“The reality is that for three years there has been a conspiracy theory that has dominated our political and media discourse, which is that Donald Trump conspired with Russia over the 2016 election and that he’s an agent of the Russian government along with many of his associates," he continued.

https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/439989-greenwald-says-medi...

He's been very outspoken that he thinks the Russian interference is bs. His angle seems to be the Democrats aren't liberal enough.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/09/03/glenn-greenwal...

"Volume I of the report concludes that the investigation did not find sufficient evidence that the campaign "coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities"

Seems pretty cut and dry.

Investigators ultimately had an incomplete picture of what happened due to communications that were encrypted, deleted or unsaved, as well as testimony that was false, incomplete or declined. However, the report stated that Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was illegal and occurred "in sweeping and systematic fashion", but was welcomed by the Trump campaign as it expected to benefit from such efforts. It also identifies links between Trump campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government, about which several persons connected to the campaign made false statements and obstructed investigations. Mueller later stated that his investigation's conclusion on Russian interference "deserves the attention of every American".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mueller_Report

Phrases like:

- in sweeping and systematic fashion

- was welcomed by the Trump campaign

- links between

- ties to

- connected to

Granted, communicating the complexities of reality is very difficult, but I sincerely do not believe that a serious effort has been made in this case (or is in other cases, in general) to as accurately and clearly as possible communicate(!) that which is "known" (including the degree of certainty), versus that which is suspected, etc.

Psychologists and neurologists have very little understanding of the underlying mechanisms by which people form beliefs, but they do know that it is extremely complex, and can easily be demonstrated to be highly prone to error or manipulation.

Considering this, in a serious political system (as seems to be the common claim of what we have in Western democratic nations), I would expect more bi-partisan (among politicians and citizens) acknowledgement of these shortcomings, and support for a process of continuous improvement in the manner in which the public is informed of affairs. But instead, I rarely see this idea discussed, and it seems to me the aggregate manner in which reality is being described to us is becoming more chaotic/uncertain/indecipherable, not less.

My intuition tells me this is not accidental, but of course there is no way of knowing if that is true or not. But, I think it would be beneficial for the public to become more aware of this phenomenon, and start drawing attention to this attribute of public discussions on a regular basis - in doing so, perhaps the quality of discourse could be improved.

I suspect we differ on what my intuition is. If I'm not mistaken, you seem to believe this style of language is because of the nuanced nature of the issue, whereas my intuition is that the style of language is chosen to ~muddy the waters and sow confusion. We're each entitled to our respective opinions, but neither of us knows what the reality is.

Various issues in this drama are "known", with varying degrees of certainty. Something important to keep in mind though, is that degree of certainty on complex, subjective (indeterminate) matters often varies significantly per person. Reality is often a lot messier than people like to acknowledge.

My point is roughly: there is a tremendous range of public opinion on this matter (and many others), with each individual likely being extremely confident that their belief is the correct one. It also seems fairly reasonable that hardly anyone on either side has actually read the report in question.

This seems like an undesirable state of affairs in a democratic nation. It seems to me that, at the very least, it would be possible and beneficial for an alternative, non-narrative based, summary of "just the discrete facts" (with accompanying certainty declarations, etc) document to be produced that would facilitate greater effective transparency, as well as improve the public's ability form beliefs that are more consistent with reality (and presumably in turn, decrease the variance/polarization in beliefs).

Although, based on my observations of social media discussions and voting patterns, I not only see little support for this sort of idea, but instead rather strong opposition to it. It seems like most people, on either side of the divide, desire certain things to be true, as opposed to desiring to know the truth of what has actually happened. If my intuition is correct, this seems like a harmful mindset for voters in a democracy to hold, not to mention the second order harm in areas such as general public harmony, and willingness to cooperate on other important initiatives such as climate change.

How can anyone ever clear their name with a mentality like this? They investigated and didn't find sufficient evidence. Saying, "yeah, but there could be evidence" means nothing will convince you.

I was trying to be polite because this is getting political. I could counter your question with one of my own:

How can you convict someone when his supporters won't believe any evidence they don't like?

There was active obstruction into the investigation. From the Mueller investigation itself.

“Our investigation found multiple acts by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations, including the Russian-interference and obstruction investigations,” Mueller wrote. “The incidents were often carried out through one-on-one meetings in which the President sought to use his official power outside of usual channels. These actions ranged from efforts to remove the Special Counsel and to reverse the effect of the Attorney General’s recusal; to the attempted use of official power to limit the scope of the investigation; to direct and indirect contacts with witnesses with the potential to influence their testimony.”

It’s the only story I’ve ever experienced first hand that seems to represent an actual instance of mass hysteria.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_hysteria_cases

Persuasive discussion with people on the “other side” on this topic appears to be absolutely impossible.

Ive just given up on Americans who believe this Russian collusion narrative. It’s like talking to people in a cult or who are insane.

I know liberals exist who don’t fall prey to this thinking- but they’re not well represented in mainstream and social media universe.

It is such a sad development.