Just got an assignment from a RootsAction email blast. I had assumed them another left outfit with a website, but this led me to look closer. The assignment is to ask Congress to lay off on the Russia stuff. RootsAction.org’s website is on the server of CongressFoundation.org, the Congressional Management Foundation, which is by mission of centrist partisanship, with a board from both parties. (Being a centrist is a partisan position, not “nonpartisan.”) So what does Roots Action urge?
So much is at stake in U.S.-Russian relations, including the potential for nuclear annihilation….
[T]he escalation of hostility toward Russia could lead to unfathomable disaster. With the dangers of military confrontation very real -- and with several thousand nuclear weapons pointed in both directions across the U.S.-Russian divide -- it's crucial to take a fresh look at what is at stake.
We should, the “RootsAction Team” urges, contact our senators and representatives, urging them to turn away from the investigations of Russian-linked treason, and focus elsewhere.
The email starts by insulting both Senator McCain and DNC Chair Perez, in demonstration of nonpartisanship. What’s not Roots Action’s words are quotes from a NY Review essay by Masha Gesson, who believes that recognizing conspiracies, regardless of their being real, is a “trap.” Rather than remove Trump from office if he’s committed treason, we should just resolutely work to block individual policies. Is she a paranoid defeatist, having lived hopelessly in Russia too long? Should we seek to adopt her dark lesson, and only resist around the edges?
Meanwhile, why is the Congressional Management Foundation masking itself as the “Roots Action Team”? I’ve spoken with several people who were persuaded to vote for Trump specifically by the Russian-promoted claim that Clinton would push Putin too far, and there’d be nuclear war. Is it coincidence this same claim is now being used against investigation of the Trump camps’ well-evidenced conspiracy with Putin?