This I Believe
I believe the Russians tipped the 2016 Presidential election to Donald Trump. I didn’t, at first. But the more we know about the massive intervention they conducted through social media and the Wikileaks dump, the more obvious it is that it was sufficient to turn 80,000 votes spread over three states to give Trump the electoral college win. I also believe the Comey letter tipped the election to Donald Trump. And I believe that the fact that the Democrats nominated the quintessential establishment candidate in an anti-establishment election tipped the election. And, yes, I believe the Clinton campaign strategy, which neglected Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin in the closing days of the election, gave it to Trump.
It is possible to believe all these things at the same time. Flip any one of those variables and the Democrats win. In a close election, everything matters. However, only one of those variables has consequences for the future, the Russians intervention. Frankly, I suspect that the Russians did not set out to elect Donald Trump, but rather to simply disrupt American democracy and weaken President Hillary Clinton. They may have been as surprised as the rest of us the day after the election. There were reports of celebrations in Moscow, but events since then may have tempered their euphoria. Some in the Kremlin may wonder whether they overshot. It’s nice to have a puppet, but maybe an incompetent puppet is more trouble than he’s worth.
But here’s the thing. Whether the Russian ultimately conclude they overshot in their election meddling is up to us. Will we, as a nation, respond in a way that will deny the Russians what, at this point, seems like the greatest intelligence triumph in human history, actually electing the President of the United States? The answer to that question is in the hands of Special Counsel Bob Mueller and the Republican leadership of the Congress. Mueller needs to build a rock-solid case that denies the Republicans the ability to rationalize away the reality of the Trump collusion in the Russian meddling. And the Republicans will need to stop protecting Trump and take affirmative steps to impose accountability into the system.
So far, Mueller is doing his part. The Republicans? Not so much.
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