like our politicians do, they didn't force people to wait in line for hours to vote like our politicians do, they didn't lead us into a dumbass war killing thousands of Americans, and leaving countless more permanently disfigured, maimed, or psychologically broken like our politicians did, they didn't oversee the largest wave of irresponsible incarceration of black American youth ever like our politicians did, Russia didn't get our country addicted to prescription heroin and anti-depressants/anxiety medication, or a lot of other horrible things our own politicians do to us.
I'm all for an independent investigation into the hacks, but I don't find Russia having hacked the DNC and Podesta to be the Democracy ending event that some have made it seem.
It's not that it's less interesting either, but we can't really stop Russians from exploiting idiots, but we can hold the DNC responsible for saying/doing things they shouldn't have done, lied about doing, and seem to be ready to do all over again.
On January 02 2017 18:28 Elroi wrote: It is as if a huge part of the left has been turned into useful idiots
That is exactly what happened, yes. I wouldn't say it's a huge part of the left though, more like a small part which was still sizeable enough to tip the election the other way. And it's exactly what GOP operatives set out to do before the election.
No doubt their strategy was better than hers of intentionally elevating the guy who would beat her.
But people who would have voted for Clinton had they not been tricked by GOP strategists didn't "tip the election the other way".
I said useful idiots were numerous enough to tip the election the other way, not that all of them became useful idiots because of GOP strategists (they did contribute to the phenomenon, however, as the article highlights).
On January 02 2017 18:28 Elroi wrote: It is as if a huge part of the left has been turned into useful idiots
That is exactly what happened, yes. I wouldn't say it's a huge part of the left though, more like a small part which was still sizeable enough to tip the election the other way. And it's exactly what GOP operatives set out to do before the election.
No doubt their strategy was better than hers of intentionally elevating the guy who would beat her.
But people who would have voted for Clinton had they not been tricked by GOP strategists didn't "tip the election the other way".
I said useful idiots were numerous enough to tip the election the other way, not that all of them became useful idiots because of GOP strategists (they did contribute to the phenomenon, however, as the article highlights).
When do you think they were turned into useful idiots?
On January 02 2017 19:35 Biff The Understudy wrote: Meanwhile i'm absolutely amazed that you guys see absolutely no problem that a foreign power basically sabotaged your election. That is simply extraordinary to me. But well, Russian efforts to undermine democracies via support of fascist and/or incompetent candidates in Europe and elsewhere, cyber warfare against democratic elections and so on seems to be less interesting that the DNC.
I'm now waiting to see if they manage to sink Merkel and how they will help Le Pen in 2017, whose party is directly financed by the kremlin and who is probably the worst threat to a democratic europe nowadays. It's gonna be a tough year for the free world.
You have very low standards for sabotage.
At the risk of continually needing to post the obvious, the hubbub was not about the dastardly methods used to procure the emails, but the content of the emails. It was what the emails exposed that was actually going on that hurt Hillary. Unless you're alleging the Russians have invented remote mind control, in which case the private server was also their idea, you've got no legs to stand on.
The worst threat to a democratic europe is its elected and unelected leaders. They have trended undemocratic since soon after the EU's founding. The toughest part to acknowledge is that the free world as an idea has devolved into what intellectuals and media deem is proper free-world behavior. Fascist does have its uses, but now it umbrellas sane immigration policy as well as right-wing nutjobs, etc etc. Foreign powers are pikers compared to what coalition parties have been doing to undermine their own legitimacy. Until this is acknowledged, you're supporting a descent into irrelevancy of whatever you want to call the consensus of the power brokers. 'Free world' is becoming more of a polite fiction; definition "at least we're not transparently authoritarian." The European left needs a political revival just as much as the American left (shitposter warning: I'm speaking in broad terms here neglecting to flesh out the minority groups actually more discontent with their political parties than focused on blaming the other guys, pre-election)
On January 02 2017 18:54 Elroi wrote: The thing is, I see this as a part of a bigger problem that has to do with the rise of fascism. Admittedly, this is just my maybe not so well grounded opinion, but it seems to me that the new fascist propaganda has completely changed its way of functioning if you compare it to earlier versions: instead of presenting a monolithic "counter truth" it now works by divisiveness. Instead of showing people a new doxa, their goal is to make people doubt everything. I think this model has been worked out by the Russian propaganda under Putin: instead of saying nothing about the gunning down of the MH17 (like they would during the Sovjet era) they now present a wide range of different "theories" in order to make the truth disappear in all the noice. (I think this is pretty obviously how a site lite RT works.) This fundamental doubt about everything has made people paranoid. And it is this paranoid state that has made people think that a candidate associated with a lot of made up or unproven scandals is just as bad as a candidate who actually says and does horrible things.
