| Sending the anthropologists deep in the jungle to explore the culture of a long lost native tribe... |
"Sour grapes," agreed Roger Noel, 65, sitting next to him.
"Bunch of crybabies," Reed Guidry, 64, offered from across the table.
The subject of conversation was the report released by United States intelligence chiefs on Friday informing President-elect Donald J. Trump of their unanimous conclusion that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia ordered an extensive, but covert, cyberoperation to help Mr. Trump win the election. The Russians had hacked and leaked emails, unleashed "trolls" on social media and used their "state-run propaganda machine" to spread stories harmful to Hillary Clinton.
In Washington, the report was viewed as extraordinary, both for its timing, raising sharp questions about the president-elect’s legitimacy on the verge of his taking office, and for its assertions, describing the operation as Russia’s boldest effort yet to meddle with American elections, to spread discontent and to "undermine the U.S.-led democratic order."
But interviews with Trump supporters here in Louisiana, a state the president-elect won by 20 points, and in Indiana, a state he won by nearly the same margin, found opinions about the report that ranged from general indifference to outright derision.
"From the parts of the report I’ve seen," said Rob Maness, a retired Air Force colonel who twice ran for Senate here as Tea Party favorite, "it seems silly."
There are genuine concerns about Russia’s cyberoperations, he said, but the notion that they changed the outcome of the election was absurd. (The report made no determination on how they affected the election.)
Of the comments he had seen from fellow Trump supporters on Facebook and in emails, he added, "90 percent of them are like, ’What’s the big deal?’"
The Russians may have very well gotten involved, several people said. They added that kind of interference should be combated. But many assumed that foreign actors had long tried to play favorites in American elections, and that the United States had done the same in other countries’ elections. Even if the Russians did do it -- which some were more willing to concede than others -- what difference did it make? People did not need the Russians to make up their minds about Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump’s election opponent. Blaming her loss on the Russians was, as one Trump supporter here said, "just being sore losers."