I'll never agree that it's a distraction (or a waste of time, or an inability to come to grips with the enormity of our losses last November) to check into whether the President of the United States colluded with a hostile foreign government to help him get elected over a far more experienced, qualified, intelligent, knowledgeable, and competent person. If that happened--and there is extant evidence to support that contention--that is A Very Big Deal indeed. I'm not talking about Russian propaganda aiding and abetting Trump's campaign; that's a given. No, I'm talking about American citizens performing acts that bordered on, if not crossed directly into, treason. If that happened, the perpetrators need to be rooted out and made to pay. Period.
Now, noting that it would be A Very Big Deal in no way whatsoever endorses the apparent claim made here (and elsewhere, such as on Fox, etc.) that it's The Only Deal. Many of the comments here seem to be based on the belief that we Democrats and liberals and progressives can either A) look into the possibility that Trump and/or his people committed treasonous acts, or B) look deeply into what ails the party and do everything in our power to change it. And that's it, as though it's a binary choice, and there's absolutely not enough energy or people or resources to do both. Chomsky himself falls victim to the same thinking; he seems to be convinced "all our focus" is on the Russia thing, when we should in fact be embracing and celebrating that Trump wants to have better relations with Putin.
I disagree with that belief.
First, such thinking fails to take into consideration the fact that, should we choose to just let outside entities have their way with our electoral system, all the good and great and supportive things Democrats bring to the American people won't matter. We could literally do away with crime, and terrorism, and climate change, and police brutality, and gangs, and drug use, and income inequality, and joblessness, and homelessness, while giving everyone in America free healthcare, a free house, a free car, free college tuition, a lifetime pension, and month-long vacations every year, and those unchecked external forces would still see to it that their preferred candidate wins. We can't abdicate our duty to prevent that, and I'll never agree with those who suggest otherwise.
Second, an analogy: if you return home some evening to find your front door smashed open and you hear whispers and other noises from the direction of your darkened living room and you see a group of hooded men stealthily jamming all your silverware and other valuables into burlap sacks, and then at the same time you notice smoke coming from an upstairs bedroom and you see the faint, telltale glow of orange flickering inside a window, you don't say, "Wow, there's too much going on here; my attention span is simply too narrow to deal with all of it, so I'm only going to call the police, because I have to get these burglars. I can't let myself be distracted by that growing blaze on the second floor; I'll just have to live with that, and besides, the flames might help drive the burglars away."
We can do both. And, far more importantly, we *are* doing both.
While we're looking into Trump's connections with Russia, we're doing everything in our power to groom and pay for candidates for the hundreds of down-ballot races we'll need to win to start taking back this country.
While we're looking into Trump's connections with Russia, we're working hard and raising tons of money to fight institutional sexism, and racism, and homophobia.
While we're looking into Trump's connections with Russia, we're motivating literally thousands of civil rights attorneys to fight the egregious overreach of Trump's unconstitutional Muslim ban.
While we're looking into Trump's connections with Russia, we're working--with pretty good success, I might add--to keep in place Obamacare, which, while far from perfect, is much, much closer than any one of the GOP's nonsensical alternatives.
While we're looking into Trump's connections with Russia, we're fighting tooth and nail to preserve the environmental protections all Americans have taken for granted.
While we're looking into Trump's connections with Russia, we're combating climate change, and the pro-pollution forces that want you to think it isn't happening.
While we're looking into Trump's connections with Russia, we are indeed showing Trump's supporters just how he fleeced and scammed them, and not so we can do as HRC did (at times) and use, "At least we're not as bad as him" as a campaign slogan, but because people need to know.
While we're looking into Trump's connections with Russia, we're working feverishly to slow and silence the drumbeat of war, and to prevent Trump from changing the world forever by launching for political purposes a preemptive first nuclear strike against North Korea.
While we're looking into Trump's connections with Russia, we're doing things on a hundred or a thousand different fronts, all battles that we need to fight to achieve victory against the encroaching darkness--and, yes, that includes working to get big money out of politics, if that's not already too late.
We can do both. We *are* doing both.