Resistance Twitter's response to the Mueller report tells you everything you need to know
The sections of social media which told us to 'wait for Mueller' are now telling us to double down
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Your support makes all the difference.Mueller, She Wrote, a podcast starring three women who've spent the better part of the Trump administration documenting the twists and turns of the Russia probe, announced that they've gained 300 new backers to their Patreon since the infamous William Barr synopsis dropped on Sunday.
"We have decided to begin recording DAILY ad-free news updates TONIGHT," read the tweet. "Join today!"
This is a curious time to double down. Since early 2017, when Robert Mueller was first appointed to lead the Special Counsel investigation into alleged collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, the country has been hurtling towards this apogee. The report was finally completed and delivered to the attorney general, and the Democratic base braced for either liberation or humiliation. It was imagined to represent an ending; the conclusion to one of the more divisive and confusing sagas in modern American history, where the country accepts the facts as they are, hangs up their podcasts, and moves onto fresher grievances (or, if necessary, impeachment.)
But two days after Barr submitted his distillation, it's become clear that the Mueller report will never truly leave the cultural anatomy. If anything, we're just now scratching the surface.
Mueller, She Wrote is hardly an exception. Check the Twitter feeds of anyone who's gotten famous by doling out 280-character studies of Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, and Michael Flynn, and you'll see that the mania is still alive and well.
Eric Garland, he of the infamous "Game Theory" thread, spent the afternoon sardonically tweeting out Watergate-era Nixon documents.
Seth Abramson, a professor, poet, and author of Proof of Collusion, hasn't slowed down for a second since Sunday.
There hasn't been a spare minute for resolution. Instead we've just seen more questions and accusations, all from the same people, stirring up the opaque nature of this investigation into epic levels of impenetrability. The hope of some sort of equitable, satisfying conclusion is dead and buried.
I suppose you can lay some of that misinformation at the feet of Mueller and Barr. Much of the scrutiny has focused on this passage, dripping with intrigue, near the top of the third page: "While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."
Nobody wanted Mueller to file an accusation he didn't trust, but the readymade implications and interpretations borne from a disclosure that vague are laughably inevitable. How you felt about the Mueller probe hinged strictly on how you felt about Donald Trump, so it's ironic that years of subpoenas and interviews would would reach a conclusion with so many empty spaces that it could be individually celebrated by each party.
Back in the early part of the investigation, one of the refrains I'd see a lot from liberals was this simple three word slogan: "Wait For Mueller." It was nice to imagine a world where a single man could fix the country, and straighten out the axis, and hopefully create some sort of fleeting consensus in the Washington trenches. But that was never the case. It never could be the case. We've seen firsthand how little truth factors into the American political process in 2019. The insurgent fanbase that Mueller cultivated was always based around a confederacy of faith, and faith is at its strongest when it's under duress.
And so, we begrudgingly welcome the Mueller investigation into the American canon of eternally stressful Thanksgiving conversations. The water is grimy, and muddy, and full of the same debates you've been having for the past two years. Your conservative relatives will argue that the Democrats ran a witch hunt, your liberal relatives will claim that Trump did everything he could to stymie the special counsel at every moment. Both of them will be right and wrong at the exact same time, and the circus will carry on for the rest of our lifetimes.
It’s a unique purgatory for something as evidence-driven as a Special Counsel audit. In that sense, the Russia probe has entered the legacy period for any political conspiracy; something that is kept alive solely because we can't stop talking about it, perpetually fuelled by our selfish desire to finally, finally earn vindication.
If you don't believe me, there are 300 new Mueller, She Wrote subscribers ready to give you a piece of their mind.
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