As of this writing there is a post skyrocketing up through the online orgy of Democratic party loyalism known as r/politics, an extremely popular subreddit for people who love war and neoliberalism but dislike Donald Trump. By the time I have clicked “publish” on this brief article, the post will have had thousands of additional views, with a possible appearance on Reddit’s front page.

I know this because that is what happens every single time any new information of any kind surfaces which can be twisted to masturbate people’s confirmation bias that the Russian government colluded with Trump to steal the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton. Michael Tracey described this pattern all the way back in March in an essay titled “The Basic Formula For Every Shocking Russia/Trump Revelation”, which points out how we keep seeing establishment media outlets publishing reports about some new bit of circumstantial evidence based on anonymous sources which gets hysterically bandied about as irrefutable proof of Russian collusion, generating millions of clicks and tons of ad revenue before the story fizzles once the high wears off and people realize how weak the argument implied in the latest revelation actually is.

Right now we’re seeing the pupils of loyal Clintonists everywhere begin to dilate as the first wave of endorphins arrives in the form of their latest fix, a brand new Buzzfeed article titled “Russia Sought A Broad Reset With Trump, Secret Document Shows”. If you want to see what that looks like, just check out the comments on the Reddit thread I mentioned earlier, which has nearly tripled in upvotes since I started typing this. Here’s a quick screengrab:

The horrifying, chilling, terrifying revelation that these CNN zombies are fretting over here is that the Russians began working on a sinister, diabolical plot to begin fostering positive diplomatic relations with the United States following Donald Trump’s win in November.

If the thought of two nuclear superpowers de-escalating the tensions between them and learning to get along makes your blood run cold, wait until you hear this: according to the “secret document” obtained by Buzzfeed, the Russians were also going to try to work with the Americans on information security, the situations in Afghanistan and Ukraine, efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, and collaborate with the US intelligence community on areas of mutual interest.

I know, I know.

All kidding aside, obviously Buzzfeed (the outlet which published the infamous error-riddled Pissgate dossier) was solely interested in steering these revelations in a direction which plays upon the reliable #TrumpRussia collusion narrative. It makes a big deal of the fact that the still-unproven election hacking allegations aren’t mentioned in the document, writing that “the proposal reveals one of Moscow’s unspoken assumptions — that Trump wouldn’t share the lingering US anger over Moscow’s alleged interference in the 2016 election and might accept a lightning fast rapprochement.”

More from the article:

“It just ignores everything that caused the relationship to deteriorate and pretends that the election interference and the Ukraine crisis never happened,” said Angela Stent, a former national intelligence officer on Russia during the George W. Bush administration who also reviewed the document.

The implication being — as commenters on r/politics are currently scrambling to point out — that Trump was expected to make nice with Russia because the Kremlin knew he was in Putin’s pocket. The trouble with this spin on things is of course the fact that none of the plans revealed in the document ever came to pass, and relations have in fact greatly deteriorated between the US and the Russian Federation since Trump took office. In a pathetic attempt to close the gaping plot hole in this desperate narrative, Buzzfeed brings in a “Russia expert” to assure us that this was because Putin had been under the mistaken impression that US presidents are all-powerful.

From the article:

“Putin doesn’t seem to understand that Trump’s powers are not the same as his,” said Steven Pifer, a Russia expert at the Brookings Institution. “The checks and balances, the special prosecutor and congressional investigations have tied Trump’s hands in ways that didn’t occur to Putin.”

Really, Steve? Putin is brilliant and omnipotent enough to successfully hijack the highest levels of the most powerful government in the history of civilization, but too stupid to so much as Google what a president’s actual powers are before launching such a massive undertaking? That’s the story you’re going with here?

Pitiful.

Russiagate is losing steam, and now we know that Jeff Sessions, Robert Mueller and other high-profile individuals have been shown the details of the findings of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, which punches major holes in the official Russian hacking narrative that nobody has been able to refute. But god damn this bullshit is harder to kill than Bruce Willis. The establishment propaganda machine is strong, and this new cold war is clearly very important to some very powerful people.

They’re fighting as hard as they can to keep this thing going. Hopefully their future efforts remain as weak as the latest Buzzfeed leak.

— — —

I’m a 100 percent reader-funded journalist so if you enjoyed this, please consider helping me out by sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following me on Twitter, or throwing some money into my hat on Patreon.