Russian Influence

The investigation into Trump campaign collusion with Russia has been ongoing since before the President-elect was sworn in.

He was voted in by the very people that, 50 years ago would have been trying to shoot anyone with ties to the USSR.

Those people, those far-right, ultra conservative voters that are now making up the fan base (fan is short for fanatic--did you know that?) are swearing there was no influence and thus no collusion.

Sometimes, the truth hurts.

No one wants to admit they were hornswoggled.
No one wants to believe they could be influenced by a bunch of well placed propaganda.
No one want to admit they were WRONG.

It is still confusing, though.

Donald Trump is not a very convincing guy.
He lies badly.
He can't keep his lies straight.
He has 7 billion dollars, or there about but played up the self-made man from simple roots story and that had not the slightest relationship to truth.
He dodged the draft and insulted veterans and that can't be seen as patriotic or respectful of their sacrifices for their country.
He made fun of disable people--which is pretty childish and not generally considered to be a sign of greatness.
He bragged about touching and kissing women without their consent and there are women that are in his fan club.
He went bankrupt multiple times and never once shared in the losses, instead letting everyone else take the loss.  (more villainous than heroic)
He is a philandering  man that has married multiple times and yet is representing the evangelical part of our nation with no hypocrisy seen--still, even after having the whole pay-offs for past indiscretions thing caught and magnified simultaneous to the campaign.
He has maintained his reality TV show method of hiring and firing-everyone, where people whose only qualifications are they hate the very organization they are leading and belong to the group that wants control, and firing them if they show any signs of disloyalty or worse, embarrass him.
Multiple people in his employee have been found to be in talks with Russian "spys" etc, and we are supposed to believe that was not something he knew---but he is obviously a micromanager that wants to know everything.  He even voiced the desire to have Russia interfere in the election during a debate.  (yes, we mostly took that as sarcasm or hyperbole or just plain weird nonsense)

I know that I discovered the need to fact check most of the crap on social media.
I know that I found many of the internet news sites to be highly opinion based sources of news and (dis)information.
I know that people that I considered to be smarter than that or better than that were suddenly only listening to FOX news, or Rush Limbaugh, or Breitbart  (or flip side, to some of the far left sites, although there doesn't seem to be a clear list of those, just that BBC is not on the American Right/Left spectrum)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sirenabergman/2017/02/28/the-news-sites-on-the-far-left-and-far-right-may-be-owned-by-the-same-people/#6aba1256eaaf

The media is apparently more about fanning the flames and keeping the two sides as oppositional as possible.

But what does Russia have to win by doing this?

Or is Putin still mad about any influence the USA had on the disintegration of the USSR.
He was high up in that particular government.  Perhaps he misses the Cold War, a little nostalgia for the old days.