I'll start. Fahrenheit is the superior temperature system for weather reporting. We should use metric for literally everything else, even Celsius for cooking, but I'll be dead in the cold ground before I abandon a system in which you actually get to experience both 0 degrees and 100 degrees. Freezing being 32 instead of 0 is literally the only downside, and it's not a hard number to remember. I'm prepared to die on this hill in the comments.
I don't think that people say this because they don't think Russia interfered. They say it precisely because of the more ridiculous aspects of the whole ordeal. The idea that Trump is a Manchurian candidate that has been groomed since the 80s in some masterclass move by a guy who was stationed in Germany at the time. The idea that (and Louise Mensch actually said this) there are secret trials for people like Bannon and Bannon will be executed for treason.
Also, it's arguable that much of reporting of intelligence sources paralleled the reporting in the Iraq war lead up, and in various other circumstances. So even if you agree with the broader message, imo russiagate showed that there is much to worry in how intelligence sources are treated in media, and how easily consumers buy these stories.
The biggest mistake people make when trying to figure out conspiracy theories is assuming the "master plan." Trump has done shady shit with shady Russians since the 1980s, that's basically public record, and the leap from that to what you described is totally unnecessary. What's far more likely is that a guy with all this shady shit in his background was opportunistically prodded when he unexpectedly rose to political prominence.
And of course the focus on this exclusively, at the expense of the million other reasons 2016 went down the way it did, is laughable.
yeah, that stuff is absurd. I followed Louise Mensch for like 48 hrs. The Bannon being imminently arrested thing I think is what made me ditch that, hahha I loved Claude Taylor too for like a minute.
And yeah, if he was "groomed" in any sense i think it started in like 2013. Not 1988 or whenever he visited russia.