Total Pageviews

Sunday, February 25, 2018

The Russian Connection - Success Beyond Expectations

From the day, or at least almost so, that Donald Trump became president of these United States, his liberal critics - and I do count myself firmly in that camp - have clung to the belief and hope that such a ridiculous turn of events could not happen without the intervention of some external agent. In part, we've been unwilling to belief that a majority in a majority of electoral college seats would back a man so evidently unqualified for office, especially over an opponent who for all her flaws was eminently suited to lead the nation in temperament, training and desire. It was hard for Americans of a liberal bent of mind to understand how so many of our neighbors could not only discount all of Ms. Clinton's experience, but also see her long public service as a liability and be willing to believe every and any calumny against her. Odder yet was the fact that this distrust for Ms. Clinton went hand in hand with a child-like trust in the character and motives of Donald Trump. A sizeable minority, if not an outright majority among us is convinced that only the most nefarious interference of outside actors and skull-drudgery can fully explain this collective madness that has enveloped us. Those same hopefuls see the recent spate of indictments from the on-going investigation into Russian interference in the election as their long awaited validation and have begun to anticipate deliverance from this nightmare - they are likely to be as disappointed as they were on the morning after the election.

The most important item that could be gleaned from the indictments was that the Russian interference was not built around a specific candidate and was truly bi-partisan. They were interested in disrupting the US electoral process and attacking democracy itself, and while they may have seen undermining Ms. Clinton as a desirable outcome, they would likely have been quite satisfied with simply hamstringing her presumptive presidency and depriving her of legitimacy and mandate to rule. Hence the support for the burn-it-down outsider candidate Bernie Sanders and the nihilistic candidacy of Trump. It should be remembered that through much of the early and middle portion of the election, it was never doubted that Ms. Clinton would win the Democratic nomination and likely go on to victory in the general election. Keeping that in mind, recall too that the Bermiacs were willing to hate Hillary more than they opposed the right-wing of the Republican party, that many of them had moved from simply supporting Sanders to a fervent hatred of Hillary, and swore that they would never vote for her. Unity at the party's national convention had to be bought through mollifying gestures to Sanders, who several times rejected the truth that both frontrunners for the party's standard had more in common than they had differences (some of my admiration for Ms. Clinton stems from the the very different and gracious approach she took in defeat in 2008, throwing all her support wholly behind Barack Obama, but I also recognize that Sanders had some reason to feel like he had been treated less like a full member of the party he refused to join). The Russians, watching the youthful Sanders supporters refusing to fall in behind Clinton, must have been as bemused as delighted that these self-professed socialists would refuse Clinton, who shared most of their aims, and instead threatened to sit out the election and raise the hopes of a populist, fraudulent candidate like Trump.

Looking back at the Trump candidacy, what stands out most is that never was there a less prepared candidate - not just in terms of staff and planning, but also in terms of what he stood for and offered the nation. And yet, a huge swath of Republicans embraced his platform - whatever it was. They rallied behind his promises to bring back jobs and prosperity, despite the lack of realism in those ideas. They cheered empty rhetoric, like a border wall, ban on Muslim immigration and often contradictory promises - the reasons behind their fanaticism are as complex as varied and explain why the "Trump supporter" so defies clear definition. But most importantly, they hated the elites who seemed to control the main US parties and reposed a blind trust in Trump's cynical and shallow adoption of their deepest aspirations. Once Trump found that attacks on the elite won him easy applause, he tapped fully into that vein and moved ever more into the role of populist - whether is was the establishment of his own party, the billionaires who funded the party, the independent press or Hillary Clinton, he made them all part of a broad target and attacked them relentlessly for cheap adulation. For the Russians, this was the best of all worlds, for even then they probably never thought he would win - but Trump was happily attacking the very foundational pillars of US democracy - not just his vitriol for the press, but critically, his repeated threats to not accept the results of the election. Accepting defeat in an open election is one of the cornerstones of a successful democracy, and Trump's oft reiterated claims that he was being robbed of victory by a shadowy establishment and that he would not concede a victory to his opponent - probably intended only as cover to his own ego in the event of the defeat even he likely anticipated, claims to the contrary notwithstanding - was the perfect foil for Russian interference. President Trump has seized on the timeline of Russian activity to question why his predecessor took no action, but anyone who recalls those months leading up to the election will also remember that Candidate Trump was busy threatening everything just barely short of civil war and that his deluded supporters, fed on a long and heavy diet of anti-government conspiracies, were primed and ready for violence. Ultimately, when the Republican Congressional  leadership declined to treat the intelligence with the importance it needed and refused to join President Obama in a united front that would remove the taint of partisan politics from his action, they all but tied his hands and gave the Russians carte blanche to act with impunity to further undermine the US elections. To be absolutely fair, perhaps Republican leaders were as certain as everyone else that they would be working with President Clinton and were not loath to see her robbed of her mandate to some extent - we are still living with the consequences of that venal political calculus.

In the end, I strongly doubt that opponents of President Trump will see any closure except what they effect  themselves through a resounding message in the upcoming midterm elections. I would be very surprised if there was any criminal collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, beyond what we've seen in the indictments. Perhaps Paul Manafort hoped to actually serve Russian interests when he approached Trump for a role, but the Russians never could have foreseen a clear Trump victory and had little reason to do more to work with Trump or his cohorts. And given that they could so easily manipulate the man, and his supporters without ever getting directly involved, they had no reason to do more. They had already set the scene for a weakened US democracy and their revenge on Hillary Clinton - on November 5, they were likely as surprised as everyone else. In the end, given the lack of coherent thought behind President Trump's actions, they may be almost regretting just how successful they were in their efforts - after all, we are now seriously talking about nuclear was in Korea and the end of the world, and the Russians may be as nostalgic for a return to an adult presidency as anyone else in the world.