Oh dear, now we've been reduced to calling populist opinions fascist. It's always ironic when people who don't really know what they're talking about go around accusing others of being won over by propaganda.
If you want actual fascism, start with the people who actively praise Nazi collaborators as heroes of their nations and call for the mass killing of people who are not "of their nation." There is a nontrivial quantity of such people in Europe right now. And calling those people fascist is no stretch of the term.
Speaking of the rise of fascism, I suppose Kwark has moved back to the UK by now. Since he said that he would have moved back if a genocidal citizen-sniping Clinton would have been elected and Trump is worse than that, it should be sufficient.
He among others will be back in a little over a month and we will find out whether he was just hyping up how hitler Trump is or if he will put his money where his mouth is.
On January 02 2017 18:28 Elroi wrote: It is as if a huge part of the left has been turned into useful idiots
That is exactly what happened, yes. I wouldn't say it's a huge part of the left though, more like a small part which was still sizeable enough to tip the election the other way. And it's exactly what GOP operatives set out to do before the election.
No doubt their strategy was better than hers of intentionally elevating the guy who would beat her.
But people who would have voted for Clinton had they not been tricked by GOP strategists didn't "tip the election the other way".
I said useful idiots were numerous enough to tip the election the other way, not that all of them became useful idiots because of GOP strategists (they did contribute to the phenomenon, however, as the article highlights).
When do you think they were turned into useful idiots?
When they weren't willing to vote for Clinton against the specter of a dastardly bastardly Trump presidency.
On January 02 2017 19:35 Biff The Understudy wrote: Meanwhile i'm absolutely amazed that you guys see absolutely no problem that a foreign power basically sabotaged your election. That is simply extraordinary to me. But well, Russian efforts to undermine democracies via support of fascist and/or incompetent candidates in Europe and elsewhere, cyber warfare against democratic elections and so on seems to be less interesting that the DNC.
I'm now waiting to see if they manage to sink Merkel and how they will help Le Pen in 2017, whose party is directly financed by the kremlin and who is probably the worst threat to a democratic europe nowadays. It's gonna be a tough year for the free world.
You have very low standards for sabotage.
At the risk of continually needing to post the obvious, the hubbub was not about the dastardly methods used to procure the emails, but the content of the emails. It was what the emails exposed that was actually going on that hurt Hillary. Unless you're alleging the Russians have invented remote mind control, in which case the private server was also their idea, you've got no legs to stand on.
The worst threat to a democratic europe is its elected and unelected leaders. They have trended undemocratic since soon after the EU's founding. The toughest part to acknowledge is that the free world as an idea has devolved into what intellectuals and media deem is proper free-world behavior. Fascist does have its uses, but now it umbrellas sane immigration policy as well as right-wing nutjobs, etc etc. Foreign powers are pikers compared to what coalition parties have been doing to undermine their own legitimacy. Until this is acknowledged, you're supporting a descent into irrelevancy of whatever you want to call the consensus of the power brokers. 'Free world' is becoming more of a polite fiction; definition "at least we're not transparently authoritarian." The European left needs a political revival just as much as the American left (shitposter warning: I'm speaking in broad terms here neglecting to flesh out the minority groups actually more discontent with their political parties than focused on blaming the other guys, pre-election)
In an also-repetition of the same point, the hackers didn't engineer the response of the electorate to the hack. The democratic institutions were strained and fractured well before any hacking, and someone just realized (quite presciently I might add) that the response to a leak would be split along the lines of who is and isn't harmed by them (which is not exactly a party line split but an establishment vs anti-establishment split).
When people perceive their own leaders as more of a danger than some foreign devil, the problem is internal more than anything else.
Person 1: Isn't it concerning that Russia influenced our election? Person 2: Nah, because I'm not concerned about the source, I'm concerned with the content of the leaks.
Look, there was some stuff in the leaks that was legitimately concerning. There was also a fuckton of stuff that wasn't actually indicative of anything concerning, it just looked kind of bad. It wasn't smoothed and polished and prepared for mass consumption. The reason it wasn't is because it wasn't meant to be consumed by everyone, it was meant to be a private email discussing the campaign. If they had made stuff like that public themselves, any negative misconceptions it produced would be their own fault, because they didn't control their messaging.
What happened instead is that hackers, probably Russian, pulled all that stuff out, and waved it around at everyone, knowing that it would produce a lot of misconceptions and hurt her election chances. So a fuckton of people believe that the e-mails literally revealed election rigging in the Democratic primaries, when in fact they reveal that people at the DNC preferred Hillary. Nothing in the DNC leaks was illegal, nor did any of it in any way prevent the primaries from being free and fair elections. Hillary didn't steal the nomination, she won it fairly. (That they had to force DWS to resign to try to placate the angry masses a bit is not proof of wrongdoing either, just an indication that they thought firing someone from the DNC might help their political chances.) But these misconceptions were everywhere, in a large part because of imprecisely worded e-mails being made public all over the place.
Now maybe you could try to say it's still their fault, because they shouldn't say things even behind closed doors that could hurt their chances (as people often said about Romney's leaked 47% comment). But first of all, that's ridiculous to expect the same standard of carefulness of speech from every member of the campaign in every conversation they have, public or private. Second of all, it still doesn't address the fact that this same reveal of Republican private conversations would almost certainly have the same collection of imprecise and inartful statements that would hurt their political chances. No doubt someone in some e-mail would make reference to "oversampling" for a poll and there'd be a whole big thing over whether Republicans were rigging polls.
Here's an analogy for you. Let's suppose you have a girlfriend you've been dating for a few years. Now suppose there's someone who wants you two to break up, so they've been recording all your private conversations, including when you talk with your friends about your relationship. They also make copies of all your diary entries. Then one day, they start sending your girlfriend daily packages with recordings, photocopies of pages from your journal, etc., each day trying to emphasize a different time when you said something that sounded kind of bad. Maybe one time early in your relationship you confided in your friend that you just don't know if she's "long-term material." Another time you confided that you think that dress does, in fact, make her look a little fat. Now your girlfriend is mad at you, and you're upset at what an intense invasion of privacy this was. She keeps quoting little snippets of things you said over the last couple of years out of context.
Thing is, you're in a really unfair position at this point. You could try to address each thing you said in the recordings, apologize, try to explain what you meant by it, have an argument, and eventually make up. That's a normal process of conflict resolution in couples, but the thing is that process generally takes around a day to complete. They're dropping a new bombshell every day, so if you try to address them head on, you'll spend all of your time fighting with her. You try to protest that this material was unfairly recorded, and that your privacy has been violated, which might work if she had been recording it, but since it was some shady stranger, she doesn't care. As long as it's true, she'll insist that whoever the source is, it's what's in the recordings that matters.
Should you have said those things? Maybe not, but I think it's fair to say that if you recorded any one person's words, comments, writings, etc. and revealed everything the had said about someone ever to all of their friends, nobody would come out looking clean. If now your girlfriend is thinking about leaving you and going back to her ex because he never said all of those things about her, she's wrong. Of course he said stuff like that about her if they were together very long, it's just that nobody is actively trying to break them up, so nobody has recorded all that stuff and sent it to her. If your comments had been left in the private contexts in which they were said, she would think the same thing about you.
The point is, what's in the leaks does matter, but it has to be judged in the context of "Okay, this stuff wasn't meant for the public to see so it's not going to be carefully crafted messaging designed to avoid giving false impressions. If it reveals something clearly illegal or unethical that's fair game, but if it's just something phrased in a poor way, we should forgive that because they didn't think this would be seen by anyone." It was not judged in that context. So #14 or w/e on the mostdamaging wikileaks.com list was someone from the DNC referring to their "propaganda" in talking about the production of their political ads. That's a poor word to use publicly, because it has associations with creepy government-manufactured truths that no one is allowed to question. Privately, of course, it's a perfectly useful word to describe messaging intended to influence public opinion.
The result was that one political party had all their dirty laundry pulled out and paraded around in public for all to see, while the other did not. The reason is because as best we can tell, a foreign power against whom we are frequently in opposition thought that it'd serve their interests more to have the other political party in charge. So he got ahold of both parties' dirty laundry, but only revealed the one side to try and swing public opinion against them. Now that the election is over and the outcome isn't going to change, you can stop getting defensive about whether this would be a good reason for electors to defect or something, and just deal with what's in front of you. That's a creepy precedent. We should try to make sure that can't happen again, because our leaders are supposed to be chosen by the American people, not by Russian intelligence agencies.
EPT